MaximumPC 2007 10

Tes Ted. Reviewed. veRdic Tized reviews

W

e’re always suspicious of cooling devices that promote their silent func-
tionality. Quiet devices tend to use less-powerful fans or run normal fans
at painfully slow speeds. And while this can do wonders for one’s hearing and
general peace of mind, our reasonably noisy stock AMD cooler performs much
better than the quieter devices we’ve tested.
So when a cooler comes in with the word “silent” right in its name,
you can understand our skepticism regarding the product’s potential for heat
removal. But Coolink’s Silentator CPU cooler survived a thorough round of
Maximum PC heat testing. Better still, it outperformed our low expectations to
establish itself as a solid cooling option. The Zalman CNPS9700 still retains its
title as our cooling champion, but we wouldn’t mind strapping the Silentator
into one of our rigs as a second option.
Installing the Silentator isn’t the most challenging process, though it is
rather involved. We had to remove the cooler’s fan just to mount the cooler onto
our FX-60, which isn’t a huge problem, but it definitely adds time to the pro-
cess. You can, however, adjust the cooler’s
direction so that air flows either horizon-
tally or vertically, a
nice touch.
We were
more willing to
stomach the instal-
lation after seeing
the Silentator’s

performance. In fact, we even reran the benchmarks to ensure that there

wasn’t anything funny going on with the test rig. But the Silentator’s score

held true; the Zalman is still The Hulk of cooling power, but we’d let the

Silentator into our secret superhero club any day. It cools nicely, with the

added bonus of being far, far quieter than the “Rock You Like a Hurricane”

Zalman cooler.

The Silentator will never be as awesome as its noisy neighbors,

but it balances cacophony and

cooling quite nicely.

—DAVID MURPHY

Coolink Silentator

Hasta la vista, heat

The Silentator

is big, but less

bulky than the

bigger-than-

your-head mod-

els we’re used

to seeing.

Best scores are bolded. Idle temperatures were measured after 30 minutes of inac-

tivity, and full-load temps were measured after running CPU Burn-in for one hour.

benchMARkS

STock coolInk ZAlMAn

cooleR SIlenTAToR cnPS9700

Idle (C) 46.5    36.5    31.0

100% load (C) 63.0   49.5    42.0

8

coolink silentator

$50, http://www.coolink-europe.com