I must say I've had a silent spirit for some 9 months already. I find to to be excellent because I bent out the heatpipes so I can run with a fanless CPU heatsink. I basically copied the SPCR article single moving part PC. I have an athlon x2 65w undervolted inside an antec solo. With a very slow moving 120mm case fan it performs great. Most of the time the heatsink doesn't really feel any hotter than ambient. Under load (full speed but undervolted a bit) it gets warm but nowhere near hot. Probably in the 40 something degree range for CPU temps. As for noise, the PC is on the verge of inaudible. The loudest part is a samsung eco green f2 500GB (quietest hard disk reviewed by SPCR?) mounted inside a scythe quiet drive. That's mainly during seeks and it's not noise from vibration.

Anyway, I would recommend the silent spirit just because it enables you to do that. I've been very pleased with it and the main reason I went for it was because there was a limited choice of suitable heatsinks. I thought the stock fan was pretty disappointing though. I replaced it immediately and doubt I will ever use it again.

Oh and my silent spirit came with 1366 mounting clips in a little box. LGA1156 clips are available in theory, but the are nowhere to be found it seems. Plus on price, the silent spirit is cheaper at least over here. Around £18 (26 USD) compared to £25 (36 USD) for the ZZ which is 39% higher.

The Silent Spirit is utterly cute when it's upside down in the photos. It looks like an earnest little robot.

OK, that shed's no light whatsoever on the subject, but I had to say it.

Thanks for the review. It's always nice to see the manufacturers come up with something "new", like tilted concepts to see how well or bad they perform.

Interestingly, Gelid has a more conventional tower HS now --
http://www.gelidsolutions.com/products/ ... d=12&id=46

I'm impressed by Samurai ZZ. I might get one for the linux system. Retail in here around 23€'s. Xigmatek HDT-1264 though is special sale 15€'s... Uhm, which one to get.

Thank you again for great review. It seems budget silent cooling is easier as more manufacturer's bring good coolers in budget price.

I wish Scythe would stop bundling sleeve bearing fans with their coolers :/

Why? Scythe fans performed wonderfully in SPCR review, especially their 120mm fans.

Longevity concerns.

I've had sleeve bearing fans die on me within 2 years of moderate use before