Kopi

Silent whisper. Think Sunbeam is trying to get a point across to you with the name of their new heatsink? The goal of this heatsink is to cool those hot CPU’s while keeping it quiet. It has an attached fan that can’t be switched unless you’re up for modding, and that fan is definitely silent. This cooler is hitting the shelves at $20. Quiet and cheap, this is my kind of cooler


The package on this sunbeam has a modern blue and black look to it. A few light blue stripes and glowing picture of the heatsink give it a futuristic look. On the back you get plenty of information concerning the weight, thermal resistance, fan speed, and fan info.


Sunbeam includes all the necessary components with their Silent Whisper. In the box you’ll find:
1xHeatsink + Fan combo

Yep, that’s about it. You get what you need, I guess the only other thing you could ask for is paste right? Well it has already got some applied to it. Its not the prettiest stuff but I decided to give it a run before testing AS5 aswell, to see how it ranked up.

The mounting kits for LGA775 and K8 are already installed on the cooler and can’t be removed. There is an LGA version and a K8 version of the cooler so make sure you buy the right one when purchasing this cooler.


I won’t spend too much time here, but I’d like to look at the stock fan. The Sunbeam claims to be “silent” with this fan. It is very quiet, 25dba or less, completely inaudible in the case. I would have liked to see a shrouded fan as some air was escaping to the sides when running. Other than that it moves some good air, enough to cool those fins well. Don’t be afraid of it.




The heatsink itself is an aluminum and copper mix. 3 Copper heatpipes carry heat up from the copper base to the aluminum fins. I really like how sunbeam used 3 heatpipes here, for a smaller sized cooler the more heatpipes the merrier.



The base of the cooler was covered in pre applied paste when I received it. It did ok, but you really should replace with a higher end paste like Arctic Silver 5. It really made a difference in this case. The base was pretty flat, but wasn’t all that smooth. It was very grainy, a difficult texture to describe. A lap would definitely improve the cooling qualities of this heatsink.


I’ve included a few pictures just so you get the feel of the cooler.






Test bed:
AMD Opteron 1210 @2.4ghz, 1.4v
ASUS M2N-e AM2 motherboard
1GB Geil DDR2 667
BFG 6600gt oc
Coolermaster 500watt
Sunbeam UFO case



I was very surprised at the performance of this cooler, it really did well. You can see it here compared to stock, at ambient of about 25c. The cooler mounted very easily as do most AM2 heatsinks. A simple seating and flipping the clip over and it was ready to go.



First up was stock, no pictures needed, it was mounted with AS5. Then I mounted the Silent Whisper and its stock paste. The stock paste was mediocre, but it made decent contact with the chip proved but the paste marks on the chip



I thought I would show this neat picture, it shows the heatpipes through the cooler…I don’t know, maybe it’s just me, but I think it looks pretty cool.



You can draw the conclusion from the charts. This thing is awesome. For a $20 cooler I’m very surprised at the temperatures it accomplished when coupled with Arctic Silver. We’re talking more than 10c for 25 bucks, that’s something you can’t argue. I’m usually skeptical about an attached fan but this one seemed to impress me with sound and airflow. I’m going to have to give this cooler a 9/10. It is a solid contender and puts out great temps, especially if you’re on a budget. I’d like to thank Sunbeam for giving me a chance to look at this cooler!



PROS
-Price, no doubt
-Very quiet
-Easy to mount on either LGA775 (pushpins) or K8
-3 heatpipes
CONS
-Unchangeable fan (if you wish for more performance)
-Fan could be shrouded

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Overclock

Sounds good, but I still want a Ninja more.

txtmstrjoe

"Cool" inspection and review!

I really do appreciate the spirit behind these mini-reviews: You just examine the product at face value, with no preconceptions whatsoever about their performance. This is the purity in spirit in reviewing/critiquing anything that is sadly missing all too often.

Good job!

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OCN AM2/AM2+ Club Supporter"What time is it? It's 9:39!" (The Official S939 Appreciation Club and Knowledgebase)Technical Joe-Pinions

“Give a man a fish; you have fed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and you have fed him for a lifetime.”—Lao Tzu (thanks to Blitz6804)

Today's "thlnk3r's thoughts": Overclocking doesn't happen overnight...there is much testing involved

swiftshinobi

I looks very similar to a AC 64 or AC 7

Kopi

That it does, sir

Thanks alot, it sure is alot of fun being able to see a bunch of different products.

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AmericanNightmare

I ordered one of these on Sun. glad to see it get a good reveiw here. It gets good marks on Newegg as well but i trust the opinion of one OCN member over 20 Newegg reviews i have seen some pretty kookie claims there. That's not to say there are not a lot of legit. reveiws at the Egg, anyway i digress...

If it keeps my 1212 around 45c under load i will be a happy little monkey. This Ghetto AC unit cooling is getting less pratical (not that it was very much so to begin with) by the day as it's startin to cool off here in MO. It really does not handle load temps at higher volts very well anyway.

Nice job Kopi,good info

If anyone is using this with an AM2 i'd love to hear how well it's working for them.