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DESIGN
The base of the Silent Tower consists of a solid copper plate that measures
2.2 x 2.3 x .25", with a step in it to clear the raised cam box
on S462 sockets. The finish on the base of the Silent Tower has a moderate amount
of tooling marks and is not polished to a high shine.
The base of the Silent Tower.
Thermaltake claims six copper heatpipes are soldered to the base and also
clamped from above by a copper plate, but it really appears to be three pairs of pipes in a U-shape. As best as I can tell, the 59 aluminum
fins are only press fitted over the heatpipes and are not directly soldered to them.
Heatpipe attachment to base. Clamp also serves to position the mounting
bracket.
The overall footprint of the Silent Tower is small, despite its lofty height.
The aluminum fin section starts 1.75" above the "keep-out" area, which
provide plenty of clearance for any normal memory DIMMs, power supply components
and all but the most massive northbridge heatsinks. The prospective buyer might
want to check out case dimensions though, as the 138mm height of this heatsink
may interfere with smaller cases.
The blue anodized fan shroud is made up of three stamped sheets
of .040" thick aluminum that have been pop-riveted together. The shroud
is attached to the heatsink by four machine screws that bolt it onto the top
aluminum fins. The fan shroud also serves as the attachment point for the included
92mm fan. The opposite side of the shroud is drilled and tapped to enable the
mounting of an auxiliary 92mm or 80mm fan for increased air pressure through
the heatsink fins.
The fan is a Thermaltake-badged Panaflo FBL, which uses the patented
LAC Augmented Fan
design under license. It looks virtually identical to the 80mm version found
on Thermaltake's successful Silent Boost heatsink. This type of fan design
supposedly increases airflow without increasing noise by making use of the blade-edge
turbulence normally lost in conventional frame fan designs. The fan is of fixed
speed and terminated with the standard 3-pin motherboard connector and includes
rpm monitoring capability. Cross-referencing the Panaflo
FBL spec sheet (PDF file link), it looks like the TT fan is somewhere between
the stock Panaflo FBL Medium and High speed models, in terms of
amperage and CFM. Considering that Panasonic lists the M at 30 dBA/1m,
and the H at 35 dBA/1m, TT 21dBA spec looks absurdly low.
Silent Tower with shroud removed. Cooling fins are slid over heatpipes
and stacked on each other.
Thermaltake also includes a complete set of mounting hardware
that includes all the brackets, bolts, pads and other assorted parts that you'd
need to mount the Silent Tower on your favorite K7 (holes in the board around the CPU socket required),
K8, Socket 478 or LGA 775 motherboard. All the mounting methods
clamp the heatsink directly to the motherboard. This is probably a
good idea due to the weight and height of this heatsink, but unfortunately means
that the motherboard will have to be removed from the case in order to mount
the heatsink.
Also included is a 2 gram tube of thermal compound labeled "Powerful
Thermaltake Compound". How powerful it actually is will have to remain a
mystery because, as with all my heatsink reviews, I used Arctic
Silver Ceramique. Thermaltake also provides a lavishly illustrated instruction
manual along with the heatsink. It's quite complete but isn't designed to be
used by anyone with 40+ year old eyesight. I had to break out the old magnifying
glass to make out of many of the pictures and diagrams.
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