Thermaltake Silent 1156:

Our last contestant is a name most enthusiasts are familiar with - Thermaltake. Today we look at one of their newer socket LGA1156 cooler, the Silent 1156. Much like the Noctua and Thermalright units, this is a single socket solution. The stock image below gives you a preview.



First up, we have the examination of the box. Nothing surprising here, Thermaltake has gone with white packaging with black and red accents. The front of the box, as seen in the below left image, is simply stated with just an image of the cooler, the name, and the Thermaltake logo in the upper left hand corner. Around the back, as you can see in the below right image, we have a list of features, specifications, and a few more smaller images.



On to the meat and potatoes portion of our show. The below left image gives you an idea of what you get with the Silent 1156 cooler. Luckily, this one is REALLY straight-forward. All that is included are two push-pin style brackets, four mounting screws, and a tube of high-quality thermal compound. The image on the right shows you the finish on the Silent 1156's copper base. While it is not exactly a "mirror" finish, it is fairly smooth and should make excellent contact with the i7/i5/i3 processor's integrated heatspreader.



Lastly, we get to the heatsink...our last heatsink. The top-down view, as seen in the below left image shows us that Thermaltake has decided to go the dual heatpipe route. This may be a disadvantage as it will be going up against coolers with up to 4 more heatpipes - only time will tell. In the image on the right, we see that the included 90mm fan is a Thermaltake branded unit - with the reduced size being another potential handicap.



Time to mount up! The image on the left shows you the cooler secured to our test motherboard and the first thing you may notice is that the heatpipes are bent slightly backwards to center the entire unit over the socket. This will help to ensure there won't be any clearance issues. You may also have noticed (in the image on the right) that the Silent 1156 uses the same push-pin style mounting system as the stock Intel cooler. This makes installation and removal a snap. This is also the only cooler that didn't require the removal of the fan assembly for installation or removal.



Currently available from newegg.com, the Thermaltake Silent 1156 sells for $29.99.