Sylphee Service

Packaged in a cardboard windowed box, it’s easy to get inside, much unlike plastic clamshell boxes (which I have a major hate for). Both the front and the back of the boxes have a window which allows you to see the Sylphee itself. The sides tell you of its excessive compatibility with nearly every socket released (bar socket A), and the individual features.

Once out the box, you get a whole bunch of mounting brackets, screws, the manual and the Sylphee itself. Sprouting from either side of the Sylphee you’ll find the two fan 3 pin connectors sleeved in a rubbery white coating. For those of you wondering why it’s not a 4 pin setup the Sylphee has thermistors that regulate the fan speed for optimum cooling at the lowest noise.

If you find that you don’t have two 3 pin headers available on your board, then the included fan header splitter will be of obvious use. It seems a little odd that the fans aren’t connected inside the heatsink itself rather than having two ugly leads coming out the side. Also, the opportunity to use molex instead of a fan header would also be useful.

The two fans are separated with a clear plastic plate that stops the fans from cancelling each other out. Instead of blowing through the heatsink, these are radial fans that blow towards the centre of the heatsink. The plastic middle forces the air to radiate sideways, blowing parallel with the heatsink blades. The use of two fans, each with their own thermistor, seems a little excessive, but that’s what we’ve come to expect from CPU cooling.

Looks-wise, this isn’t the most streamlined heatsink, and looks like a washing machine rather than a performance heatsink. On the side of the heatsink, you’ll find a nice little logo compliments of Zaward. The two heatpipes that extend from the base to the top of the Sylphee are the only real hint that this will move some serious heat. The top of the heatsink has more clear plastic arranged with honeycombed holes allowing a small amount of airflow.

The position of the thermistors is a little strange. In their current position they measure the temperature of the air being sucked into the cooler, which will nearly always be the same as the case temperature. A better position would be inside the cooler, closer to the base of the unit where they can accurately measure the temperature of the core beneath.