Old Silver Arrow (4 pipes @ 8mm), is it better than D14?

[NewbieOneKenobi]

As per title.

I've seen some old tests (10+ years) suggesting this.

 

[NewbieOneKenobi]

No it wasnt better the ty-140 fans were better Owned a SA and D14
I run my noctua with ty-140 fans

Oh, TYs certainly are unicorns. Last time I saw them €35 apiece, I almost bought three. (For the sake of science, of course.) But it's possible I've seen (which means 'IIRC I've seen' after OCD correction) some tests suggesting better performance with the same fans.

Ironically, both Thermalright and Noctua are in that weird position now that a pair of used fans may well be more expensive than a complete cooler having the same two fans. The lowest price I've seen on a D14 certainly could have been acquired also for the fans alone. Alas, there are no TYs in the market any more. Well, almost. But €35 apiece plus a dozen or so for shipment would be a tad extreme, at least considering 'D16' is releasing in 2021 or 2022, more like, I suppose, which is almost guaranteed to be better.

Yes, original Silver Arrow was slightly better than D14, but not enough to really make a difference. When D14 has same fans as D15 it cools slightly better than D15.

Well, let's say you can have:

A. Used Silver Arrow with original fans for €57 shipped; vs
B. Le Grand Macho RT new-in-box for €70 shipped

— would you choose the Macho or give Silver Arrow the chance?

AFAIK the Silver Arrow supports up to 32mm RAM clearance and the fan/clips can't be moved up (which is also the impression I have from pictures and personal experience with similar clips on TRUE). Means I'd have to resort to ghetto mounts, switch the front fan to back or rotate the cooler 90 degrees, perhaps losing whatever minimum advantage it could have over LGMRT, so I'm a bit puzzled here.

 

[NewbieOneKenobi]

Shame OcUK dont stock Thermalright anymore. The TRUE was an amazing cooler. It got my q6600 back in the day up to 3.6Ghz rock solid stable with no temp issues running full tilt on P95/OCCT on a single fan.

Mine, if it even was, well, is, a TRUE rather than TRU (4 pipes), first handled a Wolfdale OC'd from 3.3 to 4.3 or even 4.5, and then I used it with an i5-6600. In both cases it was cool and silent, using some sort of cheap, almost noname silent fan. It currently sits in my system with a pair of 14cm Silent Wings 3 strapped with a silicone baking cord (one that had actually been used for baking meat, and, to be honest, wasn't perfectly clean…). I don't get spectacular temps on a 4.4 OC on stock voltage, and I think it VRM-throttles around 75 degrees, which coincides with 125W per HWinfo (albeit close to 200 according to mobo software). I could manually remove the limitation, but this is a low-end mobo in a shiny packaging (Z370-H Strix from Asus, which is much different from the starting letters), so perhaps I won't, but then I'm pretty sure 80-ish would be achievable rather than a frying 100. However, a single silent fan wouldn't have been enough to handle an 8350K with a 5 or 4.6 OC, I was hitting 95C there (on a different mobo — Aorus Z390 Pro, now in repairs).

Actually, if I got the Aorus repaired and replaced the mobo, I suppose I might decide the ultra is sufficient until D16 comes out, or Fuma 4, or Ninja 6, or True Spirit Macho 180, or whatever comes out in a year or two. I'd probably be getting audible noise in games, but even 1200–1400 on SW3 isn't horrible. And then, I got a bunch of P14s headed my way, along with a batch of rubber gaskets and zip ties. I will at least have to test the Ultra with the P14s before replacing it, if only to find out where the P14s stand compared to SW3 HS.

 

[NewbieOneKenobi]

Original TY-140 was changed to TY-147 (black housing w/ white impeller), then TY-147A (w/ lower idle speed & different PWM:RPM curve). They are still being made and sold, but hard to find here. There are several other TY- series fans; TY-143, TY-145, TY-149, etc. ranging from 3-pin 900prm to 4-pin PWM 500-2500rpm.

I can find 143, but their min noise level is the 147's max, while the rpm and the CFM at that entry level are obviously both much lower than 147's max. I suppose the rated specs aren't telling the whole story here, but I'm still gun-shy.

