USER-REVIEW: Gelid Silent Spirit CPU-cooler

tiesum · Post by **tiesum** » Mon Oct 27, 2008 1:40 am

Introduction:

A few weeks ago Gelid Solutions Ltd, a Hong Kong based company, introduced their first CPU-cooler. Gelid has two product lines: Silent and Gamer. This cooler is in the Silent category. A new high-performance CPU-cooler in the Game category will be launched soon. With the Silent Spirit, Gelid is aiming at the mid-range market and will be competing with the popular Arctic Freezer Pro. Luckily for you guys, I have one here for comparison.

The Package

The cooler is designed for socket 775,754,939,940,AM2 and AM2+. An additional clip for socket 1366 will be launched soon.

The Cooler

The cooler is feels very solid even though it only weighs 370 grams. The fan is blowing down on the motherboard with a slight angle. This way you can aim it in the direction of the outtake fan. The Arctic Freezer Pro is not aiming down but to the side. The advantage of this is that you can aim it directly at the outtake fan. The advantage of the Silent Spirit is that it effectively cools the components around the CPU. If you like, you could aim it at the memory. The cooler is attached to the motherboard with pushpins.

There is an extra heatsink on the CPU. The fan also cools this part.

The heatsink does not have a mirror finish but it's very flat. It comes with Gelids' GC-1 thermal paste pre-applied.

The fan used on the Silent Spirit is the 92mm Silent 9PWM. As you might have guessed this fan is PWM-controlled which is becoming the standard connection. This way the BIOS can effectively control your fan speed. The PWM signal can make your fan spin very slowly without the danger of stopping it.

The specs of the fan:

Air Flow (CFM): 37.89
Bearing: Hydro Dynamic Bearing
Fan Speed (RPM): 900 â€“ 2000
Noise Level (dBA): 11 - 23.5

The fan is attached to the cooler by rubber mounts. This way the vibrations from the fan are absorbed. Also, if necessary, the fan can easily be replaced with another 92mm fan.

Four heat pipes are used in this cooler. The heat pipes are soldered on the heatsink.

The fins are designed to maximize the airflow and make the air flow evenly through all parts of the fins.

As you can see there is texture on the fins. This texture has a positive effect on the heat transfer.

The CPU-cooler comes with a good manual in multiple languages.

Test Setup

The CPU will be tested on the following setup:

Cooler Master Stacker 810
Asus Maximus Formula SE
Intel E8400 @ 3.6 GHz (1.23 Volt)
Crucial Ballistix PC8500
Samsung Spinpoint F1 (in HD Silencer)
Tagan 480 Watt (Noctua modded)

For the subjective noise measurement all casefans were turned off.

The Silent Spirit is compared with the following fans on temperature and (subjective) sound measurement.

The Intel Stock Cooler

The Arctic Freezer 7 Pro

Temperatures were measured after 30 minutes load with Orthos and after 15 minutes idle. Because the coolers have to be tested under the same conditions the Gelid thermal grease was removed and Arctic Silver 5 was used on all coolers.

Results

Temperatures

As you can see the Gelid Silent Spirit cools slightly better than the Freezer 7 Pro. The Intel Stock cooler is clearly not good enough for an overclocked CPU. The BIOS let's this fan spin much faster than the Gelid and Freezer 7 Pro. So what about the sound production?

Sound levels

Let's start with the Intel stock cooler. When the CPU is overclocked the fan is not running as slow as it can. The noise from the fan can be clearly heard. On low speed the Gelid and Freezer are almost inaudible, especially with a closed case. When I compare the Gelid to the Freezer 7 Pro, the Gelid creates slightly less noise than the Freezer. When the computer case is closed this difference is impossible to hear. When I use Speedfan to set the fan to the maximum speed the difference becomes much greater. Both fans are clearly audible but the Freezer creates a lot more noise.

Conclusion

Gelid has created a very good CPU-cooler. Of course it cannot compete with the high-end air-coolers on the market but this is not the intention. With this cooler Gelid is aiming at the midrange market. At the moment the Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 pro is the most popular fan on this market. As we have seen in the results the Gelid cooler performs slightly better even though it is much lighter (370 against 520 grams). The big question is if Gelid can offer the cooler at the same competitive price. If it can this cooler is certainly the better choice.

Pros

-good performance
-very quiet at low speeds
-PWM Fan
-Thermal paste pre-applied
-components around the CPU are actively cooled
-compatible with many sockets

Cons

-availability

tiesum · Post by **tiesum** » Mon Oct 27, 2008 1:51 am

I see this product is available now in Canada and the States at ncix.com

jhhoffma · Post by **jhhoffma** » Mon Oct 27, 2008 7:03 am

Good review, though a price comparison might be included, so the reader doesn't have to look it up (I'm lazy).

This might also be better off in 'User Reviews' section.

tiesum · Post by **tiesum** » Mon Oct 27, 2008 7:19 am

Thanks for your reply. Can I move it to that section myself or does an admin have to do this?

At the moment at Ncixus the Freezer is $24.35 and the Gelid $28.59

GreatScot · Post by **GreatScot** » Tue Oct 28, 2008 6:56 pm

Please pardon my skepticism, tiesum, but when I see a review as slick as this, I'm very much tempted to ask if you work for Gelid.

Particularly after a similar review of the Gelid fans.

I'm not saying it shouldn't be here... but if that's the case, at least come out and make the full disclosure.

Am I the only one that's slightly irked by the possible "advertising masquerading as impartial review" aspect?

Or is it so blatant that I'm the only one that cares to point it out? "Look! There's an elephant in the room!"

That said... the cooler is very shiny and the golf-ball dimples are cute.

-Scot

tiesum · Post by **tiesum** » Wed Oct 29, 2008 12:27 am

Hi GreatScot,

Thanks for your reply. I'm flattered to hear that you find my review slick

. I'm not working for Gelid and I have no advantage in writing a positive review for them. There is however unfortunately no way I can prove this to you. All I can say is that I enjoy writing reviews. I'm just getting started on this. After the fan-review you mentioned and a Windstille review, this is the third serious one. As you can understand it's hard to convince manufacturers to send me review samples when I've only done this few reviews. Manufacturers that have only recently appeared and are not very well known (like Gelid) are most likely to send me samples. This is why I did two reviews of their products in the last few weeks. I hope that after I did more reviews, more (also well-known) manufacturers will send samples as well.

I understand that it's a bit suspicious that both reviews on Gelid were so positive. However, it is what it is. If the products would not have been good, this would have been in the review. I can only hope that you'll trust me. Maybe this will come after you see reviews on this product on other (well-known) review sites or when I've written a review about a product that is less positive.

Your reaction please.

frenchie · Post by **frenchie** » Wed Oct 29, 2008 3:41 am

I would tend to agree with GreatScot....

However, I'll trust you on this one and I hope we won't be disappointed like we have been before (SilenX anyone ?).

Anyway...
Was the difference in noise due to air noise or fan noise ?
How fast do the fans run at under load ? and what is the noise difference ?

Finally, can you make the pics a little smaller next time please

?

Post by **Ralf Hutter** » Wed Oct 29, 2008 6:00 am

Why is this cross-posted in two different forums?

I'm locking this one. Further discussion can continue in the more appropriate posting.