Installation

Due to the fact that the Silent Spirit uses the same clips as the Intel stock cooler, the motherboard does not need to be removed from the case or motherboard tray. It can just be mounted and locked in within the case. AMD based sockets feature the same simplicity, yet the clips need to be unscrewed and the AMD clips need to be screwed in. Once this is done, the user simply has to clip the new AMD based clips onto the standard AMD retention bracket. As the thermal paste was pre-applied, the Silent Spirit just needed to be mounted. The thermal compound spread out very evenly among both the CPU and base of the cooler, as shown in the images.


The cooler was mounted in the appropriate position. The heat pipes were actually towards the RAM modules. This is because the tilt on the Silent Spirit aims at cooling surrounding motherboard components, so by positioning it with the heat pipes towards the RAM modules, the cooling of surrounding MOSFETs occurs. The 4-pin PWM fan connection was plugged into the 4-pin CPU fan slot on the motherboard.


The clips were then pushed in and locked into their required position. This process was slightly awkward as it requires the user to apply pressure onto each of the clips which can be a bit hard to reach (due to the fact that the heatsink hangs over the clips). Really, it would only be difficult when the motherboard remains seated within the case as there is very limited space to push the clips in. The process is simplified when there is more room, for example when the board is outside of the case or in a motherboard tray and no components are attached to the board.
Once all four clips are secure, the cooler does not move very much and is firmly attached to the motherboard. There were no problems or compatibility issues with the physical size of the cooler when used on the ASUS P5B Deluxe Wi-Fi and Thermaltake Soprano case (with 90 mm side case fan attached).