Before I start, I would like to thank APES.my for giving me the chance to play with this beast CPU cooler - Thermalright Silver Arrow SB-E Extreme. A lot of people claimed that Noctua NH-D14 is the king of air cooler, but some said this Silver Arrow SB-E Extreme is on par with NH-D14. In this review, no comparison between these 2 cooler but only focus on Silver Arrow SB-E Extreme.

Official Link : Thermalright Silver Arrow SB-E Extreme

UNBOXING :
The packaging of the cooler is relatively simple compared to others.




But once you open the box, the shinny cooler gets your attention very quickly!


This is the fans' specification from official website above

TY-143 Length 151mm x Width 26.5mm x Height 141mm
TY-143 Fan Speed: 600~2500 RPM (PWM)
TY-143 Fan noise level: 21~45dBA
Fan Airflow: 31-130CFM

The fan mounting hole is the same as 120mm fan holes. Red frames with orange blade.
The fans come with 4 pin header (PWM) so the speed of fans can be controlled by the load of your system

Compare with the older non-Extreme Silver Arrow,
Thermalright Silver Arrow SB-E
Now Thermalright using 2 same dimension fans instead of 1 big and 1 small. The CFM and fan speed increased significantly.

The sleeved fan cable makes it look good inside your casing.


This post has been edited by unequalteck: Jan 20 2013, 01:14 PM

Accessories :


1x Anchoring Mount (Intel & AMD) - Very solid material. Refer pic below.
1x Metal Back Plate - Very solid material . Refer pic below.
1x Mounting Plate - Comes with 'Thermalright' word on top. Shinning surface. Refer pic below.
4x Screw Nut - With rubber at the base to prevent short circuit. Refer pic below.
4x LGA 2011 Screw Pillar
5x M3 L10 Screw
7x M3 L6 Screw
6x Fan Clip - Standard package comes with 2 fans. 2 more clips for you if you are going to add 3rd fan
4x Intel Washer - Current insulating material
4x AMD Washer - Current insulating material
8x Anti Vibration Pad - Rubber to prevent the fans from vibrating and produce noise
1x Backplate Cap
1x Wrench - Very useful tool when your screw driver is not long enough
1x PWM Y-Cable - Long enough for cable management
1x Thermal Paste








This post has been edited by unequalteck: Jan 20 2013, 01:14 PM

Now here come the giant HEATSINK



Look at the fins of the heatsink. Very shinny surface and very good material.


Good looking design and the finishing was awesome




8 heatpipes to transfer the heat more efficient


Shinny finishing and sharp edge. Please becareful with the edge ( not joking, really sharp end )


The bottom of the heatsink. Mirror surface and according to LinusTechTips the design can helps in spreading the thermal compound evenly and puts more pressure on the heat spreader.


Fixed it on the mobo together with the fans. After installed the fan, you can't see your RAM or even top half of your mobo anymore.



This post has been edited by unequalteck: Jan 20 2013, 01:16 PM

RAM CLEARANCE ISSUE:

As you can see in the picture below, after installed the 2nd fan on the right hand side the thickness of the fan already covered 3 RAM slots. If you're using high profile RAM, you have to switch the fan to the left hand side.






2nd fan switched to the left hand side


FINISHING

Real huge CPU cooler


Fixed it into the casing and done all cable jobs



This post has been edited by unequalteck: Jan 20 2013, 01:19 PM

TESTING :
Spec
Intel i5 2500k Sandy Bridge
ASUS P8P67 Deluxe Rev3.0
GSkill Ripjaws X DDR3 1600Mhz 4GB x2
MSI GTX 660 Twin Frozr III 2GB DDR5
Crucial M4 64GB SSD
WD Caviar Blue 500GB 7200RPM
Corsair Carbide 400R
Corsair TX650M

IDLE = Only a few monitoring program running
FULL = Prime95 Blend Test
Room environment with ceiling fan only

Stock Clock @ 3.4Ghz (IDLE) Fan speed PWM controlled

MIN temp : 32°C
MAX temp : 44°C
AVE temp : 35-36°C

Stock Clock @ 3.4Ghz (FULL) Fan speed MAX

MIN temp : 41°C
MAX temp : 50°C
AVE temp : 48-49°C

Over Clocked @ 4.5Ghz (Surfing, music player, office work) Fan speed PWM controlled

MIN temp : 35°C
MAX temp : 53°C
AVE temp : 42-43°C

Over Clocked @ 4.5Ghz (FULL) Fan speed MAX

MIN temp : 50°C
MAX temp : 64°C
AVE temp : 61-62°C


The fan speed plays important role here. In order to get max temp 64°C at full load, I disable the fan controlled option by ASUS AI Suite II. As you can see in the SENSOR tab, the fan is running at full speed 2500RPM +/- 10%. The noise is noticeable at that speed and is quite disturbing. I recorded a video with sound to show how loud is the noise produced by the fan at full speed.

