Evercool Silent Shark (HPO 12025) CPU Cooler Review

Evercool have told me that the Silent Shark CPU cooler will come into the UK with a price point of about £45. This translates into European pricing of €58 and North American pricing of $75. As we’ve seen by the results every cooler the Silent Shark is beaten by or is equal too has a higher price with exception to the Cooler Master Hyper 412 Slim (£37.50), Thermalright Macho (£40) and the Scythe Mugen 3 (£40 – which is just an exceptional product). The Silent Shark is only 2 degrees behind the Dark Rock Pro 2 from our testing, yet costs around £15 less, it is also £10-15 cheaper than Noctua’s NH-D14. All things considered I think we can safely say that the performance offered up by the Silent Shark is actually pleasing for the price, especially when you consider you get two fans.

Now this is not to say that the price cures all the Silent Shark’s faults, because it does not. I will now elaborate on my concerns with the product. Firstly, I feel that the cooler is just excessively large. Even though this won’t be a problem for most what it means is that you’ll only be able to use normal/low profile height RAM in all RAM slots. In addition to this the excessive size also results in excessive weight, and it actually weighs quite a lot so you have to make sure you get the mount right to avoid any undue strain being put on your motherboard. My second concern comes with the fact Evercool opted for a 3 pin fan instead of a PWM fan. This creates additional noise that just didn’t need to be there, I appreciate some may say it is only 1000 RPM but at 1000 RPM the 3 pin fan isn’t quiet – as our testing shows. I would suggest an area for improvement is if Silent Shark include two PWM fans like the one used in the middle of the product as this gives the consumer more control. My third concern is not really a concern as such, more of me being a bit nit-picky, but I will explain it anyway. A lot of the Evercool marketing and promotional material focused on the fact you can angle the side fan because it has a hinge. Now do not get me wrong, it does do exactly that. My concern is that why does it need to do that? What benefit does it bring? In creating this hinged fan they have also made the heatsink towers asymmetrical as a result. Like I said this isn’t a major issue because it doesn’t affect performance, but it is just strange.

Onto what we liked about the Silent Shark CPU cooler. Well firstly, the price is excellent. For £45~ you are getting a heck of a lot for your money in terms of the sheer heatsink “real-estate” and number of fans. Even though the performance doesn’t match the size, the cooler is still offering good levels of bang-for-buck at the £45~ price point so there can be no complaints there. Secondly, Evercool actually bundle two low noise adapters with the Silent Shark CPU cooler which is something a lot of companies skimp out on so I commend Evercool for doing this. Thirdly the build quality and attention to detail that Evercool show is actually much much higher than I expected. My expectations were probably founded upon pre-conceived ideas of cheap Asian made goods being to poor quality standards, but the Evercool Silent Shark was quite the opposite of this. The product is solid and well made, durability should not be an issue for anyone.

The aesthetics are one of those things that I do have an opinion on but ultimately it is down to individual preference whether you agree or not. I think the Silent Shark is a very robust looking CPU cooler, that complies with that aggressive gamer and military style theme and I think this cooler would look excellent in any gaming chassis. However, some people may feel it is too big, “out-there” and not very subtle – I sympathise with those people too.

So the Evercool Silent Shark is a mixed bag then. We’ve got great bang for your buck being the main selling point. The performance isn’t as good as we expected for the size, but thankfully the cost goes a long way to correct this and the fact it has two fans instead of one is also a big bonus for air-starved cases. The acoustic performance was adequate as far as I am concerned, inside a case it will be barely audible and that is all that matters. Due to the fact the Evercool Silent Shark has quite a few improvements to be made (as explained above) we do not feel it is deserving of the Editor’s Choice Award. However, I still believe the Silent Shark offers an excellent level of value-for-money and I am happy to award the Evercool Silent Shark our bang-for-buck award.