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Thermaltake SLK-800A Heatsink Review

Thermalright has produced several great heatsinks, like the SK-6. Today, I have the SLK-800a to review. The heatsink comes packaged very well, to protect the delicate fins. All thermalright heatsinks come in a cardboard box, and again, to protect against bumping.

    When you open the box, only a part of the heatsink is visible, the rest is padded.

     This package doesn't come with the Stock Delta fan, which spins at 5700 rpm, moving 80 CFM's of air, this fan is loud. What does come are 2 pairs of clips, 2 for 80mm fans, and 2 for 70mm fans. The 70mm clips were intended for the TMD (Tip Magnetic Driving) fans, which supposedly are more efficient and quiet, they are made by Y.S. tech. The package also comes with some thermal paste, which looks to be Shin Etsu thermal compound. No thermal pads are included in high performing heatsinks, we will be using Arctic Silver 3 in all of our tests.

       4 little pads come with the heatsink, they are designed to be put on the base of the heatsink, in all four corners of it.  The reason is that this cooler weighs over half a kilogram (505 g), and the elongated, narrow base does not touch the AMD processor pads, so they should be installed on the base of the heatsink, which applies limited pressure to the processor so the whole weight is not on top of the frail AMD cores, which tend to chip easily.

  Now for the manufacturer's specs:

• All copper design for maximum performance

• Soldered fins to base to ensure effective contact

• Three pronged type heat sink clip

• Stepping fins to hold 60mm, 70mm and 80mm fans

Dimension:

L87 x W56.4 x H48 (mm) - Top, without fan
L57.5 x W56.4 x H48 (mm) - Bottom
L25 x W56.4 - Base

Weight: 505g (heat sink only)
Stock Fan

Maker: DELTA
Model: FFB0812EHE
Size: 80 x 80 x 38 (mm)
Bearing: Dual Ball Bearing System
Voltage: 12V
Speed: 5700 rpm
Air Flow: 80 CFM
Noise Level: 52.5 dBA

AMD: Athlon XP Desktop CPU Palomino 2000+ and higher
* Spec. subject to change without notice

The heatsink's dimensions are smaller at the bottom, which allows it to be installed in most motherboards, because the capacitors wont stand in the way of the heatsink, and at the top, the dimensions are a lot larger, in fact one of largest I've seen, and the resistors/capacitors are not a problem here. This heatsink is 100 % pure copper.

      The heatsink has steps to accommodate 60mm, 70mm, and 80mm fans.

     The heatsink's 34 large fins can be seen here, this heatsink has a very large surface area for the heat to be dissipated.

     All 6 lugs are used in this heatsink to secure it down, this is a must, since the heatsink weighs over 500 grams. You will have to use a screwdriver, but you have to very careful, as the screwdriver occasionally slips, and it could break the motherboard, because the copper traces would be cut.  For prevention, try putting a small piece of cardboard in top of the motherboard, if it slips, it will dent the cardboard, not the motherboard.

     This base is long and thin, this is exclusive, as there is more surface area for the heat to be dissipated.The base is covered by a transparent tape, which protects the base from being dented or oxidized, which would weaken the performance. There is no thermal pad included, which is great, as most, if not all people using this heatsink will want to use thermal compound like Arctic Silver.

     The base is not mirror shine, but lapping wouldn't increase the performance as the base is already lapped nicely.

      Arctic silver 3 thermal compound is added to the base, and then wiped off to fill in the microscopic crevices in the base, which helps the performance.

     The heatsink's base looks like it's extended vertically, if the heat can be efficiently transferred to here, it would allow to reach the fins from the base and from the middle of the heatsink, increasing the performance.

       Each fin is predrilled to fit the clips, which hold 60x25, 70x25, 80x25 and even 80x38mm fans.

      A 60mm fan is installed to the left, and a clear 80x80x25mm fan to the right, this heatsink was meant to be used with the Delta 80x80x38mm fan, which is extremely loud, and pushes a brutal amount of air to make this a top contender.

 I decided to use Coolermaster's rifle variable fan. This fan rotates from 2800-4800 rpm's, with the use of a rheostat attached to a PCI card. This allows us to test this heatsink with different noise/CFM ratings.

      My testing case. I modified this case to have 5 case fans, which bring the ambient case temperature to 29-30 c. which is normal. This case originally got 34-38 C. case temperatures due to poor cooling, but we fixed it. I will have an arcticle on this soon!!!.

Ambient Room Temperature is 22 C.

CPU temperatures using ABSII core temperature. (not under the processor!)

Testing system:

-Athlon XP 1700+ Throughbred B JIUHB 0203 Processor.

-Soltek nforce2  SL-FRN-L MCP motherboard.

-256 MB Single Channel Samsung DDR333.

-Geforce3 Ti graphics card.

- Coolermaster ATC-220 w/ 5 case fans.

-40 Gb WD ATA/100 HDD

-300 watt Enermax PSU with Dual Fans.

The AMD Athlon XP 1700+ with a dab of Arctic Silver 3.

       The heatsink was installed first without the fan, to make it easier. Special northbridge cooling was also applied, a Celeron 50x50mm HSF fit without any problems, cooling the nforce2 MCP almost perfectly.

Testing Heatsinks:

- Coolermaster Heatpipe @ 4800 rpms @ 30 Dba  60x10mm fan  ~18 CFMs

- Coolermaster Heatpipe @ 7000 rpms @ 46 Dba  60x25mm fan  ~36 CFMs

- Thermalright SLK-800a @ 3200 rpms @ 32 Dba  80x25mm fan  ~35 CFMs

- Thermalright SLK-800a @ 4800 rpms @ 45 Dba  80x25mm fan ~ 62 CFMs

- Coolermaster X-Dream @ 3200 rpms @ 32 Dba 80x25mm fan  ~ 35 CFMs

The reason for the different speeds is that, comparing my top HSF, the Coolermaster Heatpipe, using the same noise levels versus performance is an ideal way to test a HSF, hence you know which one outperforms the other using the same noise Levels.

 Results are:

    At Default Settings.  1466 Mhz @ 1.60v :

   At Overclocked Settings. 2100 Mhz @ 1.75v :

       These results clearly show, that at similar noise levels, compared to the Coolermaster Heatpipe, the Thermalright SLK-800a outperforms it, in all cases.

Conclusion

     This heatsink is a top performer. The installation is fast, this heatsink will fit in most motherboards due to the smaller footprint at the base, and larger footprint at the top of the cooler. The large surface area, with the thin, elongated base helped the performance a lot. Let's show the pro's and con's:

Pros:

-Large all copper surface area

-Excellent Copper Base.

-Ability to use 60, 70 and 80 mm fans.

-Best Air Heatsink performance to date.

-Triple lug design (careful with the screwdriver!)

Cons:

-Heatsink is heavy, careful installation is recommended.

I give this Heatsink an 9.5 out of 10 !

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