Acoustic Samples: Listen to this Heatsink!

The Silverado is pretty quiet compared to today's heatsinks, but at full power it is not exactly silent. The silence comes when one of those resistors are dropped in between the fan header and the fan. Only then when the fan is rotating slowly does the sound level drop to very quiet levels. To listen to this heatsink under full power for yourself, simply click on the little pair of headphones and download the MP3 recording.

FrostyTech Acoustic Sampling Chamber
Standard Waveform view of a 10 second recording. Click on the headphones to listen to an MP3 recording of this heatsink in operation.

Sound Level Measurements:

Listening to the actual noise a heatsink makes allows you to hear what pure numbers alone cannot get across. To further emphasize FrostyTech's reliance on cold hard facts when evaluating a heatsink, we also take Decibel readings with a sound level meter. These results may be higher than the manufacturer's listed specs, but then again these are real world measurements.

FrostyTech Sound Level Results
-	Manufacturer	Model	Noise Level	Scale
	JMC Prducts	400023	46.6 dB	quiet
	Zalman	All Flower HSF	47.4/28.9 dB
	Taisol	CGK760092	48.4 dB
	GlacialTech	Igloo 2310	49.4 dB
	Arkua	628	50.7 dB
	Noisecontrol	Silverado	50.8 dB
	NengTyi	XPC5000	52.4 dB
	Thermal Integration	TI-V77L	53.0 dB
	Tocools	Crown	54.5 dB
	Cybercooler	P5750	55.4 dB
	Sibak	AT01515B	55.8 dB
	Sibak	AE01625B	58.2 dB
	Sibak	AC02625B	59.7 dB
	Dynatron	DY1206BH-625	63.3 dB
	Dynatron	DC1206BMP	65.1 dB	louder

I would say anything above 54dB is pretty loud and something which is going to be annoying over time. The 50 dB range is pretty decent and while it is noticeable it is not something which is really that loud compared to other computer components (or at least at the time of this writing).