Product: Silver Mountain

Manufacturer: Akasa

Homepage :

What up, crew? The joys of summer mean the evenings are light and the birds are out. Yes, I have spent many a happy hour eyeing up the birds. Unfortunately, being stared at by a drooling crack addict doesn't seem to go down well with the local ladies. I wish it did. Apart from that, we are back to our happy old selves with a lightness in our step that could be misinterpreted as mincing.

We have implemented a brilliant new scheme entitled Primate Retardation and Interdiction Quotient. This scheme is designed to avert any more monkey stunts that may lead to our name being further denigrated. You, too can become part of this scheme by mailing here.

Right, we have been sent one of the first samples of the latest CPU cooler from Akasa. It is amusingly named the Silver Mountain (wasn't that a track on Mario Kart, or was it Choco?). The FedEx guy (a new one) seems wary of coming inside the "premises" and has tended to bang on the door and run off. I have tried claiming we never received the goods but it seems he has forged my signature on the proof of receipt. DOH! I smell a furry primate at work....

Anyway, we found a little package outside and once the test porpoise had dragged it inside (and that was a sight to behold) we set about unwrapping it. We were greeted with a heavy and fairly large box, for a CPU cooler. The design is black and yellow with the blue Akasa insignia on it. Inside, the unit came with an instruction leaflet, syringe of thermal paste and was surrounded by that plastic packing material to make sure the unit comes to you intact (not if the monkey has anything to do with it).

Once we had freed our prize from it's plastic tormentor, we sat back and marveled at the unit. Mmmmmmmmshiny. Akasa have produced a heatsink made from copper and coated it in silver, hence the name. Personally I prefer the all copper look but hey...er....yeah. Check it.

My first impression of the unit is that it is very similar to the Kanie Hedgehog with a fairly square heatsink. The fan grill sits atop a Delta but it is not the most vicious of these. Next let's look at the base.

Not much to say here, it is not as smooth as we would have liked but any imperfections are small and will be combated by the thermal paste.

Now for a view of the unit next to our old friend, the Coolermaster EP5-6I11 and then adjacent to the Kanie hedgehog to highlight the similarity.

The Coolermaster is a wider heatsink and the main difference is the fan size.

Test Rig

Our highly scientific approach tends to be compromised by a number of factors - the first being, we don't have a scientific approach. Our aim is to provide a real world test, to simulate the experience that you would have if you had bought these heatsinks. Therefore, we will take measurements from the onboard temp gauge under the cpu and decibel readings but these are not under lab conditions.

The ambient room temperature was kept at 22C +/- 1C (ta BlitZ), if this changed we stopped testing until it had returned to this base level.

Installation

More and more units are coming without the annoying thermal pad attached. I understand it is a requirement from AMD but it is a real pain. The Silver Mountain rocks up, naked as the day it was born, so next job is clean and prepare the core. Once finished, it was time to attach the rear clip and insert a screwdriver into the front. The amount of pressure needed to seat the clip is average but I did like the mechanism. It's the same as the Taisol, which means you can unattach it by simply pushing the screwdriver towards the socket. It makes the whole process very simple and there is little chance of either getting the clip stuck on or damaging the pcb as a result of a slip from over-pressure.

Noise

The fan is a high speed Delta running at 6,800 rpm. Let's hear what it has to say.

Hmm, still noisy but it is Delta kid so....

Testing

The Silver Mountain must journey the road of overclocking against the undisputed heavy weight champion of the cooling world - the Global Win CAK 38. The very nature of the SM, silver coated copper, mean that it is aimed at the performance market and will be tested as such. Bring it on.

I know it gets tedious but we have to do it, so, first stop is 700 Mhz (stock speed) 7*100 @ 1.6V. Idle is 10 mins of inactivity after boot and full load is after 30 mins of Seti@home. Drop the flag and breathe the rubber.

A close start from the SM with a hair's breadth between the two when under load. The more tests we do, the more it looks like there are some anomalous results at idle for some coolers including the CAK, which has produced a stunning set of idle results. Until we test again, though, they must stand.

The first test could be passed by a squid on your CPU so we need a sterner test for these manly coolers. I therefore decree the stakes to be increased and some-one (test porpoise) uses their hands (flippers) to crank the rig up to 900 Mhz (9*100) @ 1.775V. Heads down and feel the Gs.

Level under load but spanked at idle. Full load is the more important stat (assuming most ppl run Seti/Prime etc and have the rig on full time) than idle, as we are looking at how well the coolers can dissipate high heat levels. With this in mind, both competitors are performing well.

I convene the parliament and the resulting laws require the chairman (communications bat) to administer the punishment (increase speed and voltage). Unfortunately, our chosen one was particularly badly suited to BIOS changes and he also forgot to turn the power off before messing around inside the case, it is amazing the speed at which fur burns. One short trip to animal hospital later I decide that I might need to make the adjustments myself, so what's going to happen at 945 Mhz (9*105) with the voltage red-lining @ 1.85V.

The last test may be construed as sorting the men from the boys but it is not as clear cut as that. The SM has pinched the lead from the CAK by 1*C under load, which is a great achievement. Unfortunately, the idle scores are still worlds apart, well 3*C but that is 11%.

We felt another test would be in order and we wanted to run it at the top temperature (Norberto Fontana, big up yourself). We took a temperature reading 1 minute after shutting down Seti to see how much heat could be dissipated.

Conclusion

I like the Silver Mountain from Akasa. It is still not able to topple our champion but this is a familiar story. It's stats are nearly identical to those of the other high roller, the Thermalright SK-06, which is another high performance CPU cooler. Both coolers were eventually able to beat the CAK when the CPU was producing the greatest amount of heat but started more slowly and their idle temps were well behind.

It looks good, comes well packaged and has an instruction leaflet (this will become clear with our re-written Kanie review, DOH! DOH! DOH! Thx Schpankme).

Akasa has paid attention to the other parts of the cooler, most notably the clip. There is little innovation in this market other than the superb mechanism from Power Cooler, but the next best clip, IMO, is from Taisol. I choose to use the Taisol over any other cooler for frequently changed CPUs purely because it is so easy to attach and more importantly unattach from the socket. Akasa have produced a similar clip, with the exception that it attaches to only one of the three notches. The main part of the clips "greatness" is that the screwdriver is inserted from the front allowing you to exert pressure in multiple directions.

It is unfortunate that the cooler could not compete at idle but it put in an excellent showing overall.

The final ChillBlast rating is ********

You can purchase a Silver Mountain at our store through this link. Or by clicking on store at the top of the page. Please read our statement of intent before making any complaints regarding any assumed review bias. If you still want to say anything you can mail us here.

Check out our sister site:

HOME