| Thermalright Silver Arrow CPU Cooler |  |
| Reviews - Featured Reviews: Cooling | |
| Written by David Ramsey | |
| Thursday, 24 February 2011 | |
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Closer Look: Silver Arrow CoolerThermalright doesn't believe in putting specifications and advertising copy on their boxes. You'll get a plain brown box with the cooler's model name and the CPU sockets it fits, and that's it. This probably explains why I've never seen a Thermalright cooler box sitting on a shelf in a retail store (they may well be there, but they'd be easy to overlook!) 
Inside the box, nestled in foam, are the heat sink, two 140mm PWM fans, a Thermalright sticker for your case, installation instructions and a packing list, and a large plastic bag containing the mounting hardware, fan clips, a small wrench, and a tube of thermal compound. Although there are two PWM fans, Thermalright does not supply a "Y"-cable.
The Thermalright Silver Arrow is one of the better-looking CPU coolers you'll see. The four large (8mm diameter) heat pipes have neatly capped ends (unlike most coolers which leave the crimped ends exposed), and the 55 fins on each "tower" of the cooler are perfectly aligned. There are four possible fan mounting positions, although only three fans could be mounted at any one time. Thermalright supplies clips for the two 140mm fans that come with the cooler, and these clips will also secure 120mm fans. The heat sink is completely symmetrical: there is no "front" or "back".
The base of the cooler is polished, although it does not have the perfect mirror finish we've seen lately on other coolers. As expected of a high-end cooler, the base is solid copper with nickel plating as a corrosion protectant.
This side view shows both fans installed. You begin to get a feeling for just how large this cooler is. Although the fans can be set up for a dual-push arrangement, the size of the cooler means that you probably can't do this without blocking several RAM slots in your case. Most users will set the cooler up as I did, with a dual-pull configuration.
Looking at it on the test bench, I'm wondering if it will actually fit in my test system. Let's see in the next section.
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Comments
Not trying to be too nitty here, but the copper alloy referenced for the base material must be C11000, or alloy 110, which is 99.9% pure copper. Probably a typo? But to the nickel plating, I'm wondering, what corrosion? Cathodic? I thought the CPU surface was a non-conductive surface. Other than that, the thermal paste should insulate against what little moisture may be lurking around.
I'll go ahead and guess that the clamping of 40 to 70 pounds you reference is inch-pounds not foot-pounds. This is a pretty large range, even for a high carbon alloy steel, 43%. Normally there is only about a 20% range unless you're discussing non-ferrous alloys, but then the range is even smaller. Nevertheless, in inch-pounds it would be about right for a low-carbon screw, in this case a 3-4mm or #8- #10 diameter.
Wow. That's one huge rad !
But trust me, please, as I work with metals and fasteners every day (except holidays and weekends, and dumb brain fart moments when I should be enjoying the very good work you do in reviewing computer hardware). If you ever need some relevant information on joint design, technology, metallurgy, or pre- or post tensioning advice, please contact me. If I don't have the answer off the top of my head, I have personnel with doctorates in metallurgy and mechanical engineering at my disposal. You will get the answers you may need.
Thanks again for your review.
But I was missing the NH-D14 as main competitor of the Silver Arrow as they are playing in the same league.
But anyway, great review as always
However I already read one or 2 reviews on internet where they compare them and it looks like silver arrow is on pair or beats NH-D14 with ~1-2 degrees...
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"That" is the 800 pound gorilla in the room. It also bodes ill for the people making aftermarket coolers. As usual this was a good look at a nice product that I'll do without as my present Asetek and Corsair H2o coolers do a fine job on my i7's.
And if the first fan is "pull", the second must be, too, since there's not enough room to put both fans in the middle of the cooler.
Since the performance of the cooler was amazing anyway, I didn't worry too much about it.
This is looking like my best option at this point, but I don't want to buy it and then find that I can't mount a trio of corsair dominator sticks on the board.
The NH-D14 has the best mounting system in my opinion.
Regards.
1. $42 shipping was cheapest option from frozencpu.com
2. I large tower cases, installing in multi-SLI MoBos don't work. If mounted in its intended configuration .... blowing to rear, the find hit the GFX Card in PCI-E Slot No.1 .... same thing w/ the Antec Kuhler 620 btw .... that cooler cost me $18 in shipping there and back :). I was able to mount it horizontally (blowing up), while less than ideal, it works ... at $42, I wasn't gonna ship it back.
3. I installed it w/ two fans, bought a 3rd, didn't fit. The fans we got, aren't the fans shown here .... they were an ugly green w/ gray blades (since painted black)
4. Fins stay at pretty much room temperature ...
5. Bought a PYM Fan Cable Splitter (also from forzencpu.com). This one was an Akasa "Smart Cable" model. Last build I bought a different brand, both times had them sleeve it. First builds splitter shorted out my fans ... was replaced with a working one but replacement would not control fan speed. The 2nd one, the Akasa didn't work at all. machine would not boot w/ it connected.
6. As for performance, it's hard to tell as unlike BNR, I don't have lotsa things to swap it out with. Using a i7-2600 in an Asus WS Revolution w/ twin 560 GTX (900 Mhz models). Here's the results (VCore under load in ( ):
Stock 51,53, 53, 51 (1.224) LLC = Auto
4.0 Ghz 52, 54, 55, 52 (1.016-1.024) LLC = Auto
4.2 GHz 54, 56, 57, 55 (1.256 - 1.264) LLC = Auto
4.4 Ghz 56, 60, 60, 67 (1.280 - 1.288) LLC = Auto
4.6 Ghz 62, 66, 68, 65 (1.360 - 1.368) LLC = High
4.8 Ghz 71, 77, 79, 72 LLC = (1.408 - 1.416) Ultra High*
I should note that on many builds I have seen temps drop after a few bits of thermal cycling. Most noticeably, if I set upa desired OC as my target .... then purposely run it at a higher oC to get higher temps, going back to my target now has lower temps. My guess anyway is that the 1st time the TIM hits its highest temps tends to "cure it" a bit. Have seen this on just about every build I have spent a lot of time with.
I may add to this once I get another shot at this. 80C is "my self imposed limit" and unless I can figure out a way to drop voltages a bit, I won't be delving further into bigger OC's.