Thermaltake Technology Co. Ltd was founded in 1999, and is known to have been the first to manufacture the turbine cooler Golden Orb for the INTEL PENTIUM III in 2000. Since then, Thermaltake has introduced a wide range of cooling solutions. Thermaltake engineers focus on performance and design. Their innovative ideas present some of the best looking fans world-wide. We had the chance to test the Thermaltake Silent939 HSF (Heat Sink Fan).

How it works :

The cooler uses a simple fan, almost the same fan as the stock cooler AMD is using. However, there are some modifications that increase performance and make the cooler silent. First of all, there are 11 fan blades (the stock cooler has only 9). This increases the air flow so that the fan does not need to spin at higher speeds in order to achieve good performance. There are 50 fins to dissipate the heat and achieve lower temperatures. The secret behind this design is again the heat pipes that Thermaltake uses, just as with the Beetle and the Big Typhoon models. However, there are only 2 heat pipes instead of the usual 3 or 6 heat pipes that are incorporated in other Thermaltake coolers, but for a low profile, small sized fan, these will do the job.

If you need further info on how the heat pipes work, you can check out the Thermaltake Beetle review.

Here are the detailed specifications as provided by ThermalTake:

The Silent939 fan speed is only 2000 ±300 rpm. At this low speed, the fan produces only 19dBA noise level, making it practically silent compared with the stock fan. Unfortunately, the fan rotation speed cannot be increased on demand, to increase cooling.

The Silent939 is designed for AMD equipped systems and cannot be fitted on any Intel based models. On the other hand, Thermaltake has a solution for 775 socketed system, the Silent775. The size of the cooler is similar to the stock AMD cooler, and the 3Pin connector seems to be very easy to install.

In a few words, this seems to be a good alternative to the standard AMD noisy cooler, and while not promising great performance boost, does make for silent operation. So, let us put the cooler to the test...