Silverstone Hydrogon D140 ARGB and Argon V140 ARGB Air Coolers Review

Today's review will cover two new air coolers from Silverstone, the Hydrogon D140 ARGB and the Argon V140 ARGB air coolers. The Hydrogon D140 is the stronger of the two coolers, priced at $60 USD and it stands out from the competition with its simple installation which allows you to install the coolers without removing the pre-attached fans.

Pros

Cons

Features of Silverstone's Hydrogon D140 ARGB and Argon V140 ARGB Air Coolers

Included with the package is:

The Hydrogon D140 features a dual tower radiator with 6 copper heatpipes

The Argon V140 features a single tower radiator with fewer heatpipes, four instead of six, but these heatpipes are direct touch heatpipes which in theory may provide better thermal transfer compared to traditional heatpipes.

Despite use of relatively tall 44mm G-Skill DDR4 in my testing rig, the fans didn't interfere with RAM in any manner. If your RAM is 45mm tall or shorter - which is just about 99% of RAM on the market - you won't have any compatibility problems.

The fans included (as shown above) both support aRGB lighting, if that's something you're interested in. If you don't like lighting, you can just leave the aRGB connection unplugged.

The Hydrogon D140 comes with the fans pre-attached, and the installation process does not require removing them. This makes it just a bit easier to setup than other coolers on the market. To attach the cooler to the mounting bars, simply slide a screwdriver in the holes shown below at the top of the cooler.

I've tested with Intel's i7-13700K to show how this cooler performs. The system system is tested with a full strength workload, two reduced wattage loads, and at noise normalized settings.

Observant readers may notice that the noise graphs start at 35 instead of zero. This is because my sound meter cannot measure sound levels lower than 35 dBA. This makes it the "zero" for testing purposes. For those concerned that this might distort results - there's no worry. If anything, the graphs above will minimize the differences in noise levels because dBA measurements are logarithmic. For a  detailed explanation of how decibel measurements correspond to perceived noise levels, please check out the video below from BeQuiet! which makes it easy to visualize and understand the true impact of of increasing dBA levels.

Most coolers reach TJ Max, the maximum temperature of the CPU of 100 degrees Celsius, when power limits are removed with Intel's i7-13700K. Silverstone's Hydrogon D140 cools about 221W, which is typical of mid-range coolers. However, cheaper coolers from DeepCool like the AK400 Digital outperform this model.

Performance is only one part of the picture, noise levels are equally important. The noise levels of the two Silverstone coolers are moderate, reaching 42.4 and 44.9 dBA.

If you're particular about noise levels, our next results will show you how it performs when it runs quietly.

For noise normalized testing, I've set the fans to a low 38.2 dBA. This is a slightly audible noise level, but won't bother most users. Silverstone's performance here was reasonable, with both models outperforming Cooler Master's Hyper 622 Halo. The D140 model cooled 212 watts overall, only a few watts shy of BeQuiet's Dark Rock Pro 4.

While maximum performance is important, most of the time you won't be pushing the CPU to its limits. It's good to see how a cooler performs in more typical situations, and most users won't use more than 175W in common usage.

With the CPU only reaching 58C over ambient, the Hydrogon D140 performs on par with mid-range air coolers, just behind the best air cooling results shown above. However, the V140 reaches 63C - which is one of the worst results on our chart, barely outperforming Juishark's JF13K Diamond Mini.

125W is the lowest level of power I test, and it's similar to what users will consume with this CPU in demanding games. While I've tested and show thermal results, they're really not a concern because even Intel's stock cooler will keep the CPU cool enough in a workload like this. That being said, the thermal performance of the D140 model was excellent, with the best result of any air cooler we've seen thus far.

Noise levels, that's what really matters in low intensity workload like this. At 38.2 dBA, both run quietly in a 125W workload - only a few coolers manage to run quieter.

Conclusion

Silverstone's D140 and V140 perform reasonably well with moderate noise levels. The main feature that sets the D140 apart from the competition is the ability to complete installation without removing the pre-attached fans, which may come in handy for system builders. If you're interested in Silverstone's D140 Air Cooler, it is currently available on Amazon for $61 USD. The Argon V140 has a lower price tag, and is currently available on Amazon for $45 USD.

Reasonable performance and noise levels, but more expensive than the competition

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