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Installation:

The test platform used to evaluate the Thermalright SI-128 consists of the following:

AMD A64 3700+ (San Diego) s939 w/ 89watt TDP
eVGA NF4 SLI motherboard
2GB Corsair PC3500-LL Pro Dual Channel RAM
eVGA 7600GT PCI-e video card
Enermax EG495P-VE power supply
Panaflow Ultra Quiet 120mm fan (FBA12G12M1A)
Bundled generic white thermal paste

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Step one is to apply the anti-vibration adhesive strips. They have the look and feel of silicone and apply very easily.

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As with all Thermalright products, you purchase the heatsink and pick up your own fan separately. This is great, because heatsinks generally last forever, while fans wear out over time. Thermalright’s ideology for this is ideal, because you can decide on your own fan, and if it fails over time you can easily replace it. The only thing proprietary is the heatsink itself.

The fan used for mock up here is an Antec green LED case fan. Fan wire clips are anchored into the fins of the SI-128, while the hooks on the wire clips go into the mounting holes of the fan. This design is well engineered, easy to use and secures the fan very well.

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With the fan in place let’s take a peek at the mounting hardware. On the Intel side, the SI-128 is only compatible with LGA775 processors. The mounting clips should look very familiar, because they are the same ones used for stock Intel coolers. No motherboard removal is necessary for installing the SI-128 on your Intel based platform.

On the AMD side, the SI-128 claims full compatibility with all AMD socket types except the Athlon XP. The clip is pretty cool, because it clamps to the stock motherboard collar with little more than a thumb press. Final pressure is applied to the CPU by giving the center lever a quarter turn.

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I mention the SI-128 "claims" compatibility with all AMD socket types, because as luck would have it, the SI-128 was incompatible with my motherboard. Socket 754 and some socket 939 motherboards used a two screw CPU collar design. This collar stands fairly tall and interfered with the 4 heat pipes coming from the heatsinks base. Four screw style collars of the socket 754 and 939 variety should not have this problem, but AM2 owners will. For you, Thermalright includes a modified AM2 collar.