SilentiumPC announced a new high-end CPU air cooler with an interesting design. In the tech world today, we have become accustomed to seeing simple rectangular heatsinks with a series of heatpipes and a fan attached. Each company tends to arrange the heatpipes differently, and sometimes add a second fan, but the overall design remains much the same. Although the Fortis 3 HE1425 is similar to those designs in some ways, it also enjoys a redesigned heatsink, which gives it a unique look and potentially increased cooling performance.
The Fortis 3 HE1425 utilizes a series of five heatpipes, each 6 mm in diameter. The heatsink is symmetrical in design, and SilentiumPC placed the heatpipes into two rows: a row of three, and a row of two. Naturally, the heatpipes meet at the base of the cooler, and make direct contact to the CPU. SilentiumPC did not opt to utilize a solid base plate for cooling. Although the effects of this decision on the unit's cooling performance is questionable, it will prevent customers from utilizing gallium-based TIMs such as Coollaboratory's Liquid Pro, and similar corrosive TIMs.
As with most large high-end air cooling solutions, it is necessary to use a mounting bracket to fasten it securely to the motherboard. The overall design of the mounting mechanism isn't anything special, but the screws utilized are. SilentiumPC took advantage of low-profile mounting screws in an attempt to conserve the height of the cooler.
As anyone who has ever installed a larger air cooler like this knows, the chance that the cooler is too tall to fit inside of your PC case is a very serious concern, and limits the use of this product inside many chassis. This cooler tops out at 158 mm with the fan installed, and although this is only slightly reduced relative to competing air coolers -- Noctua's NH-D15 and Phantek's PH-TC14PE measure 165 mm and 171 mm tall, respectively -- it will still help get the product in places that other 140 mm fan coolers can't go.
This will make mounting the cooler inside of the system more difficult, though. Reaching around larger air coolers to tighten screws is always a difficult task, and as the screws shrink as they do on the Fortis 3, this will likely only be harder.
The fan on the Fortis 3 is a SilentiumPC Sigma Pro 140, a new fan designed specifically for this cooler. Utilizing a new blade design and a max speed of 1400 RPM, it produces a total airflow of 78.6 CFM. It also remains relatively silent while doing so, rated to produce no more than 22 dBA of noise.
Turning to the heatsink utilized, SilentiumPC opted to take a chunk out of the fins; going down the middle of the cooler is a V-shaped groove. It isn't clear why the company did this, but as there are no heatpipes in this sector, it might have been simply to give the cooler a unique look. It could also be that this added material restricted airflow, and removing it increases cooling performance. (It may simply have been an easy way to cut corners on the budget too, though.) Regardless, the 38 layers of aluminum fins are still present around the heatpipes, so cooling performance shouldn't be impaired by this decision.
The cooler is compatible with all non-server sockets from AMD AM2 and up, and Intel LGA 775 and up. This includes the LGA 2011 socket, which blurs the line between server and desktop. It is also rated for a max TDP of 220 W, indicating that it's compatible with even the hottest running desktop CPUs on the market.
The cooler will go on sale September 10; the MSRP is $34.90 USD.
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