Product: Silverstone NT06 CPU Cooler
Author: Paul Mercer
Category: Cooling
Date: October 2006
Product cost: MSRP $59.99
Manufacturer: Silverstone
Spelling and Grammatical Editor: Jason Hambly & Jon Aubrey
Introduction:
Silverstone are quite a large company founded in 2003. Better known for
their PC enclosures and power supplies, today I?ll be reviewing a different
product from them in the form of a CPU cooler.
The Silverstone Nitrogon NT06 is billed as ?The ultimate in forced-air cooling
solution? on the Silverstone website, over the next few pages I?ll be seeing just
how well it can improve the operating temperatures of a Core2Duo CPU over the
stock Intel cooling solution.
{mospagebreak title= Packaging}
The Silverstone Nitrogon NT06 arrived in perfect condition, in it’s retail packaging. Encased securely in fairly stiff foam, the heatsink is unlikely to be damaged in transit.
Included with the NT06 are the various fixings and mounting hardware needed to fasten the cooler to either AMD or Intel CPU sockets and a tube of (dried out) generic thermal paste. The NT06 is compatible with Intel P4 Socket 478, LGA775 and AMD Socket 754, 939, 940.
There’s also a handy fan speed controller and of course a useful set of instructions which also has the warranty information.
{mospagebreak title= Design and Features}
According to the Silverstone Website, the base, heat pipes and
upper fins are all copper. I believe this is slight mistake, the upper fins are in fact
aluminium, which helps to keep the weight down.
Looking at the rather large heatsink, you could be forgiven for
thinking that it looks rather like a Thermaltake SI120 (minus two heat pipes)
or very similar to an AeroCool Dominator.
The size gives expectations that it should be a good performer. Short but stocky, the Silverstone NT06 is designed with a solid
copper base, with copper heat pipes to transfer the heat from the base to a
large array of aluminium fins at the top. The fins are then in turn, cooled by
the airflow from a high-pressure fan. The fans RPM (Revolutions Per Minute) can be tuned using
the separate fan speed controller, allowing you to vary the amount of airflow
(and noise) needed depending on the situation at hand.
As I took a close look at the base of the cooler for the first time, it appeared to be
fairly smooth with a few machining marks, this was no mirror finish, I have
seen worse bases on a few other coolers and of course the base
could be lapped if desired, but I wasn’t too impressed with the finish.
Examining the heatpipes, we can see that to maximize surface area
contact, Silverstone has opted to squash the heatpipes and solder them rather
than machining channels into the copper base which would have been the better method.
{mospagebreak title= Installation}
Installing the Silverstone NT06 cooler was fairly straightforward.
The motherboard must be removed from the case and the supplied back plate fitted to support
the weight of the Silverstone NT06 (570g). The back plate is held in place
using four screws, with plastic washers on the motherboard side for insulation
and then a hex nut on each screw. This leaves the top of the screws exposed and
forms the supports for the heatsink.
Securing the cooler is made a lot easier
by the use of knurled thumbscrews as opposed to some clip mounting mechanisms
on certain other heat sinks I could mention.
{mospagebreak title= Testing and Performance}
Test System:
1x Intel Core 2 Duo E6700
1x Asus P5B Deluxe WiFi/AP
2x 1024MB Crucial 10th Anniversary PC5400 3-3-3-8
1x XFX Nvidia 7900GT
1x 80GB Hitachi SATA2 HDD
1x Stock Intel Boxed Heatsink
Testing was done initially with the standard boxed cooler to get a
base reading for comparison and throttling functions were disabled in the BIOS throughout all tests.
I had planned to run the computer in two different
scenarios; at stock speeds and overclocked… I’d never actually used the boxed Intel heatsink before and unfortunately, after testing at
stock speeds, it quickly became apparent that
overclocking with this heatsink would be out of the question.
For maximum heat
generation I used Orthos and the ‘Small FFTs’ test to stress the CPU. Temperature
readings were taken after half an hour, the computer was then left to idle for
10 minutes until the temperatures stopped falling and the idle levels recorded.
The process was repeated twice with the Silverstone NT06 cooler, once with the
fan running at the slowest speed and once again at full speed.
With a standard speed of 2667MHz and using only 1.3V, I didn’t expect the Intel boxed cooler to do so badly.
Clearly, the Silverstone Nitrogon NT06 cooler does a much better
job at cooling than the standard heatsink. Even with the fan turned down to 800 RPM it still kept up with the Intel cooler running at full speed.
When turned right down, the fan spins at approximately 800 RPM and is very
quiet, but when running at full speed, although rated 2400 RPM, the motherboard
monitor registered around 2750 RPM. At this speed, it is certainly audible to
say the least. During the overclocking tests the NT06 was left at high fan
speed, personally I could not run this fan at full speed in a 24/7 system, the
noise level is just too distracting. Although for benching, the extra pressure
and airflow can help to cool the components surrounding the CPU socket such as
the chipset and/or memory.
*caution*
when turned all the way down the fan speed controller will actually stop the
fan from spinning. This is most likely to do with the type of fan used; high
pressure/high flow fans such as the FM122 usually need approximately 5-7V
before starting.
Using the Silverstone NT06 heatsink, overclocking was definitely
possible, I increased the CPU speed to 3450 MHz with 1.3375 V (set in the BIOS)
before reaching the same 65C under load as the stock cooler at stock speeds.
{mospagebreak
title= Price and Warranty}
I found the Silverstone "Nitrogon" NT06 using froogle for less than $53
or just over ?35 and is about average for a half decent replacement cooler these days. Of course,
there are dirt-cheap water-cooling kits available for a similar price too, but
these are not worth bothering with if you care about your PC at all.
Unfortunately for Silverstone, there are a lot of other coolers out there at a similar price point, and to make an impact into the market you need to have something really special.
Silverstone offer a limited 1-year warranty from the date of
purchase.
Quote from the Silverstone NT06 manual:
"During the warranty period, assistance for replacement or exchange of
defective components is available at the place of purchase."
{mospagebreak title= Conclusion}
The Silverstone Nitrogon NT06 certainly offers a marked
improvement over a boxed Intel cooler and is worth considering as a replacement if your case isn’t large enough for one of the mammoth tower coolers out there.
When running at full speed, the fan can be rather noisy, but
luckily this can be adjusted if not too heavily overclocked. You can be sure
that the Silverstone Nitrogon NT06 will keep your system much cooler than a
stock heatsink ever could and at the same time allow for a fairly decent
overclock into the bargain. While only slightly overshadowed by much bigger
coolers, the NT06 is pretty compact and would happily fit into most cases while
still maintaining good cooling performance.
Overall it’s not bad considering everything
that you get, a decent heat pipe cooler, a powerful fan and a fan speed
controller. Couple this with the fact that it is compatible with most CPU
sockets out there and you have a pretty good package.
Pros:
- Powerful high pressure Fan
- Supplied with a fan controller
- Cools components surrounding the cpu socket
- Fits in most cases
Cons:
- Loud fan at full speed
- Requires
the removal of motherboard to fit - Fan
controller sits at the rear of the PC
Specifications/Features: 4./5
Appearance: 4.5/5
Performance: 3.75/5
Price/Warranty: 4/5
Overall: 16.25/20
We would like to thank the folks over at Silverstone for sending us our sample for review.