Thermaltake Silent 1156 Heatsink Review

OEM cooling solutions are designed to provide an adequate cooling solution at a minimum of expense.  Normally these coolers are a perfect match of a low cost system as they operate with very little noise.  However, the issue with most low costs systems is the lack of good cooling.  So now the once quiet OEM cooler has to work harder, and creates more noise in the process.  A great way to resolve this issue is by replacing your stock heatsink with an aftermarket design with considerably more cooling capacity. 

Our heatsink tests are designed to look at cooling capacity at two different heat levels.  The difference between the two determines how well a cooler can handle the different heat loads.  The ThermalTake Silent 1156 did an excellent job in our tests by easily outperforming the stock 1156 cooler and proving it could handle a minor overclock up to 3.2Ghz.

Despite this we wouldn't recommend this cooler for any overclocking beyond 3.2Ghz but do find it to be an excellent replacement cooler to reduce overall system temperatures and noise, while increasing performance and component life. 

Now for our list of good things and bad things. 

Compact Cooler
Large 8mm heapipes
Silent Tapered Fin Fan
1156 Only

Only for 1156
Limited heat capacity for overclocking

We would like to thank Thermaltake for making this review possible.