Arctic Cooling NV Silencer 5 (REV.3)

Arctic Cooling, as their name would suggest, specialise in computer based cooling products. Going back a few years, to when both ATI Technologies and nVidia released their 95xx and 4xxx series of cards, overclocking started to become a viable way for home users to squeeze every last drop out of their systems. It was during this time that Arctic Cooling released their ATI & nVidia Silencer series, for which they are best known. This is not all that the cooling company offer though, as they have expanded their entourage to include CPU coolers, case fans, thermal paste and even a line of desktop chassis, which are engineered from the ground up to improve on the cooling methods of the ATX design. Due to this legacy of products, Arctic Cooling has earned a reputation among system builders as being the Swiss army knife of the cooling industry.

Today we will be looking at revision 3 of the NV silencer 5, which has been updated to include the new 7800 series of cards. As we all know, the nVidia 7800 series are among the fastest graphics cards available; with this speed the cards also have a reputation of being rather loud, to say the least. Let’s see how the NV Silencer 5 Rev3 copes when pitted against one of these graphical behemoths.

{mospagebreak title=Features}

{mospagebreak title=Packing} 

Packing:

As with the entire NV silencer range, all components have been packed inside of a transparent plastic casing. The advantage of clear packing is that all components are on show, so you really know what you are buying. I searched for a way of opening the packing by hand; but ended up resorting to a pair of scissors. On opening, I discovered a slight variation to the web store photographs, which advertised this model as coming with a tube of thermal paste. Instead of thermal paste, I found a thermal pad for cooling the core.

This was not the only change in design from some of the earlier revisions, such as the underside of the heat sink; the part which actually makes contact with the RAM/Core, was more of a matt finish compared to the elegant mirrored shine of many high performance heat sinks. Arctic Cooling’s reason for this, I have to assume, is because of the number of complaints from customers concerning conductivity issues, many of whom had taken it on themselves to use a file in an attempt to improve thermal contact. Arctic Cooling’s answer has been simply to do away with the old design and use pads for the memory, much like the ones attached to 7800GT stock cooler only giving the appearance of being more hardwearing.

One feature, which was quite a pleasant surprise to find included, was the addition of a memory plate. Although not advertised as a 512MB card compatible cooling solution, the back plate unlike the front memory pads is made entirely from aluminium, a metal well known for its thermal conductivity properties. Also included in the package are two front port plates, used for connecting to the front of the card and the cooler to a chassis. In addition to this is an Arctic Cooling logo sticker and strip of white stickers, which are used when you decide to remove the cooler and want to keep the memory pads clean.

Features / Packing 4.7/5

 {mospagebreak title=Installation}

 Installation:

It is hard to explain in words just how simple installing this cooler actually is (but I will try anyway.) Once the stock cooler has been removed and all residue has been cleaned up from the chips, simply remove the stickers, which are attached to the memory pads. With the pads removed, thread the screws through the inner most set of screw holes located closest to the core. Once done, turn the card with silencer attached on its front (fan side down) and place the protective thermal ‘X’ shaped pad with metal attachment through the screws. With the card now in place, all that is needed is to tighten on the thumbscrews, I found that using a very small screwdriver to give them an extra turn helped keep everything in place, as the thumbscrews turned by hand don’t provide the solid connection needed to hold the silencer firmly in place.

Finally plug in the fan power cable and you are ready to plug this baby into the motherboard, additionally the option to install the PCI faceplates for both the card and cooler is available. I found that the test card already fit perfectly into the motherboard, so only the cooler plate was needed in order to stop any air rebounding back inside the case.

In all, I found installing the silencer a far simpler affair than removing, the actual stock cooler. Although the instruction leaflet is sparse to say the least, it provides all the necessary information that you would need to install this cooler (after all it’s not rocket science).

The only drawback with this cooler is that of its size. A stock 7800GT cooler comes in at just under 2cms where as the NV Silencer at its largest point measured approximately 2 inches. This puts any question of running an SLI setup with one of these cards an impossibility as the second PCI-E slot on the test motherboard had been completely covered over after fitting the cooler.

Installation: 4.2/5

{mospagebreak title=Performance} 

Performance:

To test performance of the NV Silencer I have decided to use 3DMark06, each test will run using a loop five times; I decided to exclude all CPU tests so as not to give the card a chance to cool off. While running the tests the nVidia control panel’s temperature display screen will be in view on the desktop, to provide an accurate reading as soon as the tests are completed. I have also decided to include an overclocked set of results, using coolbits 2.0. For the overclocked set of results I have set the core to 497 MHz and memory to 1.10 GHz , the card of choice for all tests is a PNY 7800GT.

As you can see, there is very little difference between either of the cooling options when running on the desktop. Once 3DMark06 had been fired up, though we see a slightly disappointing two-degree difference between cards. From the over clocked results we see a more encouraging eleven-degree decrease in heat from the NV silencer.

After running each test, I also made note of how fast the temperatures returned to their ambient readings. While the stock cooler maintained a high temperature during each test and in fact for quite a while after the tests had completed, the NV silencer dropped almost instantly down to forty degrees Celsius; not only after the loop had been completed but also during each two-second break as 3DMark prepared to launch the next graphical test.

The NV silencer is also rated as running at an audible level of 0.9 Sones, while no audio reading equipment was available at the time of the review; I found the noise level to be inaudible compared to before fitting the NV silencer. Where previously, the loudest component in the test system up to that point had been the 7800GT, now it was the motherboards chipset fan causing the most irritation.

Performance 4.3/5

{mospagebreak title= Price / Warranty} 

Price / Warranty:

Pricing, as with every component, varies store to store but I was able to pick up the NV silencer for around twenty pounds (Incl. P&P) I found this price to be very reasonable. Arctic Cooling offer a Six-year warranty with all of their graphics coolers, since the average graphics card becomes obsolete after 3 years, to most enthusiasts, the cooler will at least be covered from all defects past the ownership of the card.

Price / Warranty 4.5/5

{mospagebreak title=Conclusion} 

 Conclusion:

In a nutshell, Arctic Cooling have released another great product in the form of the NV Silencer 5 (Rev.3) and one which excels in both silence and thermal conductivity. Although it has to be said, die hard overclockers may want to look at other options such as water cooling for their needs, since the results of our test indicated this cooler would be better suited to prolonging the life of your card rather than achieving a maximum overclock at rock bottom temps. We were tempted to run each test again in retrospect using Arctic Silver 5 thermal compound, but thought it would be unfair to both Arctic Cooling and our reader base as the coolant is not included in the NV silencer’s retail package.

Pros:

- Low price

- Inaudible when running

- Good conductivity

- Easy installation

Cons:

- No SLI capability