Introduction

It has been quite a while since I have looked at cooling products from SilverStone. In that time it seems they have been hard at work because a trip to their site and searching out their coolers will show you that they have now released a new line of coolers. There are only two new coolers in this lineup, and they are designated the Heligon Series of CPU coolers. While there is a huge variation in the Heligon Series that is built for passive cooling, we are going to be sticking with an actively cooled solution.

Active cooling usually refers to a fan cooling the device, but unlike most dual fan, dual tower designs, SilverStone has chose to use one fan in this design that can offer the best of both worlds. With the flick of a switch you can have silence of operation, or flipping that same switch over to the other position will give you plenty of air flow for those that want to take their CPU to the bleeding edge of its capabilities.

I know I am jumping ahead with the details on the fan, but this is no ordinary fan. That isn't all it takes to make for an efficient design though. The shapes, sizes, and thickness of the fins come into play, as well as the layout as they pass over the heat pipes. Most coolers have a copper base these days, and so does this cooler, but where some manufacturers use thermal paste to make contact with the base of the cooler, SilverStone decided to solder them into place for more efficient heat transfer. Along with that, there is a serious amount of surface area on this design, even if at first it looks to be a bit odd. Once you get to see the cooler installed the design completely makes sense, and I personally grinned a bit once I saw the design in action. It was so simple to offer what SilverStone brings to the table, just no one ever addressed it this way.

The twin tower design from SilverStone is labeled as the Heligon Series SST-HE01 and is the cooler we are about to get a really close look at over the next few pages. While not the typical design, or even the typical cooling solution, SilverStone give this cooler a tag line of "twin tower heat sink with unbelievable cooling power"�. Since this cooler has a rating of a 300 Watt TDP and with what I have already seen of the fan, I can tell you that the HE01 is now my favorite solution in twin tower CPU cooler designs.

I think it is well worth your time to stick it out through the review and see why I think SilverStone waiting for others to make mistakes and paying close attention to the markets complaints should pay off for them in spades.