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Installation

Being a somewhat large heatsink, the Silent Boost does have problems installing into some motherboards. We use a Chaintech Zenith Ultra to test heatsinks, and we found out that one side of the heatsink gets blocked by the row of capacitors next to the socket, and installation can only go through if you bend the capacitors temporarily during the installation.

The heatsink uses a triple slot grip, which is probably necessary considering how heavy it is. The screwdriver slot is large and covers all around, which prevents screwdriver slippage and potential motherboard damage.

Testing

We have in our lab an Athlon Thoroughbred-B 1800+ and a Chaintech 7NJS Ultra Zenith. Using the on-die thermal diode, we take measurements of the CPU's temperature on idle and on load at stock speeds, and then we overclock the CPU from the default 11.5x133 to 11x200 (2.2 ghz), and then run through the same idle and load procedure. At both Stock and Overclocked Speeds, the core voltage was 1.65. All tests were done in the same day. Ambient temperature change was nominal. CPUs were loaded with Prime95 and the Max and Average temperatures were taken from Motherboard Monitor. At least 100 data points were used in each case, with the average and max being reset after each run and the CPU is allowed to cool before testing idle.

Note that all environments are different, so you will have different temperatures from us than from a different site or even a different testing session. Use the figures provided as a reference point, not as a comparison point.

Stock (1.53 Ghz, 11.5x133)
Overclocked (2.2 Ghz, 11x200)

* denotes test stopped prematurely because of temperature concerns