Silence is golden as they say, and I personally like to have my system as quiet as possible, but it seems to have your system running cool you need to sacrifice some of that silence at times. Then along comes Coolink with their Silentator Heatpipe CPU cooler enabling us to have the best of both worlds, decent cooling and a nice, quiet system…
Coolink Silentator Heatpipe CPU Cooler
Sponsor: Coolink
Tech Specs,Features or the Basic Info:
The Silentator's mission is simple: to cool – and to do it silently! Employing 3 high-performance dual heat-pipes, an optimised fin-design and a SWiF-1202 quality fan, the Silentator achieves first-class cooling performance at a minimum noise of only 14dB(A)!
For the Silentator, Coolink could build on the basis of Noctua's much acclaimed Ultra-Low-Noise coolers, which are manufactured in Coolink's factories and earned more than 100 recommendations and awards from international websites and magazines. The Silentator also employs their professional SecuFirm mounting system. Thanks to the use of 3 high-performance Dual-Heatpipes, the performance-optimized design of the cooling fins and a SWiF-1202 quality fan, the Silentator achieves outstanding cooling performance. At the same time, the noise emission of the SWiF-1202 can be reduced to a mere 14dB(A) using the supplied PCI-bracket fan controller. As a result, the Silentator is suited not only for harsh overclocking, but also for real Silent-PCs!
Features:
3 high-performance Dual-Heat-Pipes
37 Aluminium-Fins with a surface area of more than 3500cm²
Soldered joints for optimal heat-transfer
Original SWiF-1202 quality fan with high precision double ball bearing
Adjustable between 14 and 24dB(A)
Tool-free fan-mount including anti-vibration strips
Original SecuFirm™ mounting system*
Can be turned by 90° for optimal positioning and compatibility
Available for LGA 775, AM2 and K8 (754, 939, 940)
36 months warranty
* The SecuFirm mounting system guarantees optimal contact pressure and maximum security thanks to the use of a backplate and spring-loaded screws. As a result, the SecuFirm mounting system makes it possible to safely transport the assembled system without any risk even though the cooler exceeds the 450g weight specification established by Intel and AMD. Perfect for LAN gamers!
Specs:
Socket compatibility 3 versions: LGA / AM2 / K8 (754, 939, 940)
Height (without fan) 153mm
Width (without fan) 126mm
Depth (without fan) 60mm
Height (with fan) 153mm
Width (with fan) 126mm
Depth (with fan) 85mm
Weight (with fan) 640g
Material Copper (base and heat-pipes), aluminum (cooling fins), soldered joints
Fan size 120x120x25mm / 120x120x38mm
Fan Coolink SWiF-1202 (2 fans can be mounted!)
Bearing Double ball bearing
Rotational Speed (+/- 10%) 900-1600RPM
Airflow 54-90m³/h
Acoustical Noise 14-24dB(A)
Scope of Delivery Heatsink, SWiF-1202 fan, mounting hardware, fan controller, thermal paste
Warranty 3 years
MSRP € 39,90
A Better Look at Things
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The Coolink Silentator comes in a standard cardboard box with the specs and features listed on the sides as well as a small window on the front to allow you to get a glimpse of the cooler itself.
Included with the Silentator is a PCI slot bracket style fan controller, thermal paste, long screwdriver, and the appropriate mounting hardware for your system. The Silentator comes in three versions, LGA / AM2 / K8 (754, 939, 940) and you will not receive all of the hardware shown in the following picture, only what you need for your system specifically.
The Silentator features one of Coolinks silent SwiF 120mm fans that I personally like, not only because of their cool blue color but because they are almost totally silent.
The Silentator is a heatpipe cooler obviously, it is made very well and it's surprisingly not as heavy as it looks. It reminds me of the Noctua CPU cooler I reviewed a bit ago actually.
The Silentator is made very well with quality and attention to detail in mind, Coolink seems to have an excellent quality control program in place. The fins are actually fairly thick so you won't have to worry about cutting yourself or possibly a wire as you might on other coolers of this type.
