Features and Cooler Design

Features

Courtesy of Thermalright

  • 8 X 6mm sintered heat-pipes effectively takes away excessive heat from the CPU when overclocked, Nickel Plated heat-pipes, slower Oxidation and deterioration of the heat-pipes, provides longer period of Thermal conductivity.
  • Double fin design , each side with 154mm*120mm heat dissipation area, can be used with 14 or 15 cm fan ( fan clips included).
  • Special Arrow fin design, which allows cool air to pass through and take heat away rapidly, effectively provide cooling for the CPU.
  • Support Multiple-Platforms. Can be used on Socket 20111150/1155/1156/1366/775 Platform, and AM2/AM2+/AM3/AM3+/FM1 Sockets.
  • Including Two TY-143 high speed PWM fans and specialized PWM Y-Cable. With the compatibility of up to 3 fans maximum.

The Thermalright Silver Arrow SB-E Extreme cooler is a copper-aluminum hybrid cooler. The CPU plate and heat pipes are copper for optimized heat absorption, while the twin-tower radiator fins are aluminum-based for better heat transfer. The CPU baseplate and heat pipes are nickel-plated to protect the sensitive copper layer from accidental scratches, oxidation, and corrosion. The radiator towers have a fin density of 12 fps (fins per inch), allowing for great heat dissipation potential while requiring a higher pressure fan to push adequate airflow through the twin radiators.

From the side-view, you can see the construction of the twin radiators, with sufficient spacing between them for center fan placement in the unit. The heat pipes form a U-shape, serving dual purposes of structural integrity and dual-path heat dissipation through both radiator structures. The center part of the heat pipe passes directly through the CPU contact plate with the bond between the copper surfaces ensuring optimal heat transfer from the plate to the heat pipe medium.

The finned-structure of the dual-radiators are arrow-shaped, tapered in the middle and growing wider towards the outside. According to Thermaltake's research, this design helps with heat dissipation, besides just giving the unit a unique look. For all eight of the embedded heat pipes, the terminating ends in the top of the radiators are capped and sealed. This ensures that the heat pipe contents remain under pressure, promoting the phase change required for the heat pipe transfer medium to be effective.

The cooler's baseplate is nickel-coated and shined to a mirror finish with no visible machining marks or blemishes. This type of surface finish is important to promote solid contact between the cooler and the CPU surface.

Silver Arrow SB-E design schematic
Courtesy of Thermalright

The cooler stands just over 165mm tall with each of the radiator towers at 31mm thick. This puts the each of the towers a bit thicker than a standard 25mm fan. The CPU base plate is 53mm long by 40mm wide. The entire cooler without fans is 103mm wide and 102mm wide with two fans attached.

Mounted to an ATX form factor Z87-based board, the cooler's front radiator comes right up to the edge of the board memory slots, overlapping the slot closest to the CPU. The back radiator overlaps the VRM heat sink above the CPU. In both cases, use of overly components could cause cooler mounting issues. However, there is more than enough clearance provided in the center portion of the heat sink.

In the case of the board used, the cooler could not be mounted with a fan in the front of the cooler. The fan pushed the entire cooler upwards because of space conflicts with the memory modules. In this case, the second fan had to be mounted to the rear of the unit. The center fan had caused not space restrictions with the board mount.

Even though the fan fit in the rear mount position, the rear fan rested only millimeters above the CPU VRM heat sink. On a board with an overly large VRM heat sink, the only a single fan would be usable with the unit in the center position. The fan in the rear position does not come close to overlapping the rear panel assembly and should not conflict space-wise with the rear panel fan in your case.

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