X-bit labs

Four Heatpipes for Two: AeroCool SilverWind and Xfire Coolers Reviewed (page 2)

Category: Coolers

by Sergey Lepilov

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

Design and Functionality

The design of the cooler catches your eye immediately at first glance:

The cooler heatsink is made of aluminum, only the base is pure copper. The heatsink consists of two parts:

The lower part is very similar to the “boxed” Intel CPU cooler, as it has the same ray-shaped plates. The difference is that it has a groove for the retention clip that should be used for Socket 754/939/940 and AM2 mainboards. There are two copper heatpipes 6mm in diameter that go through the copper base. They hold an array of 104 aluminum plates of the cooler upper part:

The cooler is relatively small. It is only 103mm high and measures 95mm in maximum diameter.

AeroCool SilverWind weighs 560g, so it feels real light, especially after the recently reviewed Scythe Ninja Copper.

The upper heatsink plates are very unusually shaped, looking either like the metal twisted by the wind or sea waves :):

92mm fan with transparent blades sits inside this top part of the heatsink array, right above the lower cooler heatsink. Its rotation speed may vary from ~1700RPM to ~2700RPM at 42.36~60.38CFM and 17.99~28.91dBA of generated noise.

The scheme below shows the airflow movement created by AeroCool SilverWind cooler:

In other words, the heatsink array sitting on the heatpipes in the upper part of the solution is cooled down with the incoming airflow generated by the fan, while the lower heatsink is cooled down with the outgoing airflow.

The cooler base surface gets a good B for finish quality:

The evenness of this surface is impeccable, which was checked with the thermal grease footprint on the glass.