SilverStone was once a small firm that began as a designer of distinctive PC case designs, however at present it is without doubt one of the most well-established PC part producers worldwide. The firm’s philosophy revolves across the design of high-quality but in addition cost-effective and sensible merchandise, forgoing extravagant and swanky aesthetic designs. That tactic served SilverStone very effectively previously, as we have seen first-hand how the cost-effectiveness of a few of their CPU coolers made for some very spectacular merchandise.
About a yr in the past, we had a have a look at SilverStone’s new AIO coolers, the Permafrost sequence. The Permafrost coolers had been a little bit of a shock on the corporate’s ideology as they featured RGB lighting, but SilverStone nonetheless tried – and managed – to maintain the retail value comparatively low.
Thoughts on RGB lighting apart, if Permafrost did have one weak spot, it is that the cooler was designed for traditional client desktop sockets. Which is many of the self-built PC market, however not all of it – particularly, Permafrost could not be used on AMD’s sizable Threadripper processors. So in an effort to deal with the Threadripper market, SilverStone has developed a successor of kinds for the Permafrost sequence, which they’ve named IceGem. IceGem takes Permafrost’s daring, RGB-heavy design cues, however supersizes the pump block in order that the block can correctly cowl the massive chips.
For at present’s overview, we’re having a look on the full IceGem cooler sequence. This covers the IceGem 240P, IceGem 280, and IceGem 360. The IceGem 240P and IceGem 360 are designed to make the most of 120 mm followers, whereas the IceGem 280 is utilizing 140 mm followers.
While the IceGem coolers are at first promoted for his or her socket sTRX4 (Threadripper) compatibility, the coolers can be used with all the mainstream sockets, together with Intel’s LGA 1200 and 2066 sockets, in addition to AMD’s AM4. And, although not formally listed by SilverStone, the IceGem coolers must also work with the recently-launched WRX80 (Threadripper Pro), since EPYC/TR/TR Pro all share the identical socket and cooler mounting dimensions.
But apart from enabling Threadripper compatibility, does the IceGem’s massive cooling block deliver some other benefits to the AIO cooler? To get the reply to that, we’re thermally testing SilverStone’s newest AIO coolers and test the place they stand in opposition to the competitors, in addition to in opposition to one another.
Packaging & Bundle
We acquired SilverStone’s newest AIO coolers in sturdy cardboard packing containers that, together with the interior customized inserts, present wonderful delivery safety. The art work on the packaging is simplistic, targeted on footage of the coolers themselves – nonetheless, that’s greater than sufficient for catching the eyes of store shelf browsers.
All three coolers share the very same bundle, with the only real exception being the variety of followers and their wiring. Inside the field, we discovered the required mounting {hardware}, a small syringe with thermal paste, the required energy and LED wiring, and an ARGB lighting controller.
At this level, we should be aware that the ARGB LEDs of all three coolers are suitable with most motherboards that includes addressable RGB lighting available in the market proper now. When the system contains a suitable motherboard, the LED wiring of the AIO cooler is connected on to the motherboard, which immediately controls the RGB lighting of the cooler by way of the software program every motherboard producer gives. The included ARGB controller is supposed for use solely to manually setup lighting results with methods that do not need a suitable motherboard. It options a number of pre-programmed RGB lighting results, in addition to pace and brightness choices, however it actually is just not handy to open up the case every time one needs to alter…
