Introduction

I don't know about you but I'm personally getting tired of listening to the noise from my PC. Using it 24/7 means there is constantly a background hum, and for those people who, like me, are using there computers in the bedroom, this can make sleep very difficult. About a year ago I had a "High" performance cooler complete with a Delta screamer fan. I wasn't to impressed overall, as the performance wasn't outstanding but what really got on my nerves was the noise. As soon as I could I got a Swiftech MC462 and an 80mm fan from Coolermaster. This wasn't cheap, but I had heard great things about this cooler. It reduced my temperatures a hell of a lot and the noise level was reduced by half. At the same time it put a pretty large dent in my wallet.

I'm not the only one out there who wants a quiet PC and some manufacturers are starting to realise this and cater for those with a desire for low noise whilst retaining good cooling. is one such company and have very kindly sent us for review the Silver Mountain 2Q Quiet cooler. AKASA believes that the properties of this cooler are good enough to allow proper cooling with a quiet fan. Well were about to find out for ourselves here at the lair. Many thanks to for providing the review sample you see here today.

Features

Supports AMD Athlon" 1.7GHz
Supports AMD Athlon" XP 2200+
Pure Copper Heatsink with
Silver Plating
Sanyo Denki Ball Bearing Fan
Fan Rated Speed 4,600 R.P.M.
Fan Air Flow 23 CFM
Fan Noise 33 dB(A)
DIM 72 X 60 X 65 mm

First looks

Upon opening the box, you can see the Sanyo Denki fan on top of the HSF, sitting nicely in its very well protected packaging. You can see that AKASA have thought about saving one's fingers and included a grill on the fan too. That may be a minor point to some, but I personally find it a very welcome and good idea. After taking the HSF out of the box I noticed the silver plating. The entire heatsink is plated in silver, and it looks absolutely stunning. This is certainly one the best looking HSF's I have seen and aesthetically, it begs to be shown off. There is a protective shroud on top between the heatsink and the fan, which has a round opening to allow the air to get to the fins of the cooler from the fan.

Moving to the bottom of the HSF you can see yet more silver which gives it a mirror like finish. There are a few slight imperfections, but they are only really noticeable under close scrutiny with a magnifying glass. There's certainly not enough of the "swirls" on the bottom to make me want to lap the sink and the silver plating would kind of deny you the opportunity to do this anyway.

Being all copper this sink is quite heavy, and again AKASA have thought about this. Some of the HSF's out that you buy are heavy but only include a standard clipping mechanism which attaches to one lug on each side of the socket. AKASA has employed a clip which attaches to all three lugs on each side. It's a very simple cooler to fit, all you do is use a screw driver on one side to lever the clip into place over the socket lugs. You will also notice there is already a Thermal Interface Material patch on the bottom. Most people will scrape this off and use an aftermarket TIM such as Artic Silver. However AKASA has thought about this too. The TIM employed here is of the Shin Etsu variety, which is also used by Intel on there standard coolers. I'll be testing this against Artic Silver 2 to see if this Shin Etsu TIM makes a difference or not.

Another thing that I found nice, and I have no idea if this is something to do with Akasa or with Sanyo (I would guess the latter) is that the fan has a coiled wire leading to a 3 pin plug. This goes a long way to tidying up the appearance and mess of wires you can get with some fans. Being a 3 pin plug means it's also easy enough to swap it for a 4 pin Molex connector whilst still retain the speed sensing of the fan should you so desire. There is however no need for this. The fan doesn't draw enough power to worry about killing off any motherboard headers. All in all a very good first look and first impression.

