Introduction:
When we talk about high end air cooling, Thermalright is the name that promptly pops up in the mind. Based in Taiwan, they are making quality cooling products for hardcore overclockers from almost a decade now and ever since their early days they are ‘The Best’. One of their early well known solutions was the SK-6 and it was a big hit. Their golden period started when they launched IFX-14 and Ultra 120 Extreme (a.k.a TRUE120). These were the best coolers back then and still they are well known for their top-notch performance.

After facing some competition from other companies, Thermalright re-deigned their award winning TRUE120 and made another top of the range product – Venomous X. It is a single tower cooler.

Now it was the time to revise their dual tower IFX-14, they did the job and did it pretty well. Today we’ll be looking at their latest dual tower cpu cooler –Thermalright Silver Arrow. According to Thermalright it’s the new king, let’s see if Thermalright lived up to their statement.

Packaging and the Cooler:

Thermalright Silver Arrow comes in a very large box, by large I mean MASSIVE. Box is very sleek and simple; it’s made up of brown cardboard with Thermalright logo printed on top. Almost all the Thermalright coolers are packaged in this kind of box.

It has a large Silver Arrow text printed on both the right and left side with all the supported sockets printed below the name of cooler.

As all other Thermalright coolers, Silver Arrow is made in Taiwan.

Opening the box, you’ll notice cooler stacked up in Styrofoam with each fans on both sides. There is an accessory box at the left side of Styrofoam packaging.

Cooler and fans are sturdily packed in Styrofoam packing. There is absolutely no chance of cooler being damaged during shipping. Thermalright has always been best at packaging.

Thermalright Silver Arrow is one of those coolers with dual radiator design with a fan inside the radiators and other fan on the outer side of radiators. This design is becoming really popular recently; a lot of companies have been implying this type of design. It really helps on with cooling but also increases size, weight and price of coolers.

Thermalright Silver Arrow is 147mm long, 123mm wide and its 160mm high. That’s way bigger than a simple single radiator cooler. It is wide and tall enough to fit up to three 140mm fans securely. Along with 140x25mm fan, it can be mounted with 120x25mm and 120x35mm. It means you can also mount those extra fat fans that sound like jets and blow more air then a tornado. Silver Arrow comes with two 140x25mm PWM fans; we’ll talk about them in detail down the page. Fans can be mounted on easily with the provided wire fan clips.

Cooler is all made up of C1100 Pure Copper with Nickel Plating, which is another example of Thermalright’s focus on performance, rather than on plastic and other designs that only improve its looks. Due to very high class nickel plating job this cooler is all shiny like the “Silver” in its name.

This cooler has 4 massive 8mm Nickel Plated Sintered heatpipes, which are beefier than the usual 6mm pipes and they are said to transfer heat very efficiently. They are nicely bent and soldered to base for maximum cooling efficiency. Nickel Plated Base and Heat pipes, increase the longevity of the heatsink by slowing oxidation and deterioration rates.

Thermalright used Metal Capes on top of heatpipes. It really enhances the looks of cooler.

Dual radiator design has 54 closely packed fins on each tower. These massive fins provide 147 x 103mm of surface area for heat dissipation per tower. With these large fins, massive heatpipes and dual fin stacks, Thermalright Silver weighs a mere 825 g (excluding Retention Hardware and Fan) which is slightly less than the other Dual Radiator Coolers available in market.

The fin edges are slightly bent in opposite a direction, which allows making better use of the airflow created by the fan(s). It gives more opportunity to air to strike with fins hence causing heat transfer. This makes perfect sense as the air which enters the heatsink is being pushed in from rotational blades of fan so the air is actually moving in a circular motion, which means straight fins are actually at an angle to this air movement which will cause air to bounce. This ‘bouncing’ cause air turbulence which in turn increases the static pressure; so by angling the front face up and down the fins are aimed to direct the air into fins which helps in better heat dissipation.

Silver Arrow adopts the all new “Special Arrow fin design”, which allows cool air to pass through while rapidly moving heat away and maintaining a quiet operating volume. It also gives a nice arrow-ish look to the cooler.

Silver Arrow has a very smooth base, which has a nearly mirror finish. Thermalright has always paid a lot of attention in this area and their efforts have always been paid off in terms of performance.

Accessories:
Thermalright uses the most convenient and effective mounting mechanism with Variable Pressure Adjustment. It supports all the latest Intel and AMD Sockets.

Let’s have a look what’s included in the Intel Mounting mechanism:
• Multiple support backplate x1
• Anchoring bracket mount x1
• Backplate cap for 775 platform x1
• Screw Pillar(with pre-applied washers) x4
• White plastic washers x4
• Thumbscrew cap x4
• Pressure adjustable mounting plate x1
• Fan wire clip x4
• Anti-Vibration Padding x4
• Angled Wrench x1

Multiple Support Backplate is the single plate used for all the Intel Sockets.

