#ar06

[sc:sponsor sponsor=”Silverstone” product_link=”http://www.silverstonetek.com/product.php?pid=505″ product_name=”Argon AR06 CPU Cooler” product_price_link=”http://amzn.to/1YSWnbz” product_price=”$39.99 (MSRP)” ]

Despite the budget pricing, Silverstone did no hold back on the packaging with a full-color box and form-fitting foam to hold the AR06 cooler and accessories inside. The box design uses a light blue color scheme with off-white trim and is unmistakable from other current CPU cooler series.

The 92mm fan comes pre-attached to the AR06 heatsink body and the accessories include:

1x small tube of thermal interface material

1x fold out users guide/installation manual

4x hex screws

4x round nuts corresponding with hex screws

2x matching Intel mounting bracket

2x matching AMD mounting bracket

4x base screws for bracket

4x rubber spacers with adhesive side

4x hex nuts

Specifications:

Model No. SST-AR06 Material Copper heat pipes with aluminum fins Application Intel Socket LGA 1150/1151/1155/1156 AMD Socket AM2/AM3/FM1/FM2 Heat Pipe Type Ø6mm heat-pipe x 4 Cooling System 92mm x 92mm x 15mm fan Dimension w/fan 105mm (W) x 92mm (D) x 58mm (H) (with fan) Noise 20 ~ 28.3dBA Bearing Rifle Bearing Net Weight 263g (without fan) Voltage Rating (V) 12V Start Voltage (V) 7V Air Flow (CFM) 40.2CFM (Max.) Speed (R.P.M.) 1200 ~ 2500RPM PWM Life Expectance (hrs) 40,000 hours

[section_title title=A Closer Look at the Silverstone Argon AR06]

A Closer Look at the Silverstone Argon AR06

The Silverstone Argon AR06 measures 105mm x 92mm and stands 58mm tall with the fan 92mm installed. The fan bundled has a slim frame of only 15mm so if this was replaced with a standard 25mm thick fan, the total height will be 68mm.

The contact surface has four flattened direct contact copper heatpipes with a 1.15mm gap in between them. Total contact surface area measures 34.5 x36.10mm. The heatpipes are 6mm in diameter and curve to form a “C” shape all on one side, distributing to the 52-fin aluminum array. There is no gap between the solid aluminum primary stage holding the direct contact heatpipes and where the aluminum array begins.

The fan is secured via four Phillips counter-sunk screws and the metal fan mounting mechanism can be removed from the heatsink body as well by undoing two pairs of Phillips round-head screws on each side. The counter-sunk screws included can only be used for a slim 15mm thick 92mm fan. Users would have to provide their own longer screws if installing a regular 25mm thick 92mm fan.

The bundled fan has the model number DF0921512RFMN and is a rifle-bearing 92mm fan with a lower profile 15mm thick frame. The center hub is relatively small, measuring 32.9mm with an eleven piece shallow curve blades. The struts are straight on the exhaust side and the connector cable is sleeved.

Readings from ASUS Fan Xpert II show the real-world controllable PWM range from ~1000 RPM to ~2200 RPM and verified with a hardware fan controller. This is lower than the stated specs from the Silverstone Argon AR06 product page of 1200 to 2500 RPM:

[section_title title=Installation Procedure and Clearance Compatibility]

Installation of the Argon AR06

Both Intel and AMD installation share all components and installation steps with the exception of the type of mounting bracket used. The long, single hex option end is the AMD mounting bracket while the Intel bracket has three variable mounting holes for holding the hex bolt. This variable mounting hole makes the Silverstone Argon AR06 compatible with older LGA1366 and LGA775 motherboards as well physically, but Silverstone only officially supports LGA115x sockets due to the TDP limitation of the Argon AR06 heatsink design.

First step is to push through the hex screws through the proper holes on the bracket. For LGA115x motherboards, this is the center part of the tip. The hex side has to match the sunken hex crevice of the bracket tip so that it is held in place. These hex screws are secured onto the bracket with rounded nuts which can be secured with just a thumb. The next step is to then screw these assembled brackets in place on the base of the heatsink using the counter-sunk base screws.