And then there's the old used Silver Arrow with both fans there, which costs 50-ish, so barely any more than the fans would cost separately on Amazon, if they were available, I suppose. Then again, Macho asks 70 and comes free of any hassle.

Edit: There's also 141SV at Aliexpress, though I'm not sure it's the same good old 141. They mention 25 dBA, while Thermalright's rated noise output is 21 tops, so I worry this might be a new series that's not as good as the old one. As I calculate the price + shipment, the complete Silver Arrow makes more sense (though the fans may be worn from extensive use).

My Silver Arrow bottom fin is 40.9mm above CPU so 48.9mm above motherboard or45.9mm of RAM clearance. Honestly, a slngle fan in middle performs within a couple degrees of 2 fans, so don't really need 2 fans. Silver Arrow has 37.4mm between finpacks, which is enough to fit Silverstone FHP-141 into.

Hmm… That should be good enough. My RAM is Ripjaws V, so 42mm.

Those Silverstones are mighty beasts. Can they be tamed, though? Like, are they loud at 800-ish rpm?

Edit: Found SST-FHP141 specs — 42.8 CFM and 13.4 dBA seems to be the min value. The max is 171 at 43.5. Can't extrapolate the curve, but I guess at 18–20 dBA things can already be quite interesting.

Choosing between Silver Arrow and LGM RT is a tough one. Not sure which one I would get. Of course we need to also add the cost of mount upgrade to price so would probably get Le Grand Macho RT.

The shop lists 1156 among compatible sockets, though there's no photo of the nether regions or fittings. But 1156 came out in 2008, so I guess they may have a Silver Arrow that came with 1156 mounts ex factory. If not, well, I'll have the fans and put them on… something. I have a Gelid Phantom that's more or less Grandis-level, so not a great dual tower but not the worst. Copper base, 3x8mm + 4x6mm pipes, some 30-ish fins each tower, 3cm thick, 12cm-ish size. Poor man's Fuma, I guess.

Another Thermalright to consider is TRUE Spirit 140 Power. If not the very best it's definitely one of the best and were selling half a C note not long ago, so also better priced. But it's 171mm height and 155mm width can be problematic, even though it is only 55mm thick so front of fan is 55mm in front of CPU center.

Yeah, it keeps calling out to me at night and all. It looks like such an obvious worthy successor to my Ultra. Well, it is an Ultra. But the dozen or so less than spectacular tests are making me gun-shy. Not as in disparaging the cooler, but more like realizing that LGMRT and (to a greater extent) D15 generally show consistent, same, predictable performance levels everywhere, trading blows and places on the podium, always within like three degrees and decibels of each other. With the TSP the problem seems to be that sometimes it ends up performing much below U14S level (even both thermally and acoustically), at which point it kinda loses its charm, considering how easy it is get to a cheap used U14s.

Sigh, I wish Thermalright would make a 14cm twoltra. Or 14cm ultraninja. Or Le Grand TRUE RT. Make it stand 18 cm tall, stretch from PCI to top vent and rub ass against rear exhaust. Or a Le Even Grander with a 20cm fan. I have some spare 20cms, and it's such a pity I can't put them on a CPU cooler. Take my 19cm clearance (20 might work), subtract 1cm for elevation, 3cm for the fan, 2cm for some space, there's still more than 10 cm for ribs and pipes. Wish you could make/order your own custom heatsinks.

Bit of FYI; new Thermalright have much nicer fan clips than old ones. They now clip onto fan and on outside of fins like most 'normal' fan clips do.

Great! Though I'm growing fond of those roast cords and getting better and better at tying butcher's knots.

Ultra are definitely good coolers, be it the original 4x heatpipe or later 6x 6mm heatpipe Ultra 120 Extreme. Both had same overall size of 63.5(L) X 132(W) X 160.5(H)mm (w/o fan).

Probably my favorite is Ultima 90 (55x115x139mm) with 6x 6mm heatpipes. Were originally used with 90mm fan but 120mm fit nicely too.

