Silverstone NT01 Heatsink..any reviews?

[bgmartin]

Was looking at items to put together a new system and ran across this heatsink. Link
Looks interesting and different than your normal heatsink. Tried finding some reviews with no luck. Was wondering if anyone had seen any info on it or is this too new of a product to be tested by review sites yet?

Thanks,

bgmartin

 

[PlatinumGold]

looks basically like what the Shuttle Cases use.

 

[Questing]

There's a review of this interesting heat sink being used with Silverstone's new case with the wind tunnel. Two 120mm fans at either end of the tunnel pull/push the air through past the cpu heat sink. This CPU heat sink is designed to take advantage of that steady stream of air. The review explains Silverstone's intention really well.

Review of Silverstone NT101 heat sink

I just received this case today. It's amazing. Absolutely gorgeous, even stylish, and very well engineered. Not your typical beige box! I'm thinking I should get the heat sink, too, but I'm still trying to find where it's sold.

 

[Questing]

More reviews focused on the cooler alone:

3D Velocity
NeoSeeker
Extreme Computing

Interesting that with their own revolutionary case, it could be used without fans but otherwise it seems to need the two 60mm fans.

 

[Bluefront]

I've got one running right now in an AMS CF1009 case, using a P4-3.2 Northwood. It was a difficult fit with much modding....but worth it. I'm using a 120mm globe fan sucking through a short duct with the Silverstone a tight fit in the intake end. Couldn't run any cooler....at 22c ambient with the globe fan at about 1350 rpms, the P4 idles at 32C and maxes at 44c using CPUBurn. These are die temps....knock off about 4c measuring the base of the heatsink right above the CPU. This case has only three fans right now. The Globe CPU fan, the PSU fan (another Globe at 1000rpms) and a small 80mm HD fan at 850rpms.

Nice heatsink if you can get it to fit anything,,,,

Photos

 

[Questing]

Ah, sweet system! What a beautiful box! Thanks for all the inspiring photos and ideas! Beautiful job, Bluefront!

For anyone who wants to view the specs on this cpu cooler or who's wondering whether this odd-sized, large cpu cooler will fit their mobo, Silverstone's product overview lists compatible mobos.

I ordered the NT01 cpu cooler from Xtreme Gear, and ordered fans from EndPCNoise.com: two 60mm Pabst fans (12 dB) for it (probably not necessary) and an 80mm Pabst fan (19 dB) to replace one included with the case that one review said was noisy. I bought the Silverstone SST-TJ06 wind-tunnel case from NewEgg.

I installed all the drives and mobo in this toolless case and am now awaiting the arrival of fans, cpu cooler, and mobo power supply extensions. The reviews warned that the design of this case might need these extensions; I _knew_ my power supplies cables were long. Hah! They were about 3" too short.

It looks like it will be worth the wait!

 

[Bluefront]

Questing.....I can tell you one thing about this heatsink. It does not perform very well just sitting in front of a case fan that's blowing out. IMHO, the fins are too close together for semi-passive use. To get the temps down to where I was happy(with a slow fan speed), I had to tighten up the foam duct till most of the airflow is forced between the fins. I cut 10C off max temps with a few pieces of foam.

 

[Questing]

Bluefront, that's very interesting. I'll have to do some testing/tweaking once I get it installed. I'm curious to see how it does with Silverstone's own case design. Your system looks very clean inside. Very well done.

 

[Bluefront]

Thanks for the kind words.....actually I'm still working on this case. I'm changing the globe fans for two Yate Loon orange slow-speed models. And the fan controller is on the way out...it doesn't like speeds below 900rpms(beeps).

Right now I can run both 120s around 1000rpms, and still maintain a CPU temp about 35C. I'm using a DigitalDoc 5 to turn on a secondary CPU fan at higher temps (over 45C).....so I never go much past 46C. And it's still quiet.

I do like that heatsink.....but I really had to do a lot of cutting to make it fit.

 

[Questing]

Between school and work, it's taken me a while to get this system built. I also had to buy power cable extensions for the mobo (because of the Silverstone wind-tunnel case) and additional fans for the NT101. I used Arctic Silver thermal compound when seating the NT101.

The NT101 fit easily into Silverstone's own case. Before ordering the case, I had checked to make sure my mobo (Asus P4S800-E) was supported (see link posted earlier). So I didn't have to do any cutting or fitting. My mobo configuration required that I add two 60mm fans; I didn't even attempt totally passive cooling. In my non-air-conditioned house, I need every bit of help possible to keep the box cool in summer.

I found two 60mm ultra-quiet (16dB) Pabst case fans at End PC Noise.com. They're so much quieter than anything else in my case that they add no additional noise.

Because one of the case reviews (see links posted earlier) mentioned that the included 80mm case fan was noisy, I also bought a 9dB Papst 8412NGLLE Super Quiet Case Fan to replace the one included with the case. The review said that the two 120mm case fans were quiet, so I didn't mess with them. If I'd had more time, I would have waited to replace this fan until I'd tried the one included.

All in all, the system stays very cool and runs much quieter than in my old case, even with the same PC Power and Cooling 425W power supply. With room temperature around 65-70 de. F., at startup, the mobo runs 25-28 de. C. and the cpu runs 25-27 de. C. at startup.

After a few hours, I'll check the temperatures again and send another report.

 

[Questing]

I just updated the system information in my profile. While transferring to the new case, I also upgraded my processor to 3.0GHz and RAM to 1GB. I also upgraded my video card to MSI's FX5500-TD 256MB.

I'm really impressed that this case is staying so much cooler (and quieter) with a faster chip, more memory, and a hotter video card (with its own fan).

 

[Questing]

Now that I've upgraded my profile, I see that all my old messages have the new information. So I'll tell you here that I was running a 2.0GB P4 chip, 512MB slower (266Mhz) RAM, and a 64MB video card. And the system is now significantly cooler and quieter!

 

[Questing]

AnandTech's review of my new Silverstone Temjin 6 case. Oh, it's so beautifully engineered; a really good-looking case! Tech Support was really helpful, too, when my case arrived a little shaken up in transit from NewEgg with one screw missing.

 

[Questing]

After 4 hours, the mobo is running at 27 de C. and the cpu is 33 de. C.!