It is a fact that stock cooling solutions rarely satisfy an advanced PC user, even if the system is not intended for heavy gaming, workload, or overclocked. While stock coolers are adequate for their intended purpose, most of the time are simply too loud or the user is uncomfortable with the operating temperature of the system.

Fancy as huge air coolers and liquid cooling solutions as they may be, it is an undisputable truth that the bulk of the market consists of users that are driven by a limited budget, thus seeking cost-effective, practical solutions.

In today's review we are taking a look at the SilverStone Argon AR07 cooler. It is a large tower cooler that is making use of a 140 mm cooling fan, much like the advanced tower coolers that we recently reviewed. Although this particular cooler also requires the user to have a rather wide case, SilverStone’s approach is a little simpler and considerably cheaper, with the Argon AR07 retailing for $35 including shipping. In the following pages we will examine its build quality, practicality, and overall performance in comparison to both more advanced/expensive offering and one of its primary rivals in the market, the Cooler Master EVO 212.

Packaging & Bundle

SilverStone supplies the Argon AR07 cooler inside a relatively simple but very sturdy blue cardboard box. The artwork is based on images and watermarks of the cooler itself, with plenty of information about the cooler printed on all sides of the box.

As expected from a product that is trying to compete in terms of value, the bundle is frugal, limited to the one-fits-all backplate, mounting hardware, two sets of fan affixing wires, a single dose of thermal compound, and a leaflet with very basic installation instructions.

The SilverStone Argon AR07 140 mm CPU Cooler

The SilverStone Argon AR07 is a single tower cooler, with three copper heatpipes transferring the thermal energy from the small base to the large rectangular fin array. It is 163 mm (6.42”) tall, meaning it requires a rather wide case to fit. Although the SilverStone Argon AR07 initially appears to be a simple tower cooler, its design is actually not as straightforward as most people would expect from of product at this price range.

A close inspection of the cooler reveals a complex and uneven “saw tooth” fin cutout. SilverStone calls this the “interweaving diamond edge” pattern and claims that it improves performance, although they do not explain exactly how that is being achieved. The top fin has airflow direction cutouts, meaning that the cooler will perform optimally only if the airflow is directed as the arrows indicate.

Turning the cooler upside down reveals that this is a direct heatpipe contact design, much like the Thermalright True Spirit 140 Direct that we recently reviewed. The core design difference between the two coolers is that the Argon AR07 only has three 8 mm heatpipes, which are not adequate to cover the entire surface of a modern CPU. As such, the designer had to cover the gaps by extending the aluminum frame in between the heatpipes. Even though these will be in contact with the CPU, the aluminum part of the base exists only for the mechanical cohesion of the construct and should play virtually no part on the transfer of thermal energy away from the CPU core.

The 140 mm fan with the blue circular frame and the white blades is one of the highlights of the Argon AR07. The fan’s part ID, APA1425M12, refers to a fan that is being used on various SilverStone products, but we could not identify the OEM behind it. Nevertheless, we identified that it is using an enhanced (sealed) sleeve bearing engine. Although sleeve bearings rarely compete with ball bearings in terms of longevity, SilverStone quite possibly opted for the particular designs due to its much lower noise levels.

 

Once mounted on the cooler, the 140 mm fan covers most of the array’s surface, with the exception of the very bottom part of the array. This was probably intended by the designer in order to allow for a portion of the airflow to be directed towards the motherboard’s components. SilverStone includes a second set of wire holders for another 140 mm fan to be mounted on the other side of the cooler, although that would be quite the overkill for this particular product. Note that the fan should not be installed before the cooler, as it will interfere with the installation process.

Installation

The installation process of the Argon AR07 is straightforward but, due to the size of the cooler, it may be difficult to complete with the motherboard installed inside a case. The first step of the process is to affix the backplate on the motherboard using the four nuts with the threaded stems.

The second step is to install the proper retention frame for your particular CPU onto the base of the cooler using the four provided screws. The AMD AM2/AM3/FM1/FM2 bracket is shown installed in the picture below.

Following the installation of the retention frame and the application of thermal compound on the CPU core, the cooler can be seated on the CPU and the threaded stems should go right through the holes of the retention frame. The cooler is then secured on the CPU by tightening four thumb-driven nuts. This particular step might be a bit difficult to achieve if the motherboard is installed inside a case, as direct hand access to the nuts may be obstructed depending on the position of the CPU socket and the size of the motherboard’s heatsinks.

The final step is the installation of the cooling fan using the retention wires. The installation of the vibration absorption silicon strips is optional but recommended for optimal results. Once installed, the Argon AR07 does take a lot of space, but the fan should stop just shy of the first RAM slot.

Testing Methodology

Although the testing of a cooler appears to be a simple task, that could not be much further from the truth. Proper thermal testing cannot be performed with a cooler mounted on a single chip, for multiple reasons. Some of these reasons include the instability of the thermal load and the inability to fully control and or monitor it, as well as the inaccuracy of the chip-integrated sensors. It is also impossible to compare results taken on different chips, let alone entirely different systems, which is a great problem when testing computer coolers, as the hardware changes every several months. Finally, testing a cooler on a typical system prevents the tester from assessing the most vital characteristic of a cooler, its absolute thermal resistance.

The absolute thermal resistance defines the absolute performance of a heatsink by indicating the temperature rise per unit of power, in our case in degrees Celsius per Watt (°C/W). In layman's terms, if the thermal resistance of a heatsink is known, the user can assess the highest possible temperature rise of a chip over ambient by simply multiplying the maximum thermal design power (TDP) rating of the chip with it. Extracting the absolute thermal resistance of a cooler however is no simple task, as the load has to be perfectly even, steady and variable, as the thermal resistance also varies depending on the magnitude of the thermal load. Therefore, even if it would be possible to assess the thermal resistance of a cooler while it is mounted on a working chip, it would not suffice, as a large change of the thermal load can yield much different results.

Appropriate thermal testing requires the creation of a proper testing station and the use of laboratory-grade equipment. Therefore, we created a thermal testing platform with a fully controllable thermal energy source that may be used to test any kind of cooler, regardless of its design and or compatibility. The thermal cartridge inside the core of our testing station can have its power adjusted between 60 W and 340 W, in 2 W increments (and it never throttles). Furthermore, monitoring and logging of the testing process via software minimizes the possibility of human errors during testing. A multifunction data acquisition module (DAQ) is responsible for the automatic or the manual control of the testing equipment, the acquisition of the ambient and the in-core temperatures via PT100 sensors, the logging of the test results and the mathematical extraction of performance figures.

Finally, as noise measurements are a bit tricky, their measurement is being performed only manually. Fans can have significant variations in speed from their rated values, thus their actual speed during the thermal testing is being acquired via a laser tachometer. The fans (and pumps, when applicable) are being powered via an adjustable, fanless desktop DC power supply and noise measurements are being taken 1 meter away from the cooler, in a straight line ahead from its fan engine. At this point we should also note that the Decibel scale is logarithmic, which means that roughly every 3 dB(A) the sound pressure doubles. Therefore, the difference of sound pressure between 30 dB(A) and 60 dB(A) is not "twice as much" but nearly a thousand times greater. The table below should help you cross-reference our test results with real-life situations.

The noise floor of our recording equipment is 30.2-30.4 dB(A), which represents a medium-sized room without any active noise sources. All of our acoustic testing takes place during night hours, minimizing the possibility of external disruptions.

<35dB(A)	Virtually inaudible
35-38dB(A)	Very quiet (whisper-slight humming)
38-40dB(A)	Quiet (relatively comfortable - humming)
40-44dB(A)	Normal (humming noise, above comfortable for a large % of users)
44-47dB(A)*	Loud* (strong aerodynamic noise)
47-50dB(A)	Very loud (strong whining noise)
50-54dB(A)	Extremely loud (painfully distracting for the vast majority of users)
>54dB(A)	Intolerable for home/office use, special applications only.

*noise levels above this are not suggested for daily use

Testing Results, Maximum Fan Speed

Starting things off, let's take a look at the AR07's performance with the fan at its full, 12 V fan speed.

The SilverStone Argon AR07 performs just as expected for a direct heatpipe contact design, with excellent thermal performance under low thermal loads that actually rivals that of much larger and more expensive CPU coolers. However, its performance degrades quickly as the load increases, intensifying the performance gap between the Argon AR07 and its more expensive counterparts.

Core Temperature, Constant Thermal Load (Max Fan Speed)

60 W Load100 W Load150 W Load200 W Load250 W Load340 W Load

Still, the overall performance of the SilverStone Argon AR07 seems to be considerably superior than the slightly less expensive Cooler Master EVO 212, delivering substantially better thermal performance at slightly lower noise levels. 

Testing Results, Low Fan Speed

Switching things up a bit, let's next take a look at cooler performance with the AR07's fan taken down to 7 Volts.

Operating the fan SilverStone Argon AR07 near its lowest speed point changes virtually nothing in regard to the cooler’s ranking and competitiveness. The thermal performance of the Argon AR07 still is very good while the thermal load is low, comparable to that of much more expensive products, but its efficiency seems to decrease as the thermal load increases.

Core Temperature, Constant Thermal Load (Low Fan Speed)

60 W Load100 W Load150 W Load200 W Load250 W Load340 W Load

Despite of the lower efficiency of the Argon AR07 when handling high thermal loads, its superiority in comparison with smaller and/or simpler products is now becoming apparent. SilverStone’s offering provides measurably greater performance than the smaller (and cheaper) Cooler Master EVO 212, as well as “advanced” stock CPU coolers, such as the AMD Wraith and the Intel BXTS15A. 

Thermal Resistance VS Sound Pressure Level

During our thermal resistance vs. sound pressure level test, we maintain a steady 100W thermal load and assess the overall performance of the coolers by taking multiple temperature and sound pressure level readings within the operating range of the stock cooling fans. The result is a graph that depicts the absolute thermal resistance of the cooler in comparison to the noise generated. For both the sound pressure level and absolute thermal resistance readings, lower figures are better.

As expected, the Argon AR07 is no match for its significantly more expensive rivals, which can deliver better thermal performance at any comparable noise level, plus their operating range usually allows them to reach noise levels that are below the AR07’s capabilities. However, on the other hand, the Argon AR07 is more than a match for the slightly cheaper and simpler Cooler Master EVO 212. Both coolers have about the same operating range in terms of noise output, but the Argon AR07 is capable of much better thermal performance across the entirety of this range. At higher noise levels, the Argon AR07 is much closer in terms of thermal performance to the premium products of the range rather than to the budget-oriented EVO 212.

Conclusion

With the Argon AR07 SilverStone is trying to entice a very specific type of system builder: power users that will be building large gaming systems or workstations but, at the same time, are on a limited budget. This is an interesting market intersection since it’s a group of builders who need better performance and aren’t afraid to spend money on it, but are looking for the “sweet spot” in parts’ performance and pricing, in order to get the best deal for their money. For many companies then this is a low-key but still very important market: if you can make a great product, you'll be watching it sell in high volumes for years to come.

In terms of quality, the Argon AR07 is a well-made product, without any significant imperfections. The unplated copper heatpipes may get oxidized over time, but that will not be causing any real damage to the cooler, only degrade its aesthetic value. Also, due to their unique design, the aluminum fins have many sharp edges and great care is required during the installation of the cooler. Other than these imperfections, the Argon AR07 is a mechanically solid product, with a good mounting mechanism and a firm fins array. However potential buyers should also note that the Argon AR07 is 163 mm tall, so it will require a fairly wide case to fit, a layout that not all budget-minded cases will be designed for.

But more importantly, the overall performance of the Argon AR07 is actually better than what we originally assumed before testing the cooler. Although it cannot compete with premium 140 mm tower cooler offerings directly – nor is it meant to – the AR07's thermal performance does come relatively close, especially with its fan running at higher speeds. At the same time, the $35 cooler is significantly cheaper than premium 140 mm offerings, making it a very appealing choice to users who need a good aftermarket cooler but at a more reasonable price. You do end up trading off a few °C (or dB(A)) in lost performance, but for budget builders this can lower the overall cost of the system, or more likely allow for investing more money on betters parts elsewhere.

Meanwhile when compared to the popular and similarly priced Cooler Master EVO 212 tower cooler, the size of the Argon AR07 offers it a substantial advantage in terms of thermal and acoustics performance. Whereas the EVO 212 is based around a 120 mm fan and its fin array is sized to match, the AR07 is a 140 mm design and benefits accordingly. With more surface area and more airflow it can achieve better results, but this does come at a roughly $5 premium, so it's not going to be quite an apples-to-apples scenario.

Ultimately, assuming that the system’s case is wide enough to fit the 163 mm tall cooler, the SilverStone's Argon AR07 is a reasonable choice for users who are trying to combine good overall performance with the lowest possible cost. The company has hit a good balance between build quality, performance, and price, making it very competitive with the best of the budget coolers, and an option worth taking a look at.