Testing

Ok, time to put this HSF through its paces. The test system is

Athlon 1.4 (1.75v)
Asus a7v266
Juno P4 Full tower (with side of case off)
Enermax Active PFC 350w with 92mm fan at 3000rpm

The side of the case is off because the case temperatures climb way to high with it on (I really need a new case). I tested the Silver Mountain 2Q against the Swiftech MC462 with an 80mm 4000rpm Coolermaster fan for comparison purposes. I tested with the Shin Etsu TIM's on both coolers and each cooler was allowed 24 hours to let the TIM "settle". For idle purposes, from a cold boot and into windows for 15 minutes, and for load purposes Quake III Arena was run in a looping demo for an hour.
I have only displayed the numbers with the Shin Etsu though as in my tests I could find no noticeable difference between the Artic Silver 2 and the Shin Etsu. I've also tested the Silver Mountain 2Q with a Delta 6000rpm "Screamer" basically just out of curiosity. This package is aimed at being a quiet cooler, but giving the delta numbers as well should be interesting to a few of you. Just an FYI here, AKASA markets this cooler with the Delta under the name AKASA Silver Mountain 2, so if you want the delta rather than the Sanyo Denki that's the name to look for. Ok enough talk, let's see some numbers.

And for those who prefer the Fahrenheit numbers...

After looking at the results you can see the Silver Mountain 2Q is a very strong performer, coming within 2 degree's of the Swiftech. It hasn't beaten it, but it was never designed for that. It was designed for quiet cooling and with that in mind the Silver Mountain 2Q does very well indeed. As for the actual noise of the HSF, my Enermax PSU 92mm Fan at full RPM is just slightly louder. The noise from the Silver Mountain 2Q is slightly quieter than my Swiftech with the Coolermaster fan (though the pitch is also higher). One of the best things about using the 80mm heatsinks is that you can use a low RPM (and therefore low noise) fan and still have good results. The Silver Mountain 2Q uses a 60mm Sanyo Denki fan but still doesn't sound any louder to me than the Coolermaster 80mm fan. As for its use with the Delta, as you can guess that was very loud, and defeats the entire purpose of this package entirely. The performance though is on par with the Swiftech.

Another thing I would like to point out here is that the room I have my PC in is right above my kitchen. It also has all of the hot water pipes running underneath it. This of course greatly increases the heat in this room, especially if the hot water is heating up or the cooker has been on. That's why when it comes to temperature testing I always take the PC downstairs (which is where the temps above were gathered). Trying to maintain a constant ambient temperature in this room is almost impossible :. Anyway, what I noticed was that the Akasa cooler handled the extra ambient heat very well. Embarassing as it is, I've seen CPU temperatures up to 58c in this room, but the Akasa cooler, even in this heat hasn't recorded anything higher than 56. This is great for me personally, and I would guess that I'm not alone with my situation of having a PC in a hot room. Overall a very impressive performance in both sound and cooling ability from the Silver Mountain 2Q.

Final Words

This review for me has been quiet surprising in that I didn't personally think that anything this cheap would perform overall nearly as well as my Swiftech MC462. Whilst there is a difference in the temperatures between the two, it is only a 2 degree difference. When you think that the Swiftech costs a hell of a lot more for just the heatsink alone, this makes the Silver Mountain 2Q a very attractive package indeed. You don't need to buy a separate fan or any kind of thermal compound as everything you need is all there with it reducing your overall costs. It's also very quiet with my Enermax 92mm PSU fan being just slightly louder at full speed. There is a higher sounding pitch to this fan than an 80mm fan but the overall sound is about the same. The silver plating is very good, both in function and aesthetics, with a high quality and mirror like look to it. Being silver plated does mean that under close scrutiny there are a few imperfections to it but you would have to look under a magnifying glass to see them. The fan comes with a grill to protect your fingers which is something that some manufacturers don't include, and this also adds to the overall appearance.

I like this cooler, I like it a lot. It's cheap, but its performance is right up there with the bigger and more expensive coolers that aim to be quiet. Big thanks to for the review sample.

AKASA UK:
AKASA Int.:

Pro's

Good performance
Silver plating looks great
Very quiet
Tidy appearance
Decent TIM included
Fan grill included

Con's
Very slight imperfections in the silver plating under a magnifying glass

Bottom Line
This is a great performing cooler, which is quiet and ready to go out of the box. It's also not expensive. I have no hesitation in giving it the Viperlair Recommended Award.

If you got any comments, be sure to hit us up in our forums.