Thermolab, ever hear of them? Neither did I until they approached me about reviewing their products a couple weeks ago. They are a company based in Korea that started in 2005 as a design company for other companies' thermal products and have recently come out with their own line of products. They've released two of them so far, the Micro Silencer CPU Cooler and the Nano Silencer CPU cooler, with another tower style cooler slated for 4th quarter 2008 launch. So far from my experience with these coolers they're very good, and could be a nice choice for a silent and good performing cooler.
Today I'm taking a look at the Thermolab Micro Silencer CPU cooler, it's a small cooler that incorporates fins and heatpipes to help cool your CPU. It's actually smaller then the Intel Stock CPU Cooler, making it attractive for people that are space limited in their cases. Despite its size though, it performs very well, even when compared to tower style coolers that are twice, or even three times its size.
So continue on to check it out…
Thermolab Micro Silencer CPU Cooler LGA775
Author: Kristofer Brozio
Sponsor: Thermolab
Tech Specs,Features or the Basic Info:
Thermolab Micro Silencer CPU Cooler LGA775
PCT (Power Clamping Technology):
* Minimization
* Low noise
* Thermal stability
Design compatibility:
* ATX, Micro ATX form factor
* Low Profile (LP) case
* Compatible with Pannel Pc, Tunning Pc, Car PC
Stable structure:
* Stable mounting method
* Light weight
* Only for Intel Socket 775
Features:
1. Application of Power Clamping Technology (PCT)
-"Power Clamping Technology" is a new technology developed by ThermoLab that makes base block, heat pipe and aluminum fins to strongly combine thermally by aligning heat pipe and fins after making minute size groove in the base block then combining through tens of tons of power.
-By applying Power Clamping Technology, "Nano silencer" not just makes lower noise and miniaturization possible, but also maximizes CPU stability.
-Through effective integration of PCT (Power Clamping Technology) and Sintered Powder Heat Pipe, difference in performance resulted by installation direction, which is the weakest point of the heat pipe cooler, doesn't occur.
2. Design compatibility
1)Compact Size
"Micro silencer" performs its best on Micro ATX motherboards as well as ATX standards.
It shows excellent compatibility in slim cases and low profile cases with limited space.
2)Low noise
Heat sink of "Micro silencer" has an excellent cooling performance, and makes low noise by applying PWM Control fan.
3)Cooling of Peripheral Parts
To increase the cooling effect of the peripheral parts, "Micro Silencer" is designed to make part of the wind go directly into the memory and the power supply part without contacting the hot heat sink.
Applicable CPU:
* Socket Standards : Intel Socket 775
* Thermal Design Power of CPU : below 105Watt
* Motherboard Standards : Micro ATX, ATX
Specs:
Product Name: Micro Silencer
Dimension: 103.5 x 99 x 59 (L x W x H)mm
Weight: 276g (Heat sink and Fan)
Heatsink Material:
-Pure copper (Heat Pipe),
-Aluminum(Base Block, Fins)
Dissipation Area: 1,740 cm²
Fan:
Dimension: F95*25T
Speed: Less than 2,600rpm ± 10%
Noise Level: 34.6dB(A) at 2,650rpm
Bearing Type: Rifle Bearing
Control Method: PWM, Auto Restart,Locked Current protection
Fan Life Expectancy:70,000hr continuous at 40°C ,15~65% relative humidity
TIM(Thermal Interface Material)
ThermalConductivity: 8 W/mK (ASTM D 5470)
Viscosity: 190 Pa·s
Density: 2.6 g/cm³
Color: Gray
A Better Look at Things
:
We've got basically a plain brown box for the packaging, minimalistic, but it gets the job done. One the side of the box we can see the 'Micro Silencer' box is ticked to indicate which is inside. You'll notice there is a choice for 'Nano Silencer' as well, and I've got that one for review as well, which will be up next week.
Opening the box we find the the instruction manual on top, under that we find the cooler itself.
Unpacking everything we don't find much, just the cooler, manual and screws with plastic washers.
The Thermolab Micro Silencer CPU cooler is an interesting design, yes it's small, very small actually, with two heatpipes and lots of fins. The downward blowing fan not only cools the CPU but also other components near the CPU socket. It feels very solid and well made also.
This cooler is only for LGA775 platforms and comes with the mounting bracket installed and thermal compound already applied.
The base seems well finished with faint machining lines visible, it appears to be flat as well.
Installation, Testing and Comparison
I'm installing the Thermolab Micro CPU Cooler on my Gigabyte Micro-ATX motherboard with an Intel C2D6420 CPU.
The first step is to slide the plastic washer over the screws.
Next of course is to install it on your motherboard, easy to do just four screws. Of course you'll have to take the motherboard out of the case to do the installation, but the mounting system is much more secure than the plastic push-pin type, so it's worth the extra effort.
I did run into a small problem, it worked out for me but others might not be so lucky. The Northbridge heatsink on this motherboard is large, and the Micro CPU Cooler actually hits the heatsink, it worked out for me because the fins of the heatsink fit between the fins of the cooler so I was able to install it.
Other than that I had no other clearance issues, it came close to other components but didn't touch them.
Ambient temperature during testing was 19C (+/- .3C).
To achieve load on the CPU I used Orthos Stress Prime, for several hours at a time over several days, and averaged out the temperatures to get the results shown in the charts below.
In this chart I've got two sets of temperatures for the Thermolab CPU Cooler, the first set labeled 'stock' is using the included thermal compound, the items labeled 'MX2' are the coolers with MX-2 Thermal Compound. I did this because all of my CPU coolers are tested using the MX-2 thermal compound to insure accurate results during testing.
We can see it easily beats the Intel Stock CPU cooler. Interestingly we can see the temps are about the same using the stock thermal compound or using the Arctic Cooling MX-2 compound, apparently the stuff they are using is better than the average goop we find on some coolers.
When connected to the CPU header it's virtually silent, I could not hear it over the rest of the system. While connected to the Molex, or with the fan running at full speed, it was audible over the rest of the system but not overly so, most people won't mind the noise level I'm sure.
Here's my CPU Cooler charts with the Thermolab Micro included to see how it compares to other out there, first is with them connected to the CPU header:
Not bad performance, taking the 5th place spot, very respectable and good performance.
Here's the results comparison with cooler connected to a Molex, or fans running at full speed:
Here again, we see very good performance from the Thermolab Micro CPU cooler.
Seeing just how small this cooler is, it performs very well when compared to coolers that are twice or three times its size.
Summary:
Considering just how small this cooler is, it has great performance overall, in fact I was a bit shocked by just how well it performed…
The size of the Thermolab Micro CPU Cooler makes it very much suited for most any application, it should fit fine in any size PC case with no problems. This could be a great cooler for an HTPC system as it's very quiet when connected to the CPU header, and the small size will most likely insure a good fit in a small HTPC case.
I did run across the one small problem with it hitting my Northbridge heatstink, for my setup it worked out but others might have a problem with this and I can see it just not fitting at all with some motherboards. If I tried to install this cooler on my EVGA 680i motherboard I know it would not fit as the Northbridge cooler is wider and taller than the one used in this review on the Gigabyte motherboard.
DragonSteelMods gives the Thermolab Micro Silencer CPU Cooler a 4.5 out of 5 score.
Pros:
-Small size
-Well made
-Fairly quiet
-Excellent performance for size
-Easy installation
-Solid mounting system
-Very quiet when connected to CPU header
Cons:
-Might be compatibility issues with certain motherboards
-Audible when fan running at full speed
I would like to thank Thermolab for the chance to review the Micro Silencer CPU Cooler and for their support of DSM.
review# 424