Oh, that's a grandpa. And it looks so wonderfully compact. Heh, by this time some OC veterans are probably still using (mostly out of sentiment but also for functional reasons) heatsinks, even fans, that are older than some of the youngest forum members. How the time flies. My stepfather is currently using my old socket 478 cooler, also from Thermalright (all-copper). It's mounted askew on AMD's 939, using a bit of LAN cable rubber for spacing. Quite possibly on two screews rather than four, but I don't even remember.

 

[NewbieOneKenobi]

I've used TY-xxx series from first launch and believe me when I say TY-143 is as quiet as TY-147 at same RPM for first several years, then TY-143 ball-bearings begin to make slight rumble if ear is close enough to be clipped by fan if not careful.

Hehe. It starts from 600 rpm, so there's a chance I could avoid hearing it over night ambient, but I'm not fully sure. I'm also fully sure how much I really mind being able to tell that the CPU fan is spinning if I concentrate hard on it.

Le Grand Macho is very good, but also big. Just keep that in mind.

Well, I don't mind the size, as long as I don't often to access anything that the cooler overhangs. I'm more like to get OCD about heatsinks failing to utilize the space available. My ideal heatsink would essentially overhang everything there was to overhang as long as the size did not become detrimental by obstructing the flow or something else like that. If I could have a Macho and a Liquid Freezer on the same CPU, I probably would. Has any modder in this forum ever tried this or something similar? People must have thought about combining a water loop with an air heatsink before. I've also checked out huge air heatsinks. Some dude near my place seels Silentmaxes (10 pipes, 1.3kg) twenty euros apiece.

SST-FHP-141 is not a great fan, but not bad either.

The implication being that TY is better?

Scythe also has some sort of 38mm Kaze, but that's only 120mm, so I'd rather have the oversize and help my poor little VRMs out.

Not sure of TY-141SV. Always preferred TY-140/143/147 impeller, but when I tests 141 it performs almost identical to other TY-xxx at same speeds.

What would you describe the impeller difference as bieng? Does the older 141 one tend to whirr or vibrate (or some other assorted acoustic nastiness) more than the 143?

Mounting issue is mostly new AMD mount. Intel hasn't changed mount in many years.

I'm pragmatic about red vs blue vs green vs the whole Byzantine circus, but no big fan of AMD lately.

Thermalright has new Frost Spirit 140 which is basically a squared up fin Silver Arrow. It comes in normal silver, black and RGB. Link below is silver:
http://thermalright.com/product/frost-spirit-140/

http://thermalright.com/product/frost-spirit-140/

Oh, seen that one. Wonder how it performs. But the first thing you notice is indeed square 140 + the old 4x8mm pipes. Gotta look up some tests.

Indeed, Ultima 90 is Grampa, but a really good compact old dude not to be underestimated. Those old all copper coolers are heavy beasts. I love their patina as they age. That said, the stock aluminum fins patina too, just not as much as copper.

Things brings a tear to my eye (no happy end… mount lost or damaged), but I once had a gold-plated 750g copper Aerocool with 2x92mm fans. Wonder how it would fare on a Whatever Is Today's Lake i5.

***

On a different note, I've just realized the Enthoo Pro in your sig, which is also my case. How would you rate TY's as case fans, especially front intake through filter, on the Enthoo Pro?

 

[NewbieOneKenobi]

Sorry about your loss. 800U is the one I had also. I never would have recalled, but once you did, it rang a bell. I used a Coolink Green Silent fan with it and loved the way they looked together. And that was (probably still is) a wonderful fan. Pity they didn't make 140mm. Most I can find is 120, and usually unavailable.

 

[NewbieOneKenobi]

Dudes, I finally had the time, earlier today, to play with the P14s. Alas, I broke my previous ghetto mount (silicone cord), and the new one (rubber bands) isn't as good, but in either case the P14s don't want to work with ghetto mounts on my TRUE heatsink. Even with a thick rubber gasket under the fan, the blades still manage to collide with the fins somehow above a certain rotation speed. For the time being I have the situation under control (set them to 100% and moved them around until they stopped colliding). But, I'm kinda weary of ghetto methods now. I think the target solution has to be a proper mount, proper brackets.

So… used original Silver Arrow vs LGMRT vs Fuma 2 vs Liquid Freezer II 280 vs Liquid Freezer II 360?

