Gelid Silent Spirit Review

About Gelid

GELID Solutions Ltd. is a Hong Kong based company with Swiss Management and founded in 2008 by Gebhard SCHERRER and VC TRAN. Both have worked in the PC Cooling industry for a number of years and successfully built up an IT company with their expertise.

GELID Solutions designs and manufactures thermal solutions, CPU coolers, fans, and other computer hardware for both gamers and silent enthusiasts. We provide computer hardware distributors, retailers and system integrators with innovative, virtually silent, high- performance and top quality thermal solutions.

Introduction

Since the rapid developments in CPU’s over the past few years there has been a booming industry for high end CPU coolers, many of which cost well over the £50 mark. This has meant that high-end performance coolers at the lower end of the price spectrum have been doing quite well in the shops. But can a low cost, yet high quality cooler possible hope to be as good as the more expensive high-end coolers? Today I have the GELID Solutions Silent Spirit-which retails at around £22.99 – so I aim to find out.

Specifications and Features

• Air Flow (CFM):45.8 max
• Bearing: Hydro Dynamic Bearing
• Cable Length (mm):250
• Cooling Performance (C/W):0.17
• Current (A):0.23
• Dimensions of Cooler (mm):108 (l) x 100.5 (w) x 125 (h)
• Dimensions of Fan (mm):100.5 (l) x 100.5 (w) x 45 (h)
• Dimensions of Heatsink (mm):108 (l) x 97 (w) x 88.5 (h)
• Fan Speed (RPM):900 – 2400
• Life time MTTF at 40C (h):50′000
• Noise Level (dBA):10 – 25.8
• Voltage (V):12
• Warranty (years):5
• Weight (g):370

Packaging

The Silent Spirit arrived in a highly stylish white box adorned with some quite cool graphics. The front of the box allowed for viewing of the lesser part of the cooler and the rear and side carry information about the specifications and features.

Bundled with the cooler are the usual attachment clips for AMD CPUs and Intel CPU’s (however the Intel 1366 connection kit is purchased separately) as well as a small GELID Solutions sticker for your case and an instruction manual for CPU cooler installation novices.

External/First Impressions

Upon first impressions the Silent Spirit is very different to many other coolers which are typically similar in size and shape. The Silent Spirit is a lot shorter than most other coolers I have reviewed in the past which have been of the generic tower shape. Its not only that though this cooler leans rather nicely which means that when the fans airflow comes out of the other end of the fins it is in a prime direction to flow across the motherboard and given the correct orientation out of the case via an extraction fan.

The fan on the cooler boasts high airflow whilst maintaining a low acoustic noise output, this means high performance and low noise which is a big bonus by any means. The fan is held in place by 4 rubber fan mounts which help reduce vibration noise. The fan itself which is controlled by GELID’s “Intelligent PWM fan curve” delivers less noise than standard PWM fans at lower rpm’s and relies on a “curved” speed increase as a pose to the standard linear speed increase of common fans.

The heatpipes on the cooler are all copper and are nice and shiny, run through the entire length of the heatsinks fans and the CPU contact base. At the end of the heatsink fins they are neatly capped and at the end of the contact base they are neatly crimped.

The CPU contact base is also copper. This is the point at which I would normally rant on about the CPU contact base and how shiny it is etc etc, but (un)fortunately it arrives with GELID’s MC1 thermal compound pre applied so none of this talk today. With the thermal compound pre-applied this saves time for many people and as many people are unaware of the correct method for applying thermal compound having it there already is probably a welcome relief. On top of the CPU contact base there is also a small heatsink, this is something which I have seen more commonly in larger coolers such as the gargantuan Scythe Orochi. This extra heatsink can only however mean more cooling performance which in any case is an upside.

An interesting point is that the cooler arrived with the Intel socket 775 push pins attached too, but as we are using an AMD rig for testing today these will have to be remove and the AMD clips screwed in place.

Installation

As always the installation of a CPU cooler isn’t a particularly enjoyable task but nor is it without its difficulties. (For more information on how to install a CPU cooler according to Joe over at VerdisReviews please click here) Another good point about this cooler is that it requires very little removal of any other components which is great; it is with saying this that I think back to installing giant tower coolers. As you can see once installed the cooler sits quite nicely in place.

Testing and Results

As with all CPU cooler testing I have done in the past I am going to use the same methodology as always. All of the testing is carried out with the side panel of the computer case on. All case fans are installed and are on their maximum settings. Ambient was 18C. To test we boot the PC up and measure temperatures under idle and load states.
When performing the idle test we leave the PC to do nothing for about 30 minutes then take several temperature readings over a short period of time and calculate an average (all figures are rounded up to the nearest whole number). For testing under load states we use a CPU loading program to load both cores to 100% to create maximum heat output and then take several temperature readings over a short period of time and calculate an average.

In the interest of a comparison the Silent Spirit will be compared to the stock AMD cooler.

Stock AMD Idle	Stock AMD Load	Silent Spirit Idle	Silent Spirit Load
41°C	53°C	29°C	38°C

As you can see there is a distinctive temperature difference between the stock cooler and the Silent Spirit, this alone is a good enough indication that the Silent Spirit is well worth the money.

Noise

The acoustic noise output of some coolers can get very frustrating with the constant rattling, clicking and whirring; many fans also create audible turbulence which is just as annoying to hear. Fortunately, I couldn’t myself distinguish between the Silent Spirit and a passive cooler noise wise which is great.

Cost

At around the £22 mark you cannot possibly go wrong with this cooler it delivers awesome bang for buck performance and a very low noise output.

Conclusion

In conclusion the Silent Spirit from GELID Solutions has been a solid all round performer without any real cons which would really affect anyone; infact there are so few cons that I’m struggling to find one. But no review would be complete without one so here we go.

Cons

• Intel 1366 clip must be purchased separately

Pros

• Incredibly Quiet Cooling
• Brilliant Performance
• Easy Installation
• Low cost

The Gelid Silent Spirit has sailed through the review and I am happy to award it a brilliant 10 out of 10.

This Review is syndicated on TechSeed

We would like to thank Gelid Solutions for providing us with this review sample.

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