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#705 - SilverStone NT04 Cooler |
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Written by Zach Jeffers
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Thursday, 27 July 2006 |
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Page 2 of 3
Specifications and Build:
The SilverStone NT04 was delivered in a standard brown shipping box, encasing the NT04’s packaging with foam peanuts. Looking at the retail packaging, the HSF was surrounded with two Styrofoam pads. It is very unlikely this cooler will be damaged in shipping. The NT04 HSF is no small guy, but at 94.2mm (W) x 75mm (H) x 80mm (D) with fan and 94 mm (W) x 52 mm (H) x 80 mm (D) with out the fan, it is not anything extreme. If looking to install this SilverStone cooler into your mATX rig, like the recently reviewed POWMAX 3304, you may want to check your space limitations as the NT04 is a bit taller than the stock AMD cooler.
 
The NT04 features a 29 CFM, 80mm, aluminum fan that spins at about 2500 RPM, producing around 25db of noise. This is a fairly quiet fan, but not as silent as some 80mm fans that could easily be mounted to this heat sink. A some what unique characteristic of the NT04 is that the fan casing has, on all four sides, three air slits. I am unsure if these are truly effective, or if they just at more air noise, but I am sure that the engineers at SilverStone know what they are doing.
 
The actual fan is removable from the aluminum frame. The fan itself is made of plastic and has a very vibrant and shiny gold painted surface. The reflections from the pictures below should show it’s ability to shine! As you can see, the fan is still mountable without it’s aluminum body; a great fan for modding! With the fan removed from the aluminum frame, you can see it’s four sides with air slots.
  
The SilverStone HSF comes with an adequate application of decent thermal paste. Most heat sink manufacturers put a cheap goopy or stiff thermal compound on their units, but SilverStone has put some thought in here and provided a quality thermal interface. You will see later on in the testing chapter… The included mounting hardware is very simple and easy to mount. One thing to note is that the NT04’s mounting arm is fairly stiff and keeps very solid contact to the cooler mounts. The mounting hardware is designed for AMD K8 Socket 754, 939, 940 and AM2 sockets. The mounting hardware is easily removed from the heat sink when the fan is removed from the top.
 
The heat sink itself is made entirely of extruded aluminum and it’s base if relatively smooth. There is no noticeable grooving or bumping. Looking at the cooler’s aluminum fins from the side, you can see it’s, stepped, ‘W’ shape and fin heights. From the top you can actually see it’s ‘wing-span’ and get an idea of the NT04’s air flow characteristics. One thing to remember is that the mounting arm does not go down the visible channel of the heat sink, yet slides over the center fins.
 
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