The camera is positioned at 15cm away from the side panel. Judge by yourself whether it is a disturbance for you or not.

I used another 2 fans to do the test.
1. Noiseblocker XLP (1000-2000RPM)
2. Arctic Cooling F12 PWM (600-1350RPM)

Stock Clock @ 3.4Ghz


Over Clocked @ 4.5Ghz


Note : Only stock fan using PWM controlled as it is too noisy. Noiseblocker and AC F12 are running at full speed.

CONCLUSION :
With the SRP RM289 at APES.my, this cooler has a high performance/price ratio. The great finishing of fins and heatpipes make it looks better inside your casing. With the impressive result during full load at MAX 64°C, it could hardly achieve by the other air cooler. If you go for extreme OC, this beast can hit around 4.7-4.8Ghz depending vcore. IMO, this cooler can beat most of the AIO liquid cooler at the similar price range in term of performance/price ratio.

PROS :
- Great performance
- Awesome finishing
- Solid build material
- Complete high quality accessories

CONS :
- Too giant in size
- Fan noisy at full speed

p/s : Lastly, so sorry for my bad english here. typical ah beng

This post has been edited by unequalteck: Jan 21 2013, 04:43 PM

Awesome review!!!! May I know how much it is?

Great review!!! Very detailed...great job man

Nicely done bro..what a good review

Ah...didn't know apes.my carry Thermalright HSF.

BTW, why you did not compare it with the HSF you reviewed using the same setup before? That will be more informative.

i'm trying this HSF with the other fans. will upload the result soon.
previous HSF not really in this range in term of price or performance.
is like comparing a kelisa with camry

True also haha. But you do not have a Noctua to test.
If you put in results from the stock HSF, I think you can give an overall idea of how different HSF at difference classes improve the temperature relatively.
Anyway if I knew apes.my is selling these, I might had bought this instead of used HSF a week ago.

This post has been edited by davidletterboyz: Jan 20 2013, 04:28 PM

nice review bro...keep it up....nobody do the phanteks ph-tc14pe review?

Well there is no comparison. The Phanteks TC14PE is the best Twin Tower air cooler. Following the Noctua D14. This cooler is third grade. Thermalright was previously distributed by Inter Asia. Inter Asia usually only stick to some of the best product, not unlike us. The brand was dropped in favour of the better Noctua. And now we have Phanteks for about the same price in Malaysia with all color available:

http://www.maximumpc.com/article/[primary-term]/thermalright_silver_arrow_sb-e_review













Not all reviews have the Silver Arrow in it. The TC14PE when running idle with PWM is extremely silent and may have slightly higher idling temperature which does not make any difference whatsoever.

This post has been edited by CyntrixTech: Jan 31 2013, 04:43 PM

most, ehh i meant all of the fancy graph shown are of the old silver arrow la i see..i think ts was talking about the new silver arrow, the SB-E version..
and even with the old version, the temp diff is not much, a mere 1-2c...price, i'm thinking the SB-E is whole lot cheaper...
also i'd read the SB-E is a lot quiter than the TC14pe..
so performance over value is pretty good with Silver Arrow i see..its a no brainer dy.
TC14pe is also good, no doubt bout that, but i'm on a budget...so...
lot of oversea review saw the TC14pe and Silver Arrow SB-E neck to neck...same twin tower, and having the same limitation..so boils down to cost and quality of product. Thermalright product has always been top quality.
lot of reviews, but one i that kinda made up the decision for me to buy TR SA SB-E over TC14pe is this one..

for TR SA SB-e over



and of course by TS review, bro unequalteck ....nicely down bro ...my SA SBE is in the mail already...

This post has been edited by xenowork: Feb 1 2013, 11:13 AM

oh mai...look at the size of it...even now i have to sacrifice my ram of choice for noctua dh-14...this is even worst in ram choice...since i do recon that shifting the fan to the other side would solve this issue but i am using silverstone raven 02 casing where the 3 bottom fan push heat up...if switching the fan to the other side which means the heat from proc will be pushing down towards the 3 bottom fan instead...is this bad?

phewww here also wanna promote phanteks product.

promote your own product here ? this is a Thermalright Silver Arrow SB-E Extreme . do you have a graph of SB-E "EXTREME" one ?

instead of relaying on graph from online try to put your own effort on benchmarking those product since you have 11 brands or more ?

this is the comparison with thermalright silver arrow SB-e, non extreme version. do u mind to lend me a phanteks twin tower to do review?

Nicely done bro!!

nice review excellent job teck ...seriously that thing is sexy ...if only they would release an anodised ver...

when it come to review it's not a matter of which product are the best it to deliver the content, advantages, disadvantages of a particular product and most important delivering poison, it's very unprofessional to post comment and said this product loses by a few C and everyone should not buy it plus saying it's a "third grade" product ......(rank?)

in other word example lar ...we can also assume that you're insulting everyone who use AMD ... just because intel win in most of the benchies ...kasihan pokde ...

just my personal opinion