X-bit labs

Four Heatpipes for Two: AeroCool SilverWind and Xfire Coolers Reviewed

Category: Coolers

by Sergey Lepilov

[ 02/19/2008 | 03:23 PM ]

Light, universal, decently efficient, but pretty expensive cooling solutions with highly original design made it to our lab. Read more in our extensive review that covers not only cooling efficiency but also acoustic performance of these guys.

Table of contents:

• AeroСool SilverWind (EN-1057)
  
• Package and Accessories
  
• Design and Functionality
  
• Installation tips
  
• AeroCool Xfire (EN-10351)
  
• Package and Accessories
  
• Design and Functionality
  
• Installation Tips
  
• Technical Specifications, Price and Availability
  
• Testbed and Methods
  
• Cooling Efficiency and Acoustic Performance
  
• Intel Core 2 Duo Platform
  
• Acoustic Performance
  
• Conclusion
  

Contemporary Intel Core 2 Duo and even Intel Core 2 Quad processors do not dissipate that much heat when working in nominal mode. So, they actually do not require the default so-called “boxed” coolers that come bundled with the CPUs to be replaced with any alternative solutions. Moreover, even when Core processors get overclocked to pretty impressive frequencies (over 3.4~3.6GHz), you may do just fine without any super-coolers that are regularly tested in our lab. The only exception could probably be the CPUs based on older core steppings (for example, B3), which require highly efficient air coolers or liquid-cooling systems, which is even better.

Of course, if you intend to squeeze all the juices out of your processor with air-cooling only, you cannot really do without something like Thermalright Ultra-120 eXtreme, because CPUs from Core family react very good to Vcore increase, which, however, gets immediately reflected on their hear dissipation. However, far not everyone needs extreme overclocking like that. According to my experience and forum discussions, I can state that there are overclockers who speed up their CPUs not too much, but at the same time enough to require a better or quieter cooler than the boxed Intel one. This is when budget solutions like Cooler Master Hyper TX(2), Titan TTC-NK32TZ or the new GlacialTech cooling solutions come in handy. In other words, these are inexpensive, pretty efficient and relatively quiet coolers.

Nevertheless, we cannot assign two new cooling solutions from AeroCool Advanced Technologies (AAT) to this price segment. Starting with 2001, the company has been working very actively on designing and promoting their cooling solutions into the market. They have been offering budget cooling solutions for processors and graphics cards as well as top products, like AeroCool Dominator. Unfortunately, we were told that the latter had been discontinued, so today we will only tell you about the other two pretty expensive offerings from AeroCool – SilverWind and Xfire.

AeroСool SilverWind (EN-1057)

Package and Accessories

The first cooler we are going to talk about today has a very interesting name: SilverWind, although there is no silver used to build it. A small carton box bears the photograph of the cooler and lists its major technical specifications:

Besides the actual cooler, the box also contained the following accessories:

• Metal retention clip for installation on K8 mainboards;
• Aero-700 thermal grease;
• Fan rotation speed controller designed as a rear panel case bracket;
• Step-by-step installation guide.

I have to say that this is very modest accessories bundle.

The cooler is made in Taiwan.