The base of the Coolink Silentator comes as most do, with a protective plastic covering that must be removed prior to use. The base itself and the heatpipes are solid cooper to promote good heat conductivity and keep your CPU nice and cool.
Taking a closer look at the base we can see there are fine machining lines still visible, but I learned a while ago that a CPU cooler does not have to be perfectly flat to be a great performer.
Well that's it for check it out, let's move on to the next section…
Installation, Testing and Comparison
When you have to take the motherboard out of the case to install a CPU Heatsink it's always a pain, but the mounting system that Coolink uses for installation is easy and makes it safe to transport your case with the heatsink attached.
I installed the Coolink Silentator on my Intel P4X 955 CPU as it is, at the moment my main system, and I knew that I could get a little overclocking in to test the cooling abilities of the Silentator.
I gather the hardware together and installed the mounting brackets to my motherboard, this is accomplished by screwing the mounting bars through the motherboards holes into the included backplate.
Once installed I didn't find any clearance issues but it was really close to the other components on my motherboard. This didn't surprise me though, the motherboard I am using for the installation is an Asus P5wd2-e Premium and I've had problems in the past with installing CPU coolers on it due to the component arrangement and the large heatsinks that Asus used.
The entire setup was then installed in my Antec P182 case (review soon), and there I didn't find any clearance issues at all. Though being it is a rather tall cooler, cases that had the side mounted fan might have an issue with the height, just something to keep in mind… I don't like the fact that there is no fan grill on the CPU fan, I had times where wires have got caught in my fans, and actually after I was done testing I did install a fan grill onto the fan.
Now onto testing…
Ambient temperature during all testing was approximately 25.5C.
In the following chart you'll see quite a bit of information about the temps I got while testing the Silentator. I tested the Silentator while hooked directly to my motherboards CPU fan header, and I tested it while using the included Coolink fan speed control unit as well. The settings you'll see for fan speeds are low and high only as with the medium setting the temps were a negligible difference. In the chart you'll also see results for a modest overclock tot eh CPU up to 4.05GHZ from the stock 3.46Ghz, and of course the results from the Intel stock CPU cooler running at stock CPU speeds.
To find my idle temperatures I let the system sit doing nothing but running Windows services and Anti-Virus software. To achieve load temperatures I ran Orthos Stress Prime for the same 30 minutes. I did these a couple times every day and averaged out the temperatures. Since this is my main system it was in use for 12-15 hours each day, so it was thermal cycled to insure settling in of the thermal compound.
First observation is that the Coolink Silentator is virtually silent, I could not hear it over the three 120mm system fans, and the other devices in my system, it added no extra noise to my system on either high or low speeds. The Antec P182 also does a very good job of keeping everything nice and quiet as well.
As we can see from the graph the Coolink Silentator is a marked improvement over the Intel Stock CPU Cooler, in not only temperatures but also in sound, even in the Antec P182 case I could easily hear the Intel Stock Cooler running.
You can also see from the results that there really isn't much of a difference between using the fan speed controller and not using it except really at idle. Even with the modest overclock the Silentator was able to keep my CPU nice and cool, and very close the the temperatures for the stock CPU speeds.
Summary:
The Coolink Silentator will be remaining in my system, I'm very happy with it's performance and silence.
The Silentator is an excellent choice for those that want a quiet system but yet don't want to sacrifice cooling efficiency to get it.
It is extremely well made, as are all Coolink products from my experience, the Silentator is sturdy, reliable and quiet offering us the best of pretty much everything, the silence, performance and quality that we desire…
DragonSteelMods gives the Coolink Silentator a 5 out of 5 score and our Recommended Award as well.
Pros:
-Quiet
-Very well made
-Good perfromance
-Fairly easy installation
Cons:
-None really
I would like to thank Coolink for the chance to review the Silentator and for their continued support of DSM.
review# 257