SilenX IXC-120HA2 iXtrema

SilenX made their first appearance on the site earlier this year, their silent fan series is quite known. They send us a direct-heatpipe-touch tower cooler which comes combined with a SilenX 120mm fan (what else!)

SilenX has been a privately-owned and operated company based in southern California since 1995. There are several research and design facilities in addition to our primary warehouse facility and our renowned technical support and customer service center. Originally a high-end systems integrator for silent computers, SilenX shifted its focus to manufacturing silent PC components in 2002 and established factories in the United States, China, and Taiwan.

Our retail products are distributed in numerous countries around the world. We also have an OEM division that manufactures fans, thermal heatsink solutions and power supplies for various applications in computing, consumer electronics and other industrial uses. Our specialty is in low noise components as we have among the lowest noise cooling equipment in the industry.

Numerous awards have been won by our products in the consumer computing world for delivering a combination of the lowest noise levels without sacrificing high performance. Reviewers from around the world have praised our products for being on the forefront of the silent PC industry. Our commitment to the finest quality makes SilenX products both reliable and competitive.

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SilenX IXC-120HA2 iXtrema

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SilenX IXC-120HA2 iXtrema
- Intel S775 / AMD AM2/939
- 1x120mm fan
- 900~1700rpm
- Heatsink With Fan: 657 gram (559gr without fan)
- 3-pin Fan Connector
- ~$50

The iXtrema is a promising looking heatsink right out of the box, 4 large heat pipes in U form, which directly touch the CPU, a series of tightly packed aluminum fins, inside the package you get one ~1428rpm @12v (810rpm@5v as measured by the Tachometer) silent fan and two sets of clips, so you can attach a second fan to the iXtrema (clips made for 25mm height fans). The SilenX fan has some soft rubber pads on the inside to reduce vibration noise. You also get a fan speed controller inside the package, which makes this whole product quite complete for $50.



Getting the heatsink installed on AMD is easy using the integrated clip, on Intel S775 the system is genius, tool-less and still a very tight fit, kudos to SilenX for the mounting system. A plastic bracket is clipped in place using push pins, basically providing you with AMD AM2 mounting on the Intel platform, so you can re-use the same metal clip; while this system still relies on plastic push pins, this method is superior the Intel standard S775 push pins. This mounting method is not unique, Zalman uses the same for S775 seen here, SilenX made it tool less.



The SilenX iXtrema allows you to easily swap fans using the included clips, we installed our GlobalWin NCB on it, but also tested the performance of the stock SilenX 120mm fan. For comparison we included the Sunbeamtech Core Contact Freezer and Xigmatek HDT-1283, both DHT (direct-heatpipe-touch) heatsink with 120mm fans.



With the stock fan at full speed the performance is very good, but noise levels are high, undervolting helps a lot to drop the noise to more acceptable level, performance only suffers slightly (3-4 °C), the iXtrema goes up evenly with the Core Contact Freezer when both are equipped with the NCB fan, the HDT-1283 however is noticeably better, no matter which fan is used and at what speed.

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In summary here are the strong/weak points of the SilenX IXC-120HA2 iXtrema:



+ Excellent performance/noise balance
+ Easy and secure installation
+ Fan controller included
+ Competitive price

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