Model:  SST-NT01

Manufacturer:  Silverstone

Provider:  Silverstone

Reviewed By:  Tom

Review Date:  10/31/04

Installation & Performance

After seeing the Nitrogon in person, I knew I was going to have to put a lot of work into testing this one. The Nitrogon was installed with my usual P4 system in two separate cases with the same Cooler Master power supply. Each set up was run with and without fans and with and without load. The two cases used in the tests were the Cooler Master CAV-T01 Cavalier and the Silverstone SST-TJ05. I was particularly interested to see if there was any significant difference in temps with the increased distance the TJ05 would space between the cooler and Power Supply fan.

**click to enlarge**

Installation also presented another little wrinkle. The Nitrogon essentially can only be mounted one way depending on the orientation of the P4 socket on your motherboard. With the Abit IC7-MAX3 that I use the Nitrogon must be facing upwards toward the power supply. With boards such as the Intel D875PBZ with the socket facing 90 degrees in the other direction, the Nitrogon must face the exhaust fans. On both test setups using the Abit board I was forced to remove the 120mm exhaust in order to accommodate the large heatsink…not an arrangement that I was fond of. A case like the NZXT Guardian or the Sunbeam Samurai with their fan box would certainly not accommodate this heatsink in either of the two mounting directions. On the bright side, the clip mounting system used is quick and easy to work with. The entire heatsink can be easily installed and removed without having to uninstall the whole motherboard.

Testing was consistent with our normal routine. I left the system running for about an hour to get an Idle baseline, then loaded the CPU with Prime95. Ambient temperature was 25°C during the testing.
 

Test System:

• Pentium 4 3.0C
• Abit IC7-MAX3 Motherboard
• 1 Gig Corsair TwinX 4000Pro DDR RAM
• ATI Radeon 9800 Pro Video Card
• Audigy ZS Platinum Audio Card
• 3 Western Digital 200gig SATA hard drives @ 7200rpm
• Plextor 708A DVD-RW
• Pioneer DVR-108 DL DVD-RW
• Mitsumi 7 in 1 Card reader / FDD
• Cooler Master Real Power 450W Power supply

A few interesting observations can be made with this data. First off, even though the Cooler Master CAV-T01 has inferior airflow compared to the TJ05, it posted lower numbers in both counts without any fans. Clearly the less than an inch proximity difference between the cooler and the PS fan in these two chassis is very important to the performance of this heatsink. This is really confirmed with the single 60°C+ spike in the load test on the TJ05, which was notably absent with the addition of the 60mm fans. The Nitrogon never really ventured down to the 31°C or so limit that I’ve had a few heatsinks reach at this ambient temperature. The Nitrogon does have a fairly narrow spread of temperatures, and the only two heatsink I’ve seen with a smaller range are the XG Gamer Ice Age and the Cooler Master Hyper6. To give the Nitrogon its due though, the Hyper6 is substantially larger, and the Ice Age substantially louder. The CAV-T01 setup was extremely quiet with the Nitrogon…there were only four fans in the total setup: one 80mm intake, northbridge, GPU, and 120mm Power Supply fan. Mouse and keyboard clicks were much louder!

Next: Conclusions