Fuma 2 may actually provide the best thermal/acoustic balance on CPU figures alone, but because of the 12cm close fit, I think it can't really hope to match D15's proven beneficial effect on VRM thermals. Not sure LGMRT can, though it also has an oversized fan. The LF has a VRM fan.

No D14/TC14PE + P14 fantasies for me any more.

Edit: LOL. I've just found and immediately bought two TY-141s. So I guess I can keep looking for heatsinks with 12cm brackets. Which is probably just about any dual tower anyway. Or single.

What would you guys think about putting them on U12A? I could buy one from Noctua's outlet with a discount, put the 2xNF-A12 on my GPU cooler (Accelero Xtreme III) and then put the 2xTY-141 on the U12A using the included clips.

 

[NewbieOneKenobi]

Mmmkay, got the TC14PE — naked heatsink — upon realizing its stock fans had been 12cm, hence the mounts should also be so.

TC14PE + 2xTY-141 is gonna be pretty retro, nope?

I'll keep an eye out and maybe buy more TYs as they become available — for case fans.

A bit of a pity I hadn't just bought the complete Silver Arrow for about the same cost as the Phanteks + the fans. Impulsive purchases, sigh. But I could, of course, buy the Arrow and use these two TY-141s on the case. I'll just have to compare TY-141 vs P14 when the former arrive.

 

[NewbieOneKenobi]

Clever! For some reason, probably not looking too closely, I thought Frost Spirit had two 12cm fans, Fuma-style (not like Fuma 2 isn't as good as D15, at least in most applications, but anyway). The fact that Thermalright had fallen back on the tried-and-true, quaint old-school solution used by D14 and Dark Rock Pros. It kinda screems old school, doesn'it?

AFAIK, the 141 impeller is double-ball, while the other ones are probably the fluid version of sleeve. This is going to produce a number of objectively existing acoustic differences, of which the subjective reception will, however, differ from user to user.

Intuitively, I too would probably prefer FDB to dual ball, but I try to stay open-minded, especially if the acoustics of dual ball differ significantly from single ball (which I don't really have much of a way of knowing).

Probably pity I didn't grab the full Silver Arrow, after all, but this is what one gets for making impulsive purchases and then trying to be consistent and acting on investment syndrome.

At least if I find out I like the TYs more than the P14s, somebody's bound to buy a bunch of almost new P14s at a reduced price or in any case they didn't cost a fortune and can be kept in a very comfortable small box. If I don't like the TC14PE + 2xTY-141 solution, someone's bound to buy them off of me at some loss. But I'll probably keep it as a handmedown for whomever in the family inherits one of my older 1151 rigs or already has a compatible socket.

 

[NewbieOneKenobi]

Things are getting interesting by the minute. I've got swarmed with work this week and next, so no time for actual testing, but I've just pounced on a trio of TY-143s at a discount. Dude also has a single TY-147. Should I grab it also?

Kinda worried this is making my new P14 PWM PST's useless even before first putting them on the case. I'm wondering whether TY-143 would be enough of an upgrade to justify being purchased when you already have P14s available for the slot. And the Thermalrights will also need a splitter, unlike the Arctics. I guess the only way to find out is by actually trying. But buying them three at a time at least has the benefit of streamlining the fan tuning somewhat. A limited benefit considering they will go into different placements (filter vs not, horizontal vs vertical, etc.), but a benefit nonetheless.

 

[NewbieOneKenobi]

I've never really done proper testing — no equipment, no skill, no practice, etc., so this is going to be very layman's terms-ish to you guys, but after comparing 2xP14 vs 2xTY-141 on my CPU this is how I feel:

The winner is? Dunno. And it's largely apples vs oranges. Those are very different fans.

In terms of overall profile:

• TY-141 is a blast from the past. Former top athlete that has aged. P14 is a very modern budget fan. Great performance and parameters but not the same solid quality foundation.
  
• P14 doubtless is quieter. It's quieter on the exact same curve, even though it runs up to 1700 rather than 1300 rpm, hence the same percentage means more rpms.
  
• On the other hand, the rpms definitely aren't telling the whole story here.
  
