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I promised in an earlier message that the friend I bought the cooler for should write a review of the new Silent Twin fan and today I got a mail from him with the review.
I'm pasting the his text here verbatim, I've just checked the formatting of the text.
The cooler comes in a black box without any frills, and seems quite light for a cooler of this size.
But beware, inside is a sleeping dragon.
Well, to be more correct I'm the sleeping dragon, I *hate* noise but I also like to have my servers running 24/7.
And I'm living in a 12m² student apartment.
The last two years I've been on a quest looking for a way to keep the noise from my servers down,
because when I can't get enough sleep I'l bite anyone's head of without a second thought.
And no, there hasn't been any nice juicy fat halflings wandering around nearby.
Anyway, I've heard some hype about the silent twin, and after loosing two CPU's within a space of two months to
unexplained circumstances I opened my wallet, exorsized any moths inside it and ordered a silent twin from
microplex.no And lo and behold! the second coming of christ! (*cough* *cough*)
The cooler has a unique design with two 60x60 mm fans mounted on the side, and the heatsinks are arranged on
either side of an vertical shaft. The fans are quite interesting by themselves, most 60x60 stock fans are 15mm thick, but these are 25mm thick.
Other features is that the bottom of the cooler is made entirely of copper...that is, perfectly even polished copper without any scraches or marks.
It even has a large sticker on to protect the polish. And the sticker has a warning saying: Remove this before use.
I wonder if someone at some time attached their cooler to a cpu without removing some sort of plastic sticker.
The cooler also comes with a small bag of arctic alumina, so most people don't have to by a separate
thermal compound.
System used:
Athlon 1.4 ghz Thunderbird, SiSoft Sandra PR rated: PR1866.
MSI Nforce 420 Motherboard.
Termal compound: Arctic silver II.
Cabinett doors completely open.
A few limitations:
1. Many motherboards don't have a sensor that touches the cpu directly, this mean that the CPU manufacturer is actually sensing the temperature on one of the cpu-pins, and then extrapolate the real CPU temperature. This MSI motherboard does this, so don't take all the temperatures literary.
2. Most high quality termal compounds have different phases and temperature caracteristics when first applied and when it's been stuck on for a while. Arctic silver is a such compound: When in the tube and the first hour after applied it has a high viscosity , the next 1-20 hours of heating it's changes phase into a low viscosity liquid (to fill out small cracks and help push minute airbubbles out.
Then it starts to harden and reaches a high viscosity again, but the thermal qualities have improved. In short: Just after application it's not very good at transfering heat, but after about 100 hours of accumulated time it improves about 1-4 celsius. (In my case about 1-5 celsius, but that's because I have an insanely hot CPU. ;-/ )
This means that the temperature of the two first fans tested _might_ be a bit lower when compared to the silent twin.
Coolers compared:
1.
CGK760092 Taisol CPU-Cooler,
with 60x60mm <- 80x80mm fanduct and 8412N2GML Papst fan, 45m³/hour, 19 dB(A)
The fan is mounted to draw(suck :P) air through the Taisol cooler.
2.
CGK760092 Taisol CPU-Cooler,
Stock taisol 60x60 fan.
21.19 CFM , 32 db(A)
3.
MISTST1 MIST CPU-kjøler, "Silent Twin"
Two fans, each generates: 19m³/hour (11 CFM) , 16dB(A)
totals about 38m³/hour, 19 dB(A)
Temperature data collected:
Cooler 1 Data:
Chassis temp: 28 celsius
Air temp: 20-22 celcius
max temp, heavy CPU load: 67 celcius
idle temp, low CPU load: 58 celcius
Cooler 2 Data:
chassis temp: 29 celsius
Air temp: 20-22 celcius
max temp, heavy CPU load: 61 celsius
idle temp, low CPU load: 53 celsius
Cooler 3 Data:
chassis temp: 28 celsius
Air temp: 20-22 celcius
max temp, heavy CPU load: 64* celsius
idle temp, low CPU load: 58* celsius
* Note, used a glob of new arctic silver II on cooler 3,
so longterm temps on the CPU will probably be about 1-4 Celcius lower.
Also had to modify the mounting of one fan since a couple of condensators where a bit close to the
CPU socket. Moved it about 5 mm up and used tape to attach it to the cooler.