AMD mounting mechanism includes following accessories:
• AM2 X Bracket x1
• AM2 Backplate x1
• Spring Loaded Screws x4

Thermalright Silver Arrow can be mounted on AM2, AM2+ and AM3 brackets.

Thermalright also included their high end Chill Factor III Thermal Paste which really adds the value to package.

- Thermalright TY 140mm PWM Fan:
Thermaright Silver Arrow comes with two Thermalright TY 140mm PWM controlled fans. Color of the fans is very unconventional and is disliked by many.

Fan spins at a speed ranging from 500~1300RPM producing 28~73.6CFM. Noise levels are rated at 17~21dBA. Being a PWM
Controlled fan it uses a 4-pin fan cable.

Fan cable is long enough for any system configuration and it’s braided in nice black color.

This is how the cooler looks with fans in their place.

You can mount fans on either side of both radiators.

Official Specifications and Features:

Mounting:
This is the part where Thermalright is above all. Their new mounting mechanism is very easy-to-use. New multiple support backplate is the finest of all. It’s the single back plate that can be used with all the three latest Intel sockets, all you need to do is adjust the knob according to your socket.

Let’s have a detailed look at the installation process.

First of all you need to adjust the knob on backplate, I moved it to most inner slot as I’ll be mounting it on an LGA775 motherboard and don’t forget to place rubber washers between motherboard and backplate. Furthermore, for LGA775, you need to install backplate cap in its place (For other sockets, there is no need to install back plate cap).

Now place the backplate at back of motherboard and screw down the pillar screws at top of motherboard. They have white washers pre-applied, these washers help in insulating the board from metal parts which can cause short circuit.

Then we have to place anchoring bracket mount on the top of pillar screws. This anchoring bracket has 3 holes to suit LGA775, LGA 1156 and LGA1366. Most inner one is for LGA775.

After that, screw down this anchoring bracket with the help of 4 thumbscrews.

Then you have to secure the heat sink onto its place with the help of adjustable mounting plate and tighten up the spring loaded hexagonal screws. Don’t use force to over-turn the hexagonal screw; you have to stop once they reach their natural stop. You can add extra pressure by tightening the pressure adjustable nob with the help of angled wrench included.

Due to big size of cooler, we were unable to install two sticks with cooler mounted parallel to Ram slots. It was over lapping 3 slots out of 4.

Then I rotated the cooler 90 degree with the fans blowing air upwards, I was able to install both sticks of ram.

Clearance can be a problem with such a big cooler, so please check if your motherboard has enough space before buying this cooler.

Testing:
Following hardware was used to test this cooler:

Load temperatures were taken after loading CPU for 20min by Prime 95(Small fft).

Thermalright Silver Arrow was tested against Noctua NH-D14, Thermalright Venomous X and Thermalright MUX-120 Black.
Venomous X and MUX-120 were tested with Thermalright TH-FDB-12-1600 fans. Other two coolers were tested with their stock fans.

Here are some pictures on Silver Arrow in comparison to Noctua NH-D14.

Noctua NH-D14 is a bit bigger than Silver Arrow and look how massive 8mm heat pipes are as compared to 6mm on NH-D14.

- Single Fan Test:
All the coolers were tested on both stock and overclocked settings.

This new monster from Silver Arrow owns all the other high end coolers.

- Dual Fan Test:
All the coolers were tested with TH-FDB-12-1600 in push/pull configuration on both stock and overclocked speeds.

As expected, Silver Arrow is again the best cooler in our dual fan test.

Final Words:
Thermalright has won its place again – the top mark. It’s the best Air Cooler in the world right now. Thermalright has been paid off for all their hard work and latest technologies. Silver Arrow is a gem for any hardcore overclocker.

It will mount onto any socket that gives another plus point to it. It is definitely is capable of dealing with a hot and sweaty processor. Even though it’s pretty heavy but Thermalright’s new mounting mechanism will handle it alright without causing any damage to motherboard.

It is shipped with two 140mm fans, which did their job pretty well. This might be the only cooler in the world which is shipped with two 140mm fans. Even with dual fans mounted, this cooler is almost silent.

With no retail price officially announced as yet, I was told by Thermalright that it’s going to retail around 90USD. That’s a lot for a CPU Cooler but for a cooler like Silver Arrow, price is totally justified. Two fans, a high class thermal compound, a lot of cooling performance and top notch production quality price tag is obviously justified.

I can certainly recommend the Thermalright Silver Arrow for any hardcore overclocking enthusiast. This is obviously the cooler you’ll enjoy a lot.

- Pros:
• Best cooling performance
• 140mm included fans
• Top notch build quality
• Low noise
• Great mounting mechanism
• Included high end Thermal paste
• 3 Fan capable design
• Multi-platform support

- Cons:
• Price
• Size

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