Akasa Silver Mountain Heatsink

Manufacturer: Akasa Corporation
Supplied by: Lapicon Electronics
Street Price: $39.95

By Dean Barker (12/04/2001)

Introduction 

Copper heatsinks are all the rage anymore.  This is for good reason; copper has better thermal properties than aluminum.  Is there anything better than copper?  Yes there is, silver.  Akasa took an existing copper heatsink design (a somewhat troubled design I may add) and tweaked it.  The major tweak being, encasing the entire heatsink in silver.  The Akasa Silver Mountain is nothing new but this is the first opportunity we have had to put it through the paces here at the Penthouse Labs.  Before we continue, we wish to extend our thanks to Lapicon Electronics for hooking us up with this Silver Mountain review sample.

It’s not too often that we comment on packaging around here but in the case of the Silver Mountain we are.  The yellow, black, and blue box design is quite eye catching.  But what really caught our eye was the way the heatsink was packaged inside.  Talk about insuring against shipping damage!  You can see our test sample box showed up a little worse for the wear.  Upon opening it up, the unit was pristine and glistening in all its silver glory.  Something else we found in the box that shows a commitment to quality was a small tube of silver thermal paste.  I’m liking the attention to detail Akasa is showing so far.

The Silver Mountain is a solid copper heatsink.  You wouldn’t know that from first sight because as we have mentioned already, the entire unit is encased in silver.  If nothing else, this sink is absolutely beautiful to look at.  The overall construction is very high.  I can only imagine the engineering problems in trying to uniformly coat a heatsink in another metal.  They did it, and quite well I might add.  The downside of this effectively copper heatsink, is its weight.  480 grams is nothing to sneeze at.

The Silver Mountain is comprised of 216 fins to disperse heat.  These are in 18 rows of 12 (18x12=216.)  The tops of these fins are surrounded by an Alpha PAL looking shroud that is held in place by four small catches that hook into slots on the heatsink fins. 

Remember how we said an existing heatsink design that was troubled?  The Silver Mountain is very very similar in construction to the famous (or infamous, depending of how well the one you have performs) Hedgehog.  Let’s go back for a bit of history.  The Kanie Hedgehog was the first all copper heatsink to hit the market in mass.  It also had a major flaw.  The fins of the Hedgehog were attached to the base, by their fitting into small grooves cut into the sink’s base.  Some Hedgehogs performed very well while others pretty much crapped out in the performance department.  This is what spurned the “single unit construction” we see so often today.  If the fins fit in nice and tight with minimal areas of no contact, then that the Hedgehog would rock.  If the fins didn’t have a snug fit, then the thermal transfer was inhibited and subsequently, the performance of that sink.

We cannot let the similarities in the Silver Mountain and the Kanie Hedgehog go unaddressed.  Sink for sink, the dimensions are the same with the exception of the fins.  The Silver Mountain has 216 fins (18x12) while the Hedgehog has 238 fins (17x14.)  The Silver Mountain fins are a tad slimmer and longer than those of the Hedgehog.  The fins of both sinks attach to the base in the identical manner we have already discussed.  It seems quite obvious that the same basic design was utilized here.  The major difference is in the silver plating.  Akasa claims that the plating specifically addresses the woes the Hedgehog had and that the Silver Mountain most certainly does not share the problems of inconsistent performance.  Around here we say the proof is in the pudding.  Further, why go with 216 instead of 238 fins?  The answer is in the clip.  The Hedgehog’s clip was a crappy flimsy excuse for a clip that readily bent.  That clip was basically two wire like shafts running between the Hedgehog fins.  The Silver Mountain clip is constructed a bit wider to provide more strength and hopefully a more encouraging mount to the CPU.  You can see where the fins have a wider separation between them where the clip passes through.  Let’s move back to the Silver Mountain.

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