The movie Die Hard was so awesome it spawned a wave of imitators that all had just one distinguishing difference—Die Hard on a plane, Die Hard on a boat, Die Hard in a nursing home, etc. And so it is in the world of air coolers: We have dozens of skyscraper aluminum coolers with just one standout feature, and on the Silverstone Heligon HE01 the standout feature is its super-thick 14cm fan. It’s so big that Silverstone had to shave off a sliver of the cooler’s right appendage to make room for it, giving the cooler an asymmetrical look that resembles a tennis player’s arms.
The XXL fan sports a 4-pin plug for PWM functionality, as well as an easily accessible switch labeled “Q-P” for Quiet and Performance modes, but it should be Q-L for Quiet and Loud. The fan blows air through aluminum fins attached to six copper heat pipes that snake into a copper base, with the whole shebang plated in snazzy-looking nickel. The heat pipes are not the direct-contact variety like the ones in our favorite cooler, the Cooler Master Hyper 212. It’s a massive cooler at almost 6 inches to a side, and though it does require RAM without tall heatspreaders, it’s not any larger than the best coolers in its class, including the Phanteks PH-TC14PE and the Noctua NH-D14, both of which will also interfere with tall RAM.
Installation was easy on our LGA2011 test bed and required tightening just two screws with a Phillips-head screwdriver after we hand-tightened the mounting brackets. Installing the Heligon’s giant fan was hella hard, though, since the retention clips don’t permanently attach to the fan and kept falling out of their holes.
In testing, the Heligon in quiet mode was just 2 C warmer than its natural competitor, the Phanteks PH-TC14PE, and neck-and-neck with the Cooler Master, and in performance mode its benchmark results are top-of-the-charts if you can handle the noise (we couldn’t). For fun we added a second fan to the mix, although we found it to have a negligible benefit. We also ran it in PWM mode but considered the fan to be too loud under stress.
All in all, the Heligon is a solid package but nothing too groundbreaking, especially for its semi-high price. If the performance mode was quieter, it’d be a must-buy.
Note: This review was taken from the November issue of the magazine.
Update - Silverstone clarified to us that the asymetrical design is not due to the fan's width, but rather for the design to allow extra-tall RAM on the right-side of the CPU socket. However, our Asus Sabertooth X79 test bench has RAM on both sides of the socket, which prevented us from using extra-tall RAM.
Excellent performance; quiet (in quiet mode); semi-easy install.
Finicky retention arms; loud in performance mode; requires low-profile RAM.
| Dimensions H x D x W (inches, with fan) | 6.2 x 4.6 x 5.5 |
| Weight | 2lbs, 8.5oz |
| Heat Pipes | 6 |
| Stock Fans | 1x 14cm PWM |
| Add’l Fan Support | 2 (clips included) |
Silverstone HE01 (Perf.) | Silverstone HE0 (Quiet) | Phanteks PH-F140TS | CM Hyper 212 Evo | |
| Ambient Air | 22 | 22 | 19.9 | 21 |
| Idle Temperature | 30.3 | 27 | 30.1 | 31.5 |
| Burn Temperature | 62.8 | 68.1 | 63.8 | 66.6 |
| Burn - ambient | 40.8 | 46.1 | 43.9 | 45.6 |
All temperatures in degrees Celsius. Best scores bolded. All tests performed using an Intel Core i7-3960X at 4.2GHz, on an Asus Sabertooth X79 motherboard with 16GB DDR3/1600, in a Thermaltake Level 10 GT with stock fans set to Low.
trgz
December 21, 2012 at 4:37am
Is it any better than my Scythe Mine 2? Only I paid less than £30 (I see it's $50 in Amazon.com). The Scythe, with stock fan, gets good reviews when it comes to noise levels, has 8 pipes and was easy enough to fit - this Silverstone doesn't seem to have anything to offer over it
kixofmyg0t
December 20, 2012 at 8:36pm
I was curious how much this cooler was since Maximum PC didn't mention it.
Found it on Newegg for $75. You get a 3.8°C drop at full burn compared to a CM Hyper 212 Evo for around 2.5 times the price.
How about a big bucket of NOPE. I'll stick to my 212.
joshnorem
December 21, 2012 at 1:04pm
We've added the price. It was inadvertantly left out when it was published, sorry about that.
Bullwinkle J Moose
December 20, 2012 at 6:33pm
I'd like to see some tests as to how much Aliminum (in grams or ounces)
is needed to silently cool the following before an Intel CPU starts downclocking to prevent thermal runawayThen do the same tests for Copper
35 Watt Intel CPU
45 Watt Intel CPU
55 Watt Intel CPU
65 Watt Intel CPUFirst test with solid mass of metal, then with Finned, bead blasted and properly coated sinks with a hand lapped base
Some people just need to know these things
A handy chart would be nice for custom Silent Jobs
You could even start with one of these heat sinks without the fan and you only need one to run the tests
Is it enough to cool a 65 watt chip without downclocking?
If yes, then begin milling a small amount from the top until downclocking occurs, weigh the sink, then move to the 55 watt cpu and repeat
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