Gelid Silent Spirit CPU Cooler [large pictures]

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tiesum
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Gelid Silent Spirit CPU Cooler [large pictures]

Post by tiesum » Mon Oct 27, 2008 8:15 am

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Introduction:

A few weeks ago Gelid Solutions Ltd, a Hong Kong based company, introduced their first CPU-cooler. Gelid has two product lines: Silent and Gamer. This cooler is in the Silent category. A new high-performance CPU-cooler in the Game category will be launched soon. With the Silent Spirit, Gelid is aiming at the mid-range market and will be competing with the popular Arctic Freezer Pro. Luckily for you guys, I have one here for comparison.



The Package


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The cooler is designed for socket 775,754,939,940,AM2 and AM2+. An additional clip for socket 1366 will be launched soon.



The Cooler


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The cooler is feels very solid even though it only weighs 370 grams. The fan is blowing down on the motherboard with a slight angle. This way you can aim it in the direction of the outtake fan. The Arctic Freezer Pro is not aiming down but to the side. The advantage of this is that you can aim it directly at the outtake fan. The advantage of the Silent Spirit is that it effectively cools the components around the CPU. If you like, you could aim it at the memory. The cooler is attached to the motherboard with pushpins.


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There is an extra heatsink on the CPU. The fan also cools this part.


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The heatsink does not have a mirror finish but it's very flat. It comes with Gelids' GC-1 thermal paste pre-applied.


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The fan used on the Silent Spirit is the 92mm Silent 9PWM. As you might have guessed this fan is PWM-controlled which is becoming the standard connection. This way the BIOS can effectively control your fan speed. The PWM signal can make your fan spin very slowly without the danger of stopping it.

The specs of the fan:

Air Flow (CFM): 37.89
Bearing: Hydro Dynamic Bearing
Fan Speed (RPM): 900 – 2000
Noise Level (dBA): 11 - 23.5

The fan is attached to the cooler by rubber mounts. This way the vibrations from the fan are absorbed. Also, if necessary, the fan can easily be replaced with another 92mm fan.


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Four heat pipes are used in this cooler. The heat pipes are soldered on the heatsink.


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The fins are designed to maximize the airflow and make the air flow evenly through all parts of the fins.


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As you can see there is texture on the fins. This texture has a positive effect on the heat transfer.


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The CPU-cooler comes with a good manual in multiple languages.



Test Setup


The CPU will be tested on the following setup:

Cooler Master Stacker 810
Asus Maximus Formula SE
Intel E8400 @ 3.6 GHz (1.23 Volt)
Crucial Ballistix PC8500
Samsung Spinpoint F1 (in HD Silencer)
Tagan 480 Watt (Noctua modded)

For the subjective noise measurement all casefans were turned off.

The Silent Spirit is compared with the following fans on temperature and (subjective) sound measurement.

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The Intel Stock Cooler


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The Arctic Freezer 7 Pro

Temperatures were measured after 30 minutes load with Orthos and after 15 minutes idle. Because the coolers have to be tested under the same conditions the Gelid thermal grease was removed and Arctic Silver 5 was used on all coolers.



Results


Temperatures



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As you can see the Gelid Silent Spirit cools slightly better than the Freezer 7 Pro. The Intel Stock cooler is clearly not good enough for an overclocked CPU. The BIOS let's this fan spin much faster than the Gelid and Freezer 7 Pro. So what about the sound production?


Sound levels

Let's start with the Intel stock cooler. When the CPU is overclocked the fan is not running as slow as it can. The noise from the fan can be clearly heard. On low speed the Gelid and Freezer are almost inaudible, especially with a closed case. When I compare the Gelid to the Freezer 7 Pro, the Gelid creates slightly less noise than the Freezer. When the computer case is closed this difference is impossible to hear. When I use Speedfan to set the fan to the maximum speed the difference becomes much greater. Both fans are clearly audible but the Freezer creates a lot more noise.


Conclusion


Gelid has created a very good CPU-cooler. Of course it cannot compete with the high-end air-coolers on the market but this is not the intention. With this cooler Gelid is aiming at the midrange market. At the moment the Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 pro is the most popular fan on this market. As we have seen in the results the Gelid cooler performs slightly better even though it is much lighter (370 against 520 grams). The big question is if Gelid can offer the cooler at the same competitive price. If it can this cooler is certainly the better choice.

Pros

-good performance
-very quiet at low speeds
-PWM Fan
-Thermal paste pre-applied
-components around the CPU are actively cooled
-compatible with many sockets


Cons

-availability

NeilBlanchard
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Post by NeilBlanchard » Mon Oct 27, 2008 8:45 am

Thanks for the review! Am I correct in assuming that you have no connection with this company?

walle
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Post by walle » Mon Oct 27, 2008 9:16 am

Yet another useless product on the market in the vast sea of useless and rebranded crap, it is so tiresome and so insulting by now that I really don’t know where to begin.

What? You fell offended? well, put yourself in my shoes

FartingBob
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Post by FartingBob » Mon Oct 27, 2008 10:45 am

Its not a rebranded product as far as im aware.
Although i agree it doesnt seem worth it. Ok its cheap, but its not great for overclocking, not useful for silent PC's, and if you wanted to save money then the intel stock cooler is fine.

tiesum
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Post by tiesum » Mon Oct 27, 2008 11:04 am

Correct, I don't have a connection with the company. I did a review on the fans and asked for their CPU-cooler to test also.

It is not a rebranded product. What product should that be, walle?

I think it has potential. The Freezer is the most polular mid-range cooler on the market. This one is in the same price range and (at least in my review) performs better. The cooler is of course not suitable for a fanless system. However, when you have a motherboard with a PWM connection, the fan spins at speeds at which it is inaudible. When I wouldn't think the fan was silent enough i would't have posted it on this website.

Comments are welcome

FartingBob
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Post by FartingBob » Mon Oct 27, 2008 12:12 pm

It seems to only be available at one site in the US so far.
For comparison on NCIXUS.com
A-C Freezer 7 - $24.16
Gelid silent - $28.37
Scythe Mini Ninja - $34.03
Xigmatek HDT-S1283 - $26.73

Oh those, the xigmatek is definitely the best option from a silencer-on-a-budget perspective and the Minja might be worth the extra money over the freezer 7 and gelid depending on the CPU used (if you can use the minja passively or very low fan speed).

It would be nice to see more comparisons. Some people prefer top down coolers to help cool the mobo (although these days most run pretty cool or have heatsinks on the hot areas so its less of an issue).

EDIT: I should point out i did like the review, very professionally done. Do you do reviews for a website often?
Last edited by FartingBob on Mon Oct 27, 2008 2:31 pm, edited 1 time in total.

walle
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Post by walle » Mon Oct 27, 2008 1:42 pm

tiesum wrote:It is not a rebranded product. What product should that be, walle?
Yet another useless product on the market in the vast sea of useless and rebranded crap

tiesum
Posts: 12
Joined: Thu Oct 02, 2008 1:59 am
Location: Netherlands

Post by tiesum » Mon Oct 27, 2008 11:47 pm

FartingBob wrote:EDIT: I should point out i did like the review, very professionally done. Do you do reviews for a website often?
I've only just started. This is the third one, but I'd like to write more.

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