The mount is locked at the rear but first the rubber spacers must be attached to the hex nuts so that the motherboard does not get scratched when secured. These rubber spacers have an adhesive on one side which can either be used to attach to the motherboard or to the hex nuts. The hex nuts are more preferable so that it can be reused later on.

Apply thermal compound on the AR06 heatsink contact surface (do not forget to remove the plastic cover) then place the motherboard facing down on top of the heatsink with the heatsink facing upward. Lineup the hex screws to the mounting holes of the motherboard and secure each corner with the insulated hex nuts in a criss-cross fashion until fully secured.

The fan is already pre-installed so the last step simply involves plugging the fan into a motherboard header and then powering on.

…but wait, how come the metal rounded nuts on the other side are not insulated to the motherboard?

Because it will not make contact with the motherboard surface at all. When secured properly, these rounded nuts will appear “floating” when the hex nuts at the rear are fully locked in place (see photo below)

  Clearance Compatibility

The test motherboard is an ASUS Maximus VI Gene micro-ATX motherboard and measuring from the edge of the socket (the gray plastic part), there is a 31mm gap between the CPU socket and the first DIMM slot as well as a 52mm clearance between the CPU socket and the topmost PCI-E x16 slot where the graphics card is installed:

Because of the heatpipe curve, the Silverstone AR06 is limited to two options when installed on a motherboard with a VRM heatsink at the top or bottom such as this motherboard: with the heatpipe curve facing south or the heatpipe curve facing the DIMM slots. Both allow for full RAM compatibility, although the heatpipe curve facing the DIMM slot will be touching the RAM module heatspreader if the kit has one. On bare modules such as the one pictured below, there is still a tiny gap separating the contact on this specific motherboard.

PCI-E clearance is not an issue as well with 20.25mm of space left before reaching the topmost PCI-E x16 slot with the heatpipe curve facing downward.

Since there is no backplate, the Silverstone AR06 has no clearance issues to worry about in the rear, even on mini-ITX motherboards.

[section_title title=Test System and Benchmarks]

Test System and Benchmark Results

Test System:

Processor Intel Core i7-4770K (Retail) Motherboard ASUS Maximus VI Gene Z87 Motherboard (1603 BIOS) Memory Mushkin Stealth 1600MHz DDR3 Drive OCZ Agility 4 256GB SSD Video Card Intel Integrated Graphics Thermal Compound Noctua NT-H1 Case DimasTech Mini v1 Power Supply Corsair HX850W Operating System Windows 7 x64 Pro

Test was conducted on a DimasTech MiniV1 open-air test-bench for parity performance between tower-style coolers and C-type downward or upward blowing coolers. Ambient temperature is measured at the fan intake and kept as constant as possible (room controlled temperature). All case and heat sink fans were benchmarked with fan control settings disabled and running at 100% unless otherwise specified.

To get closer to real world performance, a retail Intel i7-4770K CPU was used (non-delidded). Stock settings use a constant 1.1Vcore voltage while overclock settings use a constant 1.2Vcore voltage with EIST disabled (1.28Vcore OC test added for high-end air coolers). The Intel core i7-4770K integrated graphics was used for display output and no discrete graphics card was installed to prevent additional heat sources from contributing inside and outside the case. Multi-core enhancement is enabled in the BIOS by default and left on (ASUS Turbo Core policy used instead of Intel standard). Note that performance results on this setup are not directly comparable with any benchmarks from some of the previous reviews as the UEFI BIOS on the motherboard has been updated and now has a much tighter control on the Vcore voltage.

Mushkin Stealth DDR3 modules ensure full compatibility with any CPU cooler tested as its heatspreaders only add ~1.5mm to the standard JEDEC module height of 30mm compared to other modules which limit cooler compatibility.

