Do you like your Silverado?

[Guest]

I'm trying to decide if I should order a Silverado or not. Since this is about the highest density forum for users of it, I thought I'd ask here.

If you like it and think it is better than your old HSF, what was the old unit that you upgraded from?

If you ordered one and aren't satisfied, is there a particular reason?

I'm mainly trying to decide between the Silverado and a Hedgehog with a more conservative fan (not the tornado-like Delta 7k rpm one.)

 

[rd382]

did you read toms review of it?

--- Not all idiots are stupid, some merely know <font color=red>no</font color=red><font color=orange>th</font color=orange><font color=blue>ing</font color=blue> ---

 

[Guest]

Yes, I've looked at the review, but a few extra opinions of other people never hurt.

Usually for every outstanding review, there's another review that puts a different light on the product (for example some reviews put the Hedgehog in the lead, while others like Tom's had it more mid-pack.)

Basically I'm checking to see if the outstanding results shown here are typical or was this just a one case excellent review.

 

[dryfly]

Kil Dude: Since you asked I'll give my 2 cents worth. I think the silverado is overpriced. My personal opinion is that it is not the heat sink that performed well but the dual squirrel cage fans that it was using. If you look at the pix tom takes of the unit it looks to be to be a very mediocre heat sink. Also, silver is only moderately more heat conductive than copper, so I honestly don't think the silver disc has that much to do with the excellent performance of the silverado unit. I think a good copper heat sink, like the one produced by global win (don't get the hedge hog, the fins are only pressed into the base and this gives a poor performance (from what I read at least)) with those fans used would give a similar result.

Note, I don't own the silverado or any other high performance heat sink, but I have been looking hard the last month or two.

If I wanted a high performance heat sink, with low noise, I personally would be tempted to try a very low cost unit and attach two of those fans to the heat sink and just see what happens. I have a coolermaster DP6h51 (i think that is the number) and I bet that heat sink would do just about as well with those fans.

Anyway, you may not want to go through all the trouble of custom modding a heat sink so perhaps my thoughts are not worth considering.

However, what I am thinking about is purchasing the MC 462 swiftech heat sink, the one that came out on top of the cooler review, and put two of those fans on it. (you can purchase this heat sink without the loud fan, so this is a viable option. Note that the heat sink is expensive, but since the silverado is also mega $ this may not be a concern for you. My thought is to get the best unit and work a few more hours to save up...) I bet this combo would give the best cooling and the low noise which I am looking for.

Food for thought.

<font color=blue>You don't know what it is, but it's there. Like a splinter in your mind.</font color=blue>

 

[Tempus]

in reply to: "If you look at the pix tom takes of the unit it looks to be to be a very mediocre heat sink." I say: The thing is huge and wide!

in reply to: "Also, silver is only moderately more heat conductive than copper, so I honestly don't think the silver disc has that much to do with the excellent performance of the silverado unit" I say: Silver is decently more conductive than copper, and it dissipates heat better.

in reply to: "I think a good copper heat sink, like the one produced by global win (don't get the hedge hog, the fins are only pressed into the base and this gives a poor performance (from what I read at least)) with those fans used would give a similar result." I say: Dude have you noticed that the reviews of all-copper heatsinks all suck. Copper is a good transferer of heat, but when it comes to heat dissipation, it plain sucks. Nothing beats aluminum in radiating heat. That is why a silver transfere matched with an aluminum heatsink is the ideal combination, as the Silverado does.

in reply to: "perhaps my thoughts are not worth considering" I say: You got that right! Just joshing you .

Overall the Silverado rocks, if your willing to pay the price for it, as you said.

- Tempus fugit donec vestrum relictus tripudium. Autem amor praeterea magis pretium.

 

[Tempus]

Go for it, the Silverado rocks. I used to have a Taisol GKC... at a temp of 52C at idle. Now I have a temp of 39C at idle with the silverado. It rocks!!! Be sure to use Artci Silver II with it, and not that cheap stuff they send with it.

- Tempus fugit donec vestrum relictus tripudium. Autem amor praeterea magis pretium.

 

[TheAntipop]

hey tempus, how come you always reply to the same thing 2 times in a row? just noticed that in this forum especially

Even a broken watch is right twice a day...

 

[Tempus]

Because I was replying to two different people of course .

- Tempus fugit donec vestrum relictus tripudium. Autem amor praeterea magis pretium.

 

[dryfly]

I have a couple of points. First of all I think that a forum like this one is a place where people of differing opinions should be able to express those opinions without being roasted over the coals. I don't think that we should be trying to always justify our answers to every post we make. It is stupid and a waste of time. If we all agreed on everything all the time we would still be using the IBM PC and motorola microprocessors.

Anyway, I guess I have to justify myself ... so hear it goes (and I'll try to be nice about it).

