Features and Cooler Design

Features

Courtesy of SilverStone Technology

  • Great balance of silence and performance
  • Three 08mm heat-pipes and aluminum fins for excellent heat conducting efficiency
  • Heat-pipe direct contact (HDC) technology
  • Patented anti-vibration fan mountings for easy installation and silent operation
  • Includes compact 120mm PWM fan for excellent cooling and low noise
  • Intel Socket LGA775/1150/1155/1156/1366/2011 and AMD Socket AM2/AM3/FM1/FM2 compatible

The SilverStone Argon Series AR01 CPU cooler is designed as a hybrid copper-aluminum cooler. The heat pipes are copper based to optimize heat absorption and transfer within the system with an aluminum radiator for optimal heat dissipation to the air medium. SilverStone designed the cooler using larger 8mm heat pipes for better heat pipe from the CPU and dispersal to the fines of the radiator. The radiator sports at fin density of 12 fpi (fins per inch), allowing for greater heat dissipation potential when using higher speed or multi-fan cooling configuration.

Courtesy of SilverStone

You are better able to appreciate the radiator design from the side view. Notice that you cannot see straight through the radiator fins because of the patterns air channels on each fin layer to maximize surface area and heat dissipation potential via via non-straight-line airflow. The heat pipes are embedded in the radiator as well as the CPU base plate to ensure optimized transfer from both touch points.

The radiator is a rectangular structure to maximize internal surface area. The wave structure in the front and back surfaces acts to break up the airflow on entry and exit from the radiator. The channels on either side are used for the rubber fan mounts – you simply push the ribbed round section of the mount into the channel for securing the fan. Each layer of the radiator contains ribbed indentations in the surface to further increase surface area and prevent straight-line airflow for better heat transfer to the air medium. The heat pipes are soldered in place to promote heat transfer from the heat pipes to the aluminum fin layers as well as to help with the structural integrity of the unit. The top of the heat pipes are capped to keep the contents under pressure, promoting the phase change required for the heat pipe transfer medium to be effective.

The cooler's base plate is a dual layer construction with the heat pipes embedded into the surface of the aluminum hold down block. The entire bottom of the structure is sanded flat and polished to an almost mirror like finish with no visible machining machining marks. However, there are visible gaps between the heat pipe and the aluminum block which will at to trap thermal paste. The surface is machined very flat, promoting good mating contact between the cooler and the CPU surface.

AR01 design schematic
Courtesy of SilverStone

The cooler stands at just under 160mm tall with its radiator coming in at 50mm thick (basically, double the thickness of a standard 120mm fan). At 120mm wide, the unit it no thicker than a standard fan width, making it an easy fit on most systems.

Used in conjunction with an ATX-based Z77 board, the cooler has not space constraints to the front, rear, or sides. You may run into some space issues if using all four memory slots, but you do have the option of running with a single rear-mounted fan if there are space constraints to the front of the unit. There should be no clearance issues using a rear-mounted fan with the unit even on a board with larger VRM heat sinks.

You can see that their is plenty of clearance between the radiator and the socket on both sides of the unit. The front to back orientation of the mount leaves plenty of room between any on board VRM heat sinks as well. While space may look tight between the heat pipes and the on board coolers, there is more than adequate room provided in the design.

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