Installation and performance

The installation into the PT13 really couldn’t be much simpler. Most of the build is actually outside of the case in this situation. Rather than use the included 2.5 inch hard drive mount that mounts to the top of the case, I uses an mSATA hard drive on the motherboard itself. Ram and CPU installations were standard of course. Installing the AR04 cooler was also very standard as it uses the plastic Intel push down clips that you would also see on a stock heatsink. Silverstone doesn’t provide very much thermal paste with the AR04 and with the direct touching heatpipes you will most likely need more than what they provided. Keep that in mind before you jump into the installation. With the heatsink and everything else installed, the only work I had to do in the case was installing the motherboard using four screws. After that I had to hook up the USB 2.0 cable for the front panel and then the three front panel cables. I didn’t have to worry about wire management other than keeping the cables away from the AR04s fan.

When it comes to performance, the PT13 and AR04 complement each other very well. The AR04 is able to pull cool air right in from the top of the case and then push it out of the vents on the sides. This does a great job of creating a little airflow in a case that otherwise doesn’t have any other fans. Because of the airflow the PC ran much cooler than I expected, even when under full load. With just a single fan having to do the cooling, especially considering its 80mm size, the fan speeds did run higher than I would prefer. That means the AR04 did create a little noise while in use. This is due to its small fan size and relatively high fan speed. Its lowest RPM is 1500 and when things warm up it will speed up to 3400 RPM. How often you have to worry about that will depend on what CPU you use, the 4770S is the fastest CPU that you can get within the recommended TDP limit of 65 watts.