Thermalright SLK900U - any opinions?

[MietmaN]

Welcome all,

After my Thermalright SI-97 had broken down (must have been the heatpipes), I decided to stay with my old Pentagram FreeZone QC80-Cu cooler (very similar to Zalman CNPS7000, just a little bit worse in terms of performance and much cheaper ).

A few days ago I saw in a local computers shop some special offers - they were selling out some old stuff, which they couldn't sell at normal prices. Since this nice academic city I live in is a god forsaken land, concerning computer hardware, nobody had wanted to buy Thermalright SLK900U . Therefore they were selling them at half the price and I got 2 of them (one for me and one for a friend of mine).

I've read whole lot of positive reviews recently, but I would like to aks you guys, if you've had and personal experience with this particular cooler (could be SLK900A or SLK947U as well)???? I can't try out my TR at the moment, since I'm still in Germany, usuing a notebook for my work (and surfing ). I'm very interested in your opinions, if you happen to own or used to own this copper-beast.

Btw. I'm gonna use an Y.S.Tech 92mm fan :
92x92x25 mm
12V/0.15A/1.8W
2500 rpm
83 m3/h =48,85 CFM.
33.1 dB
I used to have that one on my dead (and long forgotten) SI-97 and it was at least decent in terms of performance and silence (at about 1500-1600 rpm). Do you think it's a sufficient fan for cooler made out of solid copper, that needs some decent airflow to perform well?

cheers /MM

[MietmaN]

I forgot one thing : while using a 92mm fan, some of the airflow doesn't cool down the cooler itself. In some of the reviews I've read better results were achieved with 80mm fans (smaller 'dead spot' etc.). Do you think it would be a good idea? Plz remeber, that I'm a silence-maniac, so the 80mm solution can't be loud (although not completely noiseless, I'm not that mad ).

[Gizmo]

I've no personal experience with the SLK900U, but I've used the ALK900U which is the Aluminum/Copper variant, and it is quite nice. I know SteveI is quite happy with his SLKxxx HS (he's got like 6 of them or something; both SLK900 and SLK947).

Theoretically, an 80mm fan will be more efficient than a 92mm fan, but I wouldn't think the difference would be that great.

[SteveI]

In terms of cooling, both are good choices. I have a 900a with 9cm fan, and it is an excellent socket A cooler. It uses the 3 pronged clip, so it is only good for socket A.

I have a 947 w/ 9cm fan, and it is about as good. It bolts down, and works with socket a & s478. I'm not sure why it won't work with s939.

It is true that a 8cm fan is more "efficient" but there are side benefits to 9cm fans.... you get a lot of secondary cooling with 9cm.... northbridge, mofsets and such benefit from the increased airflow in the area. Most of my PCs use 9cm fans to cool the CPU for this reason.

I'm a bit partial to thermalrights:
948,947,900a, 2x sk7, sk6+.

[dod]

I'm a big fan of the thermalright heat sinks. Was using a 948U on one of my A64 rigs and to be honest cooling was more or less as good as the water set up on the other one.

[GrahamGarside]

the SLK range are probably the best none heatpipe heatsinks available, thermalright are generally the best for performance/practicality

[MietmaN]

Thank you for all the answers - I just wanted to hear some users' opinions and I did (reviews are reviews, some are good, some decent and some @#$% ). Since I'm allergic to heat-pipes now, I think I've chosen the best possible air cooling.

Still I can only look at it - I don't know when I'm coming back home. And I'm wondering almost all the time, if it won't collide with my passive NB heatsink (the blue Zalman) - the SLK900U (unlike SLK900A) is mounted vertically (101mm of my Pentagram do collide, but their fins live in perfect symbiosis). There's no other way, than to check it myslef.

[MietmaN]

I came back from Germany on tuesday morning and yet today afternoon I had enough time to install my SLK900U. The backplate collides with one of my motherboard's mounting holes (the one at the top, on the right side of socket), so I had to remove one of those (how on earth is it called in English? it isn't a screw - the thing screwed to the case with a hole for another screw). Otherwise it would collide with the backplate and make the whole mobo bent in a dangerous way. I also had to bend some fins of my Zalman passive NB cooling - not the taller ones, but the shorter ones, surprisingly.

The heatsink is great, really. At 10.5x225 1.625v (bios) it was much more efficient than my old Pentagram QC80-Cu (92mm Y.S.Tech fan at 1600rpm vs. Pentagram at 2100rpm), so I decided to raise my OC a little bit. Now I'm running at 11x220 1.675v (bios) and temperatures under load (Prime95 Large FFTs, definately the hottest test of all Prime tests) are 2-3C better than with Pentagram and the previous settings. I guess it's now as efficient as Zalman 7000Cu. To sum up - I'm very pleased.

Btw. Today I got a brand new SI-97 for that old, broken one. I didn't even give it a try, as I don't trust those heat pipes anymore. Gonna sell it as quickly as possible.