SilverStone Argon AR01: What's in the Box? As expected, the cooler ships with standard Intel & AMD mounting brackets, a packet of 5W/mK thermal compound (good for a few uses, though you'll need a way to re-seal it), eight rubber mounting guides for up to two fans, the fan itself, and the cooler. Redundant tests are run in the event of unexpected results. SilverStone Argon AR01 (2 fans, stock thermalpaste). Not quite "floored," but not far from it. SilverStone Argon AR01 (stock fan, controlled Antec Formula 6 thermalpaste). The performance competes with mid-range liquid on a reasonable OC/OV, single-handedly defeats the famed Hyper 212, and dethrones the Respire T40 as our cooler of choice. A skinny air cooler from SilverStone - PC Perspective Three O8mm Heat-Pipes and Aluminium Fins for Excellent Heat Conducting Efficiency A total of two fans can be mounted to the unit in push/pull configuration. We use CPUID's HWMonitor Pro for thermal logging and tracking. SilverStone AR01 Argon Heatsink Fan Cooler Intel/AMD 120mm Fan SST... ~$117 Motherboard MSI Z77A-GD65 OC Board GamersNexus ~$160 Power Supply NZXT HALE90 V2 NZXT Pending SSD Kingston 240GB HyperX 3K SSD Kingston Tech. If the T40 is on sale (it often hits $20 on TigerDirect) and you're on a budget, then get the T40.SilverStone once again looms over all its nearby competitors, firmly holding the "Best of the Bench" for CPU coolers (as of this writing), in good company with their RV02's positioning on our case bench. you can disable fan control in BIOS - often under the "Hardware Monitor" tab. We keep a consistent case and airflow configuration for all CPU cooler tests. This is the same reason we rarely see benefit to adding a secondary fan in our cooler tests: The airflow pathway is sufficiently saturated in our test configuration as-is when coupled with a quality cooler, and because the OC/OV is extremely stable (a good bin-out and experienced overclockers), this means additional fans rarely have significant impact. Installation is fairly standard. Let's jump to thermals. If you're doing serious OC/OVing, but not quite serious enough to warrant open loop cooling, then liquid coolers will start to widen the gap between air. All system case fans and CPU cooler fans run at 100% load during testing. The rubber mounts use a barrel-like design to stick into the cooler, giving the added bonus of reduced vibration and noise prevention. We calculate Delta T between the tested coolers and the stock Intel cooler, then divide price by Delta T (example: $65 / dT 28C = $1.85/degree C). Hyper 212, Respire T40, X40, etc. IB LGA1155 has 1155 pins that connect the socket and the CPU, SB-E LGA2011 has 2011 pins, and so on. SilverStone Argon AR01 (2 fans, controlled Antec Formula 6 thermalpaste). Looking to pure value, we jump to our dollars-per-degree chart: The Argon's relative value rests comfortably toward the top, officially making it the best cooler we've tested in the $20-$40 range. Priced right near the Hyper 212 Plus and NZXT Respire T40, SilverStone's $35 Argon AR01 cooler should theoretically perform in the same general ~54C area. Here are the results: The above chart shows the stock thermal compound performance for all listed coolers. This means these tests will represent the cooling capacity when the CPU fan runs at its maximum speed and load consistently. As you can imagine, the physical substrate dimensions are dictated by the number of pins; this also tends to trend with more powerful (X-class) CPUs, which occupy their substrate with physically-larger silicon dies. There are a few different models of the new Argon cooler, each purpose-built for different socket-types (and thus CPU sizes); the advantage to this is that—rather than ship a "one size fits all" unit, like the Hyper 212 or Respire T40—users can achieve peak thermal dissipation with optimized coldplate positioning. The Silverstone Argon series of heatsinks comprise of value-minded CPU air cooling solutions available in tower-style or heatpiped low-profile models. Great Balance of Silence and Performance This high-performance CPU cooler features three Ø8mm heat-pipes and aluminum fins for superb heat conduction. With Heat-pipe Direct Contact (HDC) technology and patented anti-vibration fan mountings, it ensures easy installation and silent operation SilverStone Argon TUF AR01-V3 CPU Air Cooler - SST-AR01-V3 | Mwave
