SilentiumPC Grandis 3 Review - Cheap & Big Twin-Tower

In my review of SilentiumPC’s Navis EVO AiO water cooling I already briefly touched on the company’s “effective design and smart cost reduction” philosophy, today I have a really good example of a practical implementation of this resolution in front of me