Thermaltake Silent boost, JUNK!

[EAT MY DUST]

Just bought a Thermaltake Silent boost

Dont waste your time or money on this thing, the stock Arkua cooler was better

[Andromeda43]

I use only the OEM cooler that came with my AMD CPU.....works just fine.

OK....I didn't just land from Mars....I know other enthusiasts like to play

with different coolers to knock off a degree or two here or there.

I also have to assume (rightly, I hope) that anyone doing that has the

good sence to properly apply an adequate amount of heat sink compound

when installing a new cooler.

In the pictures, it appears that the first cooler uses copper fins. This should be great,

because copper is a great heat conductor......but I see a problem, just from the picture.

The spacing between the copper fins is very narrow. This would allow the fins to pack up

with dirt much faster than the second cooler where there is more space between the fins.

It also limits air flow.

I once worked in an 'air flow' lab and I know that what seems to work fine at first glance,

doesn't always work in practice. Just a slight change somewhere can greatly impact air flow.

An example: Hard drive coolers......I buy small, economical two-fan coolers for all my HD's.

With two fans running, they should move a lot of air and keep the drive cool....right?

Wrong! The fans sit too close to the bottom of the drive for the air to properly escape and the result is that the drive does NOT get the proper cooling. The effect of the fan being to close to the drive is called an "Air Dam". I solved the problem by spacing the cooler 1/4" off of the bottom of the drive with the little brass spacers used to mount motherboards. See it Here.

Ok,,,,sorry for digressing a bit.....

EMD, what didn't you like about the Thermaltake cooler. Many users absolutely swear by that brand.

Curious minds want to know.....

B)

Edited June 6, 2006 by Andromeda43

[EAT MY DUST]

If you look carefully, you can see the fins are glued to the plate, with a L shape bottom, that's what makes it a piece of junk.

I should have known better....

The skived way is the way to go.

[LLXX]

Glue? Are you sure they're not welded?

[EAT MY DUST]

jb weld maybe......

I think the volcano 12 is the same piece, with a bigger fan........gotta get a bigger fan.......

http://www.dirkvader.de/page/tt-silentboost.html

www.dirkvader.de/ page/volcano12.html

Edited June 8, 2006 by EAT MY DUST

[blinkdt]

Get a Zalman copper cooler in your hands and you will feel the difference. Thermaltake is a cheap toy in comparison, noisy as well. One of my students recently brought his rig in, lots of Thermaltake components. I was not impressed, but he seemed happy so....

[Brando569]

im happy with my thermaltake polo 4-in-1 even though it does sound like a hair drier above 4000rpms i definately does the job well. the fins are always cool to the touch, the hottest my amd64 x2 3800 has even been was 128 degrees farenheit and that was when i didnt have my ac on and i was playing UT2004 for like an hour. other then that its usually between 83 degrees and about 110 degrees. definately worth the $40