|
Akasa Silver Mountain 2Q From All
Angles |
 |
The Fan: Ball bearing fans generally last
longer than their sleeve cousins but
tend to make higher pitched noises so the trade off is a difficult
one. The Delta fan used on the Silver Mountain is a standard cooler but
rotates at a slightly lower than typical PRM. The fan connects
to the motherboard fan header via a 3-pin connector which also supports
RPM monitoring. The all-black fan grille looks really nice. |
 |
Top: Each of the silver plated copper fins are 1mm x
3mm wide. There are 14 rows of fins altogether. Each fin is mounted into
the base by mechanical means, and possibly by some
soldering though it is difficult to tell for sure. Pay close attention to
the clip design. Rather than cut out a
path through the fins, the clip goes in between two sets of 3mm spacing to minimize impact on the
overall performance of the cooler. Each of the fins is typically spaced on the order of 2mm
apart. |
 |
Side
A: The aluminum shroud keeps
the base of the fan about 4mm above the tips of the fins. Measuring
15mm tall the shroud leaves 17mm above the base plate for air to exhaust
from. Looking at the base plate it is easy to see that there are still
spaces around each of those fin sections - despite the plating operation.
The base plate is 6mm thick and under cut 1.25mm to clear the socket cam
arm.
|
 |
Side B:
The
three-prong clip is pretty easy to work with if you have a screwdriver,
and the three prongs mean that if you have a board where the center socket
clip has been snapped off you still have a heatsink you can use.
The silver plating really looks nice from this angle
too :-)
|
 |
Heatsink Base:
As you can see, even the base of the heatsink is
coated with silver, and shiny silver it is. The base finish
is not the best, the heatsink domes
up a little at the center, and there are some fine sanding marks visible on
the surface of the metal. A little bit of lapping would be good for
this heatsink. |
