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Thermaltake Silent 1156 Heatsink Review
Author: Dennis Garcia
Published: Monday, March 01, 2010
Introduction
When it comes to aftermarket heatsinks you will often find companies marketing their unique designs as universal options that can be reconfigured to a variety of processor platforms. In reality this makes perfect sense and is quite economical, provided that the heatsink performs better than the OEM solution.
In this review we will be looking at a new heatsink from Thermaltake designed for the 1156 Lynnfield processor called the Silent 1156. As the name suggests this heatsink is designed to be extremely quiet and only comes with mounting hardware for the 1156.
The Silent 1156 is a heatpipe tower design that comes with a single 90mm fan with tapered edges. The tapered edge gives the fan a larger intake surface area for increased fan performance and reduced noise.
In this review we will be looking at a new heatsink from Thermaltake designed for the 1156 Lynnfield processor called the Silent 1156. As the name suggests this heatsink is designed to be extremely quiet and only comes with mounting hardware for the 1156.
The Silent 1156 is a heatpipe tower design that comes with a single 90mm fan with tapered edges. The tapered edge gives the fan a larger intake surface area for increased fan performance and reduced noise.
As with most heatpipe coolers the leading edges are not smooth, but rather contain angles and nocks for visual aesthetics, some say these design elements also create turbulence as the air moves thru the radiator. While minor turbulence is not something that can be measured towards cooling performance the visual aspect is easily noticed.
Cooler construction consists of a brushed copper base with aluminum top plate which doubles as the primary mounting plate for the OEM style retention clips. The whole assembly is held together with 4 tiny screws.
Cooler construction consists of a brushed copper base with aluminum top plate which doubles as the primary mounting plate for the OEM style retention clips. The whole assembly is held together with 4 tiny screws.
The Silent 1156 uses 2 large 8mm diameter heatpipes to dissipate heat. Heat capacity should be comparable to a 4 heatpipe cooler with slightly better efficiency due to the proximity of the heatppes to the heat source.
Installation
Due to the easy to use OEM style retention clips the installation method is no different than any Intel OEM cooler. Simply attach the retention clips, apply some thermal paste to the processor, and attach the cooler. It is best to secure the cooler using a diagonal X pattern to ensure proper thermal paste spreading and reduce board warp.
