SilenX EFZ-120HA5 Heatsink Review

1. Introduction2. SilenX EFZ-120HA53. Installation4. Testing Methodology and Performance5. Acoustic Performance6. Closing thoughts7. View All Pages

Today we are going to test the SilenX EFZ-120HA5 with the AMD Phenom II X6 1090T Black Edition CPU. We will compare it with the Arctic Freezer 13 Pro which is just slightly more expensive.

We like to try and mirror ‘realistic’ conditions when possible, so instead of the ‘open bench concept’, we are mounting our test system inside the NZXT Phantom chassis.

Room ambient temperatures were maintained at a steady 18c throughout testing.

AMD System:

Processor: AMD PII X6 1090T Black Edition
Coolers: SilenX EFZ-120HA5, Arctic Freezer 13 Pro
Motherboard: Asus M5A97
Thermal Paste: Arctic MX-4
Power Supply: Corsair CX 500
Chassis: NZXT Phantom
Memory: 8GB Mushkin DDR3 1333
Graphics Card: Sapphire HD 6670

There are several different applications available that will load a processor to the limit while running through a series of complicated calculations. For today’s testing we are going to use the latest version of Prime 95.

Prime95 is a popular freeware application that can be used to stress test the CPU.

Validation Link

The SilenX EFZ-120HA5 performs quite well for a budget cooler.  Our Phenom II X6 1090T hit a maximum of 47 degrees Celsius which is quite impressive.  The SilenX EFZ-120HA5 would serve as a good upgrade from a reference cooler, at a decent price.

Once we overclock our CPU to 4.0 GHz we saw a jump of 10 degrees Celsius, peaking at 57c.  Personally I don't like to exceed 55c on a daily basis with this AMD processor. By hitting 57 degrees Celsius after a 15 minute Prime 95 session we would hesitate to select this cooler for long term usage, at this clock speed.

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