Page 4 - Conclusion
SilverStone XED120S may struggle to find its place in the PC market. During my testing, it performed well in cooling my midrange AMD CPU for both the idle and load tests. It produced a large amount of airflow despite only operating with one fan. The visual design is simple and appealing with the matte silver top cover. The nickel-plated heatpipes and contact plate further match the silver color scheme, while also adding corrosion protection. As for the installation, the instructions are easy to follow with a very straightforward process. However, there are a few downsides to note. The first one is the loud noise it produces. The CPU air cooler market is incredibly competitive, and most of them are much quieter, especially at full load. The other improvement would be to wrap the PWM cable with electrical insulation to hide the unsightly cable. Furthermore, a tube of thermal paste would be a nice addition to allow for multiple installs. Lastly, perhaps a bit picky, the package design could be improved to look more pleasant. At press time, the SilverStone XED120S can be bought for $155. For this price, you will be able to find other options better suited for PC use, including other SilverStone options. Overall, the SilverStone XED120S is a good-performing cooler, but requires more improvements to be competitive in the PC market.
SilverStone provided this product to APH Networks for the purposes of evaluation.
APH Networks Review Focus Summary:
7/10 means Great product with many advantages and certain insignificant drawbacks, but should be considered before purchasing.
6/10 means A product with its advantages, but drawbacks should not be ignored before purchasing.
-- Final APH Networks Numeric Rating is 6.5/10
Please note that the APH Networks Numeric Rating system is based off our proprietary guidelines in the Review Focus, and should not be compared to other publications.
The SilverStone XED120S is a good-performing air cooler, but it requires more tweaking to be optimized for PC use.
Page Index
1. Introduction, Packaging, Specifications
2. Physical Look - Hardware
3. Installation and Test Results
4. Conclusion