Would also be possible to use glue. I recommend one that doesn't "sweat" silicon at high temps.
(60-80 celsius)
the data in an easy to read form :
Cooler 1.:
temp difference between max and idle load; 67 (max)
-58 (idle)
= 9 celsius.
cooler 2.:
temp difference between max and idle load; 61 (max)
-53 (idle)
= 8 celsius.
cooler 3.:
temp difference between max and idle load; 64 (max)
-58 (idle)
= 6 celsius.
My thought's about the data collected:
But first a few facts people must remember;
1. The airflow from the fan(s) is constant.. so the
amount of air capable of absorbing heat is the same at both max and idle load.
2. The air temperature can also be considered to be stable during both max and idle load.
3. The only variable factor affecting the amount of heat moving from the heat-sinks
into the air is the temperature diffence.. since a higher temperature difference
increases _slightly_ the amount of heat an fixed amount of air can absorb.
cooler 1:
The idle temp is quite high and it might imply that a faster(noisier) fan would help lower the idle and max temperature down. The high max temp _and_ the temp. difference confirms this since the instant the heat from the CPU increases, the max temperature climbs and reaches a fairly high level before the amount of heat leaving the cooler equals the amount of heat the CPU generates.
Cooler 2:
The low idle temperature implies that a faster fan wouldn't necessary help much since the diffence between air temperature and heat-sink temperature is lower. The max temp. alone doesn't weaken og strenghten this, but the high diffence might lead people to attempt using a faster fan. I suspect that this wouldn't help much since the properties of the metal in the cooler is the real limiting factor. It doesn't matter how good your fan is if the metal can't move the heat fast enough from the CPU into the heat-sinks, and this increases the CPU temperature under max load.
Cooler 3:
The idle temp is quite high and if compared to cooler 1 people might think that there isn't much of a difference. I'm inclined to disagree , since the low difference between max and idle implies that the metal of the cooler is moving the heat from the CPU to the heat-sinks fairly well. This again implies that an higher airflow would lower both the idle and max temperature fairly even. The real question is, how much is the new glob of arctic silver affecting the temperature?
Scenario 1:
My personal guess is that the arctic silver is increasing both the idle and max temperature fairly even. *if* this is correct then the conclusion doesn't change, since a faster fan would help until the difference between idle and max temp starts to increase.
Scenario 2:
If the arctic silver on the other hand is increasing the max temp. more then the idle temp. If this is so then the difference between idle and max load would sink fairly close to 0 celsius, and then I might start to suspect that the metal used in the heat sinks is closer than most metals to some kind of heat super-conductor. And *that* would make me drool in anticipation. Not bloody likely though.
Scenario 3:
If the arctic silver is increasing the idle temp. more than the max temp. then we would land back on a comparison to cooler 2 where an increase in the airflow probably wouldn't help much.(IMHO)
Anyway, on all three scenario's the silent twin comes out on the top if people think about it.. It's a cooler that's
a) silent. 19db(A) in a closed case is barely audible in a silent room.
b) in a worst case scenario is equal to a taisol with a 32db(A) fan.
The downside is the current price, but if the producer microplex.no gets a large amount of
orders then the price will probably fall.
A summary of my conclusions:
I'm positive since I hate noisy computers, and the cooler is a nice package of low noise and good thermal properties. And even when running on an thunderbird 1.4ghz it manages to keep a low difference between idle and max temp, this hint's that the heat doesn't "overload" the metal between the heat sinks and the CPU.
A small glossary/explanation:
Air-temperature: the average temperature of the air in a close room.. or completely closed case.
Heat-sink temperature: the temperature on the surface of the cooler that touches the airflow.
air-flow: the air a fan moves over the coolers heat-sink surface.
metal temperature: the temperature of the interior of the cooler, mosly limited by the metals thermal properties.
CPU temperature: _average_ of the temperature the CPU has *and* the parts of the cooler touching the CPU.
Questions, clarifications and constructive critique is sent to heikkis@ifi.uio.no.
Flames, "U st00pid" and such is piped into the big black hole of /dev/null.
Oh, and btw.. on my linux box running an AMD XP 1800 the cpu is idling at 38 celcius with the silent twin cooler.
Sincerly yours Ixian Probe.. Wannabe chemist :P
I'm pasting the his text here verbatim, I've just checked the formatting of the text.
