Arctic Cooling Super Silent 4Pro L

February 24, 2004 admin Uncategorized 0

Very quiet, low performance – Joe

SUMMARY: A good noise/performance tradeoff for those seeking quiet P4 cooling.

Arctic P4

Size: 110 x 97 x 78mm; Weight: 415 gm

The good guys at Arctic Cooling were nice enough to send their Super Silent 4Pro L for a test spin. This is an all-aluminum P4 heatsink which features a 3 position switch to power the fan at High, Medium and Low speeds. I used a digital tachometer and measured speeds of 2931, 2380 and 1946 rpm during testing.

The fan is an 80 x 37 mm unit rated at 25 cfm, 16 dBA @ 2000 rpm, 32 cfm, 19 dBA @ 2500 rpm and 38.5 cfm, 25 dBA @ 3000 rpm. I found it to vary from moderately quiet to almost inaudible – I measured noise at High at 51 dBA¹ with a Radio Shack sound meter 8″ from the fan’s intake – I could not get a reading at lower rpms. It’s also safe to use a motherboard fan header – 3.4 watts.

The aluminum base is not particularly well finished:

Base

When I ran my nail over it, I could feel ridges. With such a low powered fan, improving the base finish would help performance.

One nice thing about this heatsink – there are four LEDs to light it up:

LEDs

THE TEST

I tested the Super Silent 4Pro L on an Acorp 4S845A motherboard with a modified P4 1500 to read CPU case temps.

TEST RESULTS – Motherboard
Motherboard

CPU Case Temp

Ambient Temp

Delta

C/W

MBM Temp

Super Silent 4Pro L, 2931 rpm, 51 dBA

37.0 C

24.8 C

12.2

0.21

35 C¹

Super Silent 4Pro L, 2380 rpm, <50 dBA

39.0 C

26.4 C

12.6

0.22

36 C¹

Super Silent 4Pro L, 1946 rpm, <50 dBA

42.0 C

25.9 C

16.1

0.28

39 C¹

Delta = CPU temp – Ambient Temp
C/W = Delta / CPU Watts

Interpreting C/W: For every watt (CPUw) that the CPU
consumes, the HSF will limit the CPU’s temperature rise to (C/W x CPUw)
plus the temperature at the HSF’s fan inlet. For example, at an ambient temp of 25 C, a C/W of 0.25 with a CPU radiating 50 watts means that CPU temp will increase 50 x 0.25 = 12.5 C over ambient temp, or 37.5 C. The lower the C/W, the better.

Motherboard results place the Super Silent 4Pro L in the mid rank of heatsinks (Heatsink Ranking) tested to date.

CONCLUSIONS

Arctic Cooling’s Super Silent 4Pro L is a good solution for quiet P4 cooling, as long as you are OK with manually switching speeds; the location at the back of the PC is not the most convenient, although I’m sure modders will move the switch to the front, not all that difficult as the switch is screwed onto the PCI slot cover.

Thanks again to Arctic Cooling for sending this our way.

¹Note that manufacturers measure fan noise usually 3 feet from the fan.

Email Joe