• By just putting your hand like a blade between CPU exhaust and case exhaust, TY-141 doubtless feels to move more air, by far. Even at 1700 rpm you won't feel P14 as strongly on your hand as TY-141 sub-1000.
  
• However, in terms of watching the temps while running Prime, this doesn't actually seem to give you better temps on the Thermalright.
• On the contrary, P14 seems to achieve ever so slightly better temps despite lass palpable air movement. The difference is like 1 degree in 80–85 range (cores) in TY's favour, but as far as I feel it definitely is there. I doubt my reliability, by however wrong I might be I'm still sure I do feel it.

On the practical, more hands-on side:

• Tthe Arctics seem to develop nasty acoustics depending on how the ghetto placement goes — zip-tied 9mm gaskets for vibration isolation and much-needed spacing.
• The comparison isn't really fair because the Thermalrights don't get gaskets because of their shape, but they also don't need them.
• Depending on the placement, P14s produce coil whine, transformer-like sounds (makes you feel like you're in a power plant), or various sorts of rattle.
  
• You can make this sound go away with great difficulty if you find the lucky balance. This is even though sometimes those issues persist even after you remove the fan from the heatsink and just hold it out in the open. Perhaps some sort of quality limitations?
  
• TY-140 is impervious to the majority of P14's placement problems, which appears to be in connection with simply being a better quality fan in general, but it might also be due to some sort of optimization by Arctic like using up all space available. But do not I'm using 9mm gaskets and still seeing the blades sometimes collide with the fins, so rotor stability with higher rotation speeds must be involved in this.
• TY-141 has a tendency to produce a sand-like sound — probably not from long service, as the previous owner claims they've only worked roughly 900 hours each, which would be like 2 months in my PC.

In terms of what they sound like:

P14 is extremely reminiscent of high-quality GPUs. It simply sounds like a graphics card. As you crank up the speed, it sounds like a highly stressed quiet GPU. In a way it resembles the acoustic profile of a high-quality small fan.

TY-141 sounds more in line with traditional, older CPU fans and 12/14cm fans. The sound is not especially annoying, it's not markedly coarse, but it's clearly not a softened sound. It doesn't bring to mind those things which people say about Noctua fans being less annoying for the same SPL than most other fans (while Arctic does).

What else?

Overall, however, I think I prefer the Arctics. On a purely emotional level, I was happy to put my Arctics back in there after testing the Thermalrights.

I still, however, have a suspicion TY-141 may be better somewhere in the mid range than P14. And maybe in idle?

I can't help thinking I would love to see the effect on TY-141 of so much engineering as went into the optimization and fine-tuning of P14. That would be a blast of a fan.

I can definitely say that most people wouldn't and shouldn't like to 'upgrade' P14 to TY-141. Too much of a sidegrade unless someone does proper testing and contradicts me. This is all the more so if you consider the cost and the fact that P14 PWM PST avoids needing a splitter and comes with a longer cord. I would say don't bother with anything else really as a case fan. But maybe optimize for CPU if you really feel like it. But you won't go wrong with a daisy chain of 3 CPU fans on a dual tower plus case exhaust as fourth, all four plugged into the same header.

To be fair, however P14 is still very much a mass-produced budget fan, which people say can go bad after a year or two or even be faulty already on arrival, probably due to the limitations of the materials and the manufacturing process. So perhaps out of 10 purchased at least one or two are going to be suboptimal? Not so the Thermalrights. On the other hand, as far as Thermalrights go, you will most likely be buying them used, and that obviously incurs similar risks as buying new budget fans — some will inevitably be bad in every 10 or so.

Not sure how this translates into TY-143 or TY-147 expectations (or other, more exotic Thermalrights).

And hence I don't know if I really should be buying the TY-143 and TY-147. But I guess there's one way of finding out, although I'm gonna end up with fans to sell or stash away in the end.

Oh, one last thing — the power-plant sound from P14, which either is there or not. It seems to be somehow connected with the fan's placement and thus position. I'm not sure how stability would relate to coil whine or (which is different) electric sounds, but perhaps the angle matters, as in a skewed position.

I didn't retest the Silent Wings 3 hispeeds at this time, though perhaps I should.