<<<<<in reply to: "If you look at the pix tom takes of the unit it looks to be to be a very mediocre heat sink." I say: The thing is huge and wide! >>>>

The silverado aluminmum heat sink is no wider or bigger than other alum sinks on the market. Look at the global win FOP 38 for example. The reason why I made my original point is that I am curious why the silverado DID SO WELL!

<<<<<<in reply to: "Also, silver is only moderately more heat conductive than copper, so I honestly don't think the silver disc has that much to do with the excellent performance of the silverado unit" I say: Silver is decently more conductive than copper, and it dissipates heat better.>>>>>

Silver is 7% better at heat conduction than copper. Interestingly copper is 81% better at heat conduction than aluminum. Consider thermal conductivities. I found this on a web site but you could find it in any physics text book. There are a few substances that are at the top of the thermal conductivity charts, namely:

Diamond (2300 W/mK)
Pyrolytic Graphite (1950 W/mK)
Silver (429 W/mK),
Pure Copper (401 W/mK), and
Pure Aluminum (237 W/mK).

Of course, diamond and the graphite stuff are so expensive we can't use them, so they are off the list of possible materials.

Note, however, that the thermal conductivity for silver is 429 and copper is 401 (higher is better). So silver performs only 7% better than copper (I worked it out). That's why I think the silver disk on the bottom of the heat sink is a good idea, but it will perform only marginally better than a properly designed all copper heat sink.

Also, I don't have time to look it up right now, (it is somewhere on this message board thought) but if you were to build a heat sink out of pure copper and build another one out of pure aluminum, the copper heat sink will outperform the aluminum one. Many believe that aluminum is a better heat radiator than copper, but this is not true. If I find the link I will include it later. But the reason why copper heat sinks right now are not performing really well (and I think there are several which are, such as the swiftech MC 462 which uses the solid copper base) is that copper is much harder to form, mold, cut, work with etc. Amuminum is easier to shape, so the fins etc are easier to make etc.

<<<<<in reply to: "perhaps my thoughts are not worth considering" I say: You got that right! Just joshing you>>>>>

Let's try to stay civil on the message boards.

<font color=blue>You don't know what it is, but it's there. Like a splinter in your mind.</font color=blue>

 

[Tempus]

In reply to: "The silverado aluminmum heat sink is no wider or bigger than other alum sinks on the market. Look at the global win FOP 38 for example" I say: So you consider the FOP38 a medioric heatsink?

In reply to: "But the reason why copper heat sinks right now are not performing really well (and I think there are several which are, such as the swiftech MC 462 which uses the solid copper base) is that copper is much harder to form, mold, cut, work with etc. Amuminum is easier to shape, so the fins etc are easier to make etc." I say: What does difficulty in assembly have to do with their cooling performance? As long as the fins are correctly shaped it shouldn't matter. What are you talking about? Please explain.

In reply to: "Let's try to stay civil on the message boards" I say: Dude it was just a joke to lighten the mood of the post. Sorry if it offended you. I said I was just kidding...

- Tempus fugit donec vestrum relictus tripudium. Autem amor praeterea magis pretium.

 

[Fa1c0n]

In response to Tempus and Dryfly:

Dryfly, I think that the link you may be referring to, is to a post I made called: <A HREF="http://forumz.tomshardware.com/hardware/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&p=627871#627871" target="_new">"The truth about copper heatsinks and aluminum ones".</A>

In it we had a long discussion about this subject and I did a great deal of research to make sure that we got the facts on copper and aluminum. It's a good read and many knowledgeable people contributed to it. Including an engineer from Arctic Silver. I think we pretty much got to the bottom of the subject.

I basically had heard the same misinformation as you Tempus, so I recommend that you read it. I sure learned a lot.

-Take care


<b><font color=green> Have a day </font color=green></b>

 

[dryfly]

Fa1c0n:
Thanks for the link. Yes, that was the one I was thinking of. I love this cooling stuff, I find it very puzzling and interesting at the same time!
Later



<font color=blue>You don't know what it is, but it's there. Like a splinter in your mind.</font color=blue>

 

[Guest]

The Silverado is great! I have a 1.33 Athlon mildly overclocked. When using the 10 volt cable, the temperature is steady at 33C, with a full CPU load. The best part is the noise free operation. This HSF was pricey, but worth every penny.

Alan

 

[Tempus]

Is it 1.33GHz by defualt, or overclocked? If it is default, what exactly was your overclock?

- Tempus fugit donec vestrum relictus tripudium. Autem amor praeterea magis pretium.

 

[Guest]

Hello, Tempus. It was a default 1.33 running on a k7 master board. I have the FSB set at 140. So far, it is still running cool and very stable. I think my case helps also. It is a tornado 2000 and has some of the best airflow I have ever seen.

Alan