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| by AkG | March 5, 2008 | ||
| Test Results Stock SWiF Fan Results Idle Temperatures  As you can see at stock speeds the Silentator was 4°C cooler than stock. It was not as cool as some others mainly due to the fact that the fan itself was spinning very slowly. As CPU speed (and thus heat) increased this situation quickly reversed itself and it was only the Ultmia 90 with double the amount of heatpipes that was able to cool more efficiently at idle. Average Load Temperatures  Once again at stock speeds the biggest limiting factor was the Silentator’s fan. If I was planning on using the Silentator in a non-Overclocking setup I would certainly disable fan speed control in the BIOS, install the fan controller and rely on it to control fan speed. Once again as overclock increased so too did the Silentator’s performance. Even at full speed this SWiF fan is very quiet. Alternate Fan Mounting Options One Noctua NF-P12 Fan Results Idle Temperatures  Hmm, now that is very interesting. The higher than expected stock temps may not be the fan’s fault at all. I was expecting much better performance gains than 1°C from the use of a Noctua fan! Even in this configuration the Silentator’s heatsink appears to be stuck in first gear at stock speed and is only a slightly better than Intel’s stock cooler. Just as with the SWiF fan installed the temperatures do get MUCH better as thermal loads increase. The Noctua was spinning slightly faster than the SWiF and these extra RPMs more than likely account for the Silentator’s increased performance. Average Load Temperatures  Even with the Noctua fan the Silentator is not a great cooler at stock. It is apparent that while it is a good choice for overclocking it really shouldn’t be your first choice. This is certainly acceptable as Coolink’s engineers first priority was noise reduction and in this area it really did shine. Two Scythe F Fans Results Idle Temperatures  Ah ha! Now we are getting somewhere. These idle temperatures are very nice and an explanation for the Silentaor’s seemingly bizarre temperature results is starting to become clear. Let’s see what its average loads look like before I explain. Average Load Temperatures  Just as I thought, while still not great at stock these numbers are looking much better. More importantly the reason for this anomalous behavior is now obvious. With anything less than near maximum output from its cooling fan those tightly packed fins just create too much static pressure for one fan to easily overcome. As temperatures go up, so does the RPM’s and at a certain speed point enough air movement is created to overcome the Silentator’s built in “air resistance”. Once this air resistance or static pressure is overcome the Silentator’s heatsink is able to act in a thermally efficient manner. This also explains the sudden and dramatic improvement in its numbers versus other CPU cooler designs at high overclocks. It also is pretty obvious why Coolink will charge you extra for mounting brackets but includes the second fan brackets for free. They may not come out and say it but the Silentator really needs that second fan to be considered both quiet and effective. | ||
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