Temperatures are averaged (last minute) from individual core temperature results monitored by AIDA64 after 15 minutes using the deafult CPU, FPU, Memory and Cache simultaneous load. AIDA64 is able to use the latest instructions including AVX and AVX2, etc unlike other older CPU load tests so it is also a lot more “future proof” as more software start to utilize it. FPU-only load average is used to simulate worst case scenario load levels similar to Intel Burn Test or OCCT. Please keep in mind that this test is brutal and not even close to real-world load (especially not that constant for that amount of time), so not many CPU coolers are expected to pass this test but the ones that do are exceptional. Results marked “100″ and in red means thermal limit was reached and the CPU was throttled, even for just but a second. This includes results where even just the first core reached the limit and even if it briefly happened. It is marked as 100 in red in the review if it happens three times. Three runs are conducted per cooler and a fourth run is done after a remounting to verify. Last minute average is taken instead of peak because it represents the averaged behaviour of the thermal performance instead of worst-case scenario or a snapshot. Temperature delta results are used to account for variance since not all heatsinks can be conducted on the same day.

Screenshot of the Noctua NH-U9S under FPU-only load surviving 15-minute run in AIDA64. Getting the thermal behaviour presents a more accurate performance assessment than a single second snapshot or a mere peak temperature recording.

The Corsair HX850W power supply’s fans only ramp up when system load is past 20% making it an excellent power supply to use for when testing the CPU cooler’s noise levels. Any load under that and the fan does not spin at all, effectively acting in passive mode.

The American Recording Technologies SPL-8810 meter is placed 51cm from the source fan to measure sound level. The entire test unit is moved to an acoustically treated room to get the ambient noise as low as controllably possible for real-world results. All other fans are disabled to eliminate sound sources that are not from the cooling unit itself that is being tested. This includes all case fans and all other component fan is shut off. The boiler during winter or the air conditioner during summer is also shut off to eliminate ambient noise further and sound testing is conducted from 2AM to 5AM so sound traffic from the outside is minimized as much as possible. Fan levels are controlled manually via software and at a separate time from the temperature testing.

Although the graphs include the sound level in bar graph form with the temperatures, please understand that this is only done for the sake of convenience. Sound level measurement is logarithmic so technically it should be on a separate graph than temperatures because it is on a completely different scale.

Benchmarks:

Sound Profile (Fan RPM vs Noise Level) – Room ambient noise is 34.8dBA:

Fan Speed 1x 92mm slim fan RPM dBA 2200 39.8 2100 38.9 2000 38.2 1900 37.6 1800 36.9 1700 36 1600 35.7 1500 35.3 1400 35 1300 34.9

[section_title title=Final Thoughts]

Final Thoughts about the Silverstone Argon AR06 CPU Cooler

Silverstone has prioritized silence with the Argon AR06, cooling with impressively quiet performance even at full speed. The installation was also very accommodating for mini-ITX builds, ditching a full-size universal backplate for a more reasonable hex nut locking mechanism. Manufacturers tend to use the same mounting mechanism design for all their coolers from the highest end to the more lower profile models so what usually happens is that many of the smaller heatsinks get saddled with unnecessarily large mounting parts which then cause clearance issues for smaller heatsinks. Thankfully, Silverstone is a lot more attuned to the needs of the SFF/HTPC crowd as evident from their current product line so the Argon AR06 fares well in the compatibility department.

Since the Argon AR06 is designed primarily for silent operation and compatibility however, the performance skews toward the warmer side. This is not necessarily an issue as long as the right CPU is used (don’t use with a 125W AMD FX CPU for example). To be fair to Silverstone, this heatsink is not marketed at all to be for overclocking of any kind. The Argon AR06 fits into compact spaces and ideal with cases such as the RVZ01 and RVZ02, requiring very good airflow if performance slightly above the 95W TDP description is expected.

The Argon AR06 accepts standard 92mm fan replacement if need be, although the included screws are only for the bundled 15mm thick slim rifle-bearing fan which is fairly good in its own right, with a smooth PWM operation across its RPM spectrum. Ultimately, for $39.99, the Argon AR06 is a decent option for a low-profile cooler, especially if a silent range of operation on a mini-ITX system is a concern.

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