The cooler comes in a black box without any frills, and seems quite light for a cooler of this size.
But beware, inside is a sleeping dragon.
Well, to be more correct I'm the sleeping dragon, I *hate* noise but I also like to have my servers running 24/7.
And I'm living in a 12m² student apartment.
The last two years I've been on a quest looking for a way to keep the noise from my servers down,
because when I can't get enough sleep I'l bite anyone's head of without a second thought.
And no, there hasn't been any nice juicy fat halflings wandering around nearby.
Anyway, I've heard some hype about the silent twin, and after loosing two CPU's within a space of two months to
unexplained circumstances I opened my wallet, exorsized any moths inside it and ordered a silent twin from
microplex.no And lo and behold! the second coming of christ! (*cough* *cough*)
The cooler has a unique design with two 60x60 mm fans mounted on the side, and the heatsinks are arranged on
either side of an vertical shaft. The fans are quite interesting by themselves, most 60x60 stock fans are 15mm thick, but these are 25mm thick.
Other features is that the bottom of the cooler is made entirely of copper...that is, perfectly even polished copper without any scraches or marks.
It even has a large sticker on to protect the polish. And the sticker has a warning saying: Remove this before use.
I wonder if someone at some time attached their cooler to a cpu without removing some sort of plastic sticker.
The cooler also comes with a small bag of arctic alumina, so most people don't have to by a separate
thermal compound.
System used:
Athlon 1.4 ghz Thunderbird, SiSoft Sandra PR rated: PR1866.
MSI Nforce 420 Motherboard.
Termal compound: Arctic silver II.
Cabinett doors completely open.
A few limitations:
1. Many motherboards don't have a sensor that touches the cpu directly, this mean that the CPU manufacturer is actually sensing the temperature on one of the cpu-pins, and then extrapolate the real CPU temperature. This MSI motherboard does this, so don't take all the temperatures literary.
2. Most high quality termal compounds have different phases and temperature caracteristics when first applied and when it's been stuck on for a while. Arctic silver is a such compound: When in the tube and the first hour after applied it has a high viscosity , the next 1-20 hours of heating it's changes phase into a low viscosity liquid (to fill out small cracks and help push minute airbubbles out.
Then it starts to harden and reaches a high viscosity again, but the thermal qualities have improved. In short: Just after application it's not very good at transfering heat, but after about 100 hours of accumulated time it improves about 1-4 celsius. (In my case about 1-5 celsius, but that's because I have an insanely hot CPU. ;-/ )
This means that the temperature of the two first fans tested _might_ be a bit lower when compared to the silent twin.
Coolers compared:
1.
CGK760092 Taisol CPU-Cooler,
with 60x60mm <- 80x80mm fanduct and 8412N2GML Papst fan, 45m³/hour, 19 dB(A)
The fan is mounted to draw(suck :P) air through the Taisol cooler.
2.
CGK760092 Taisol CPU-Cooler,
Stock taisol 60x60 fan.
21.19 CFM , 32 db(A)
3.
MISTST1 MIST CPU-kjøler, "Silent Twin"
Two fans, each generates: 19m³/hour (11 CFM) , 16dB(A)
totals about 38m³/hour, 19 dB(A)
Temperature data collected:
Cooler 1 Data:
Chassis temp: 28 celsius
Air temp: 20-22 celcius
max temp, heavy CPU load: 67 celcius
idle temp, low CPU load: 58 celcius
Cooler 2 Data:
chassis temp: 29 celsius
Air temp: 20-22 celcius
max temp, heavy CPU load: 61 celsius
idle temp, low CPU load: 53 celsius
Cooler 3 Data:
chassis temp: 28 celsius
Air temp: 20-22 celcius
max temp, heavy CPU load: 64* celsius
idle temp, low CPU load: 58* celsius
* Note, used a glob of new arctic silver II on cooler 3,
so longterm temps on the CPU will probably be about 1-4 Celcius lower.
Also had to modify the mounting of one fan since a couple of condensators where a bit close to the
CPU socket. Moved it about 5 mm up and used tape to attach it to the cooler.
Would also be possible to use glue. I recommend one that doesn't "sweat" silicon at high temps.
(60-80 celsius)
the data in an easy to read form :
Cooler 1.:
temp difference between max and idle load; 67 (max)
-58 (idle)
= 9 celsius.
cooler 2.:
temp difference between max and idle load; 61 (max)
-53 (idle)
= 8 celsius.
cooler 3.:
temp difference between max and idle load; 64 (max)
-58 (idle)
= 6 celsius.
My thought's about the data collected:
But first a few facts people must remember;
1. The airflow from the fan(s) is constant.. so the
amount of air capable of absorbing heat is the same at both max and idle load.
2. The air temperature can also be considered to be stable during both max and idle load.
3. The only variable factor affecting the amount of heat moving from the heat-sinks
into the air is the temperature diffence.. since a higher temperature difference
increases _slightly_ the amount of heat an fixed amount of air can absorb.
cooler 1:
The idle temp is quite high and it might imply that a faster(noisier) fan would help lower the idle and max temperature down. The high max temp _and_ the temp. difference confirms this since the instant the heat from the CPU increases, the max temperature climbs and reaches a fairly high level before the amount of heat leaving the cooler equals the amount of heat the CPU generates.
Cooler 2:
The low idle temperature implies that a faster fan wouldn't necessary help much since the diffence between air temperature and heat-sink temperature is lower. The max temp. alone doesn't weaken og strenghten this, but the high diffence might lead people to attempt using a faster fan. I suspect that this wouldn't help much since the properties of the metal in the cooler is the real limiting factor. It doesn't matter how good your fan is if the metal can't move the heat fast enough from the CPU into the heat-sinks, and this increases the CPU temperature under max load.
Cooler 3:
The idle temp is quite high and if compared to cooler 1 people might think that there isn't much of a difference. I'm inclined to disagree , since the low difference between max and idle implies that the metal of the cooler is moving the heat from the CPU to the heat-sinks fairly well. This again implies that an higher airflow would lower both the idle and max temperature fairly even. The real question is, how much is the new glob of arctic silver affecting the temperature?
Scenario 1:
My personal guess is that the arctic silver is increasing both the idle and max temperature fairly even. *if* this is correct then the conclusion doesn't change, since a faster fan would help until the difference between idle and max temp starts to increase.
Scenario 2:
If the arctic silver on the other hand is increasing the max temp. more then the idle temp. If this is so then the difference between idle and max load would sink fairly close to 0 celsius, and then I might start to suspect that the metal used in the heat sinks is closer than most metals to some kind of heat super-conductor. And *that* would make me drool in anticipation. Not bloody likely though.
Scenario 3:
If the arctic silver is increasing the idle temp. more than the max temp. then we would land back on a comparison to cooler 2 where an increase in the airflow probably wouldn't help much.(IMHO)
Anyway, on all three scenario's the silent twin comes out on the top if people think about it.. It's a cooler that's
a) silent. 19db(A) in a closed case is barely audible in a silent room.
b) in a worst case scenario is equal to a taisol with a 32db(A) fan.
The downside is the current price, but if the producer microplex.no gets a large amount of
orders then the price will probably fall.
A summary of my conclusions:
I'm positive since I hate noisy computers, and the cooler is a nice package of low noise and good thermal properties. And even when running on an thunderbird 1.4ghz it manages to keep a low difference between idle and max temp, this hint's that the heat doesn't "overload" the metal between the heat sinks and the CPU.
A small glossary/explanation:
Air-temperature: the average temperature of the air in a close room.. or completely closed case.
Heat-sink temperature: the temperature on the surface of the cooler that touches the airflow.
air-flow: the air a fan moves over the coolers heat-sink surface.
metal temperature: the temperature of the interior of the cooler, mosly limited by the metals thermal properties.
CPU temperature: _average_ of the temperature the CPU has *and* the parts of the cooler touching the CPU.
Questions, clarifications and constructive critique is sent to heikkis@ifi.uio.no.
Flames, "U st00pid" and such is piped into the big black hole of /dev/null.
Oh, and btw.. on my linux box running an AMD XP 1800 the cpu is idling at 38 celcius with the silent twin cooler.
Sincerly yours Ixian Probe.. Wannabe chemist :P
. Give it to your favourite hardware site and they will break it down to at least 11 pages 
Could any of you clarify for a guy who hasn't really been keeping up to date.... do the Thunderbirds actually generate more heat than the XP's?
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