Silverstone Tek Argon Series CPU Cooler - 120mm Cooling Fan, Socket LGA775/1155/1156/1366/2011, AM2/AM3/FM1/FM2, White AR01 Review

I bought this to build a Node 202 with an Intel LGA1155 motherboard. I was planning to use a BIG Shuriken CPU cooler, but it was too big and was blocking the PCI-E card slot (see photo). This fan is slightly smaller than Shuriken's (92mm HxW vs. 120mm) and its overall area is roughly the same as a standard Intel cooler. The height is technically 2mm higher than the Note 202 is supposed to support, but it fits perfectly. The fan runs very quietly, you can hardly hear it inside the case. It's…

Ridiculously easy to install. I bought this because I needed an aftermarket low profile cooler for my ASRock DeskMini 310. It fits the DeskMini 310 and has no header or heatsink clearance issues. This made my i5-8400 noticeably slower than the stock Intel cooler, which is to be expected. It was also quieter because the fan didn't really have to crank the output to regulate the temperature. The i5-8400 is a 65W TDP chip, and this cooler is designed for 95W TDP chips, so there should be plenty of

First of all, this is a low-profile, silent cooler that performs better than the stock (Intel) cooler. This lowered the temperature by at least 5 degrees Celsius, although I didn't test this in detail. I bought it because the stock cooler didn't work in my Silverstone FT03 mini as space inside is very limited. Assembly is easy and it comes with thermal grease, which is a nice touch. The reason for the mediocre rating is that it only comes with a set of rubber washers that are supposed to…

So, I collect HTPC from old parts and new ones. I have an AMD A10-5700 as a base and a Gigabyte GT 1030 Silent Low Profile card with graphics. This is a passive card with no fans, just a large heatsink. All of this fits into an InWin CE-685 chassis, which is roughly the size of an Xbox. Needless to say, it gets hot in there and my CPU had some thermal issues. First, I used an old AMD stealth CPU cooler that didn't work remotely. The idle temperature with HWINFO (CPU Package TSI - the…

I have mixed feelings about this cooler. On the one hand, if there's one company that knows about small form factor cases and CPU coolers, it's Silverstone. On the downside, this thing is pretty expensive, and in my particular use case, the stress from the mounting bracket caused my entire Mini-ITX Z97 motherboard to flex badly. Temperatures with this cooler were pretty good. In a Silverstone Raven Mini-ITX case, my 4GHz Intel Core i5 4690k Devil's Canyon processor never exceeded 50s and often…