Introduction
Introduction
It took sweat, blood and tears to get the now legendary Silverado out of Amil at Chillblast. High demand meant that I was kept waiting for a good few weeks. It wasn't really his fault since customer demand was high, meaning freeloading scum like me get put to the bottom of the list. In the end, threats of violence convinced him to dispatch it - if only for his own safety.
The NoiseControl Silverado is so difficult to get hold of that only a few lucky websites have received a review sample (gawsh, I feel so special!). The reason for this is that they are custom built in Germany, at very high quality, and very low yield - so if you want one, and want one you will, there are very few stores that stock the thing. In fact the only official reseller of the Silverado that I know of for both the US and UK is Chillblast.
And here it is, the legendary, nay mythical Silverado - the cooler which promises to deliver everything, both performance and tranquillity.
The packaging is very professional, and is packed with a plethora of goodies. It comes with:
- The cooler
- Two sets of voltage-adjusting resistors
- Cork squares for vibration dampening
- High quality thermal goop in a syringe
- Comprehensive Instructions (!)
This is why the Silverado is so-called. Just as well its not more conventional, aluminiumado doesn’t quite have the same ring to it. The flatness of this 100% silver surface is truly astonishing, literally mirror flat. I had to be very careful not to tarnish the pic with my ugly mug in the reflection.
Test Setup
I opted for my usual HSF review system, an Athlon 1.4GHz, since it offers more than a challenge to most coolers. The full specs are:
- AMD Athlon 1.33GHz Processor @ 1.4GHz
- 256MB Cas 2 DDR RAM
- IBM Deskstar 60GXP 20 GB
- Asus A7A266 Mobo
- 19" Sony Multiscan GDM-400PS Monitor
- Win98
- Eclipse ATX Midi Black Case
The thermal compound used was Arctic Silver II. All temperatures were taken using a thermal probe. Idle temperature was measured by allowing Windows to boot up, and leaving the PC idle until the temperature stopped fluctuating. To measure the temperatures at full load, I used Genome @ home and allowed the CPU to run at full 100% load for 15 minutes. This was sufficient to bring the CPU to its maximum temperature under the cooler.
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