The Cooler

Arriving in an unmarked OEM boxes, it seems that these coolers are destined for the system builder market, rather than off-the-shelf retail.

In the box you get a small sachet of grey heatpaste (looks similar to Arctic Silver 5), a pack of 4 screw springs, the heatsink itself, and the mounting bracket. There are no instructions included.

The coolers are simple and attractive, merging together the black surround with the shiny copper heatsink below. There is a low profile 70mm fan on both of the heatsinks.

SL1600

SL1800

The SL1800 and SL1600 are dubbed as slim, low profile cooling solutions (25mm and 36mm respectively), which is particular interest to anyone that is interested in making a HTPC or other small form factor PCs. The coolers are just that, slim-line. Reminiscent of old Pentium coolers, they are the most basic type of cooler; block of copper with fins, and a fan stuck on top. Both coolers are made of just 3 parts (excluding mounting bracket).

On the bottom of the heatsinks, there is a blue plastic sheet that protects the CPU contact point from dust, grease and other pollutants that could affect its performance. The bottom of the heatsinks isn’t the best. They are flat, which is the key concern, but they aren’t going to replace your bathroom mirror in a hurry. It’s better than other coolers, but still leaves much to be desired.

Weight-wise the heatsinks are quite heavy. Weighing in at 366g and 487g for the SL1600 and SL1800 respectively. This is due to the block of copper that the coolers are made of. That said, the SL1600 and SL1800 are far from going to stress your motherboard. The way that the heatsinks mount, means that there is little leverage that a taller heatsink would command, and hence there is a lot lower likelihood that you are going to run into problems during, say, transportation.

Speaking of mounting method, Jetart have decided to employ their own mounting bracket. This combined with 4 screws with springs attached makes for what looks like an easy install.

The 70mm fan mounted on both heatsinks connects with a standard 3-pin fan. A standard 3-pin fan has a ground pin, 12v pin and a speed sensor pin. This means that the fan has power and sends the speed sensor signal to the motherboard. The mobo uses this to compute the rotational speed of the fan (RPM). The newer fourth pin introduces PWM (Pulse Wave Modulation). This is a signal that the mobo sends TO the fan telling it at what speed to rotate at. This means that your motherboard can accurately change the fans speed depending on, the internal temperature of the PC. The older way of motherboards controlling fan speed was to change the input voltage, however this can be dangerous as it could cause the fan to stop spinning. A 4-pin connector would have been nice to see on the Jetart SL1600/SL1800 as this is the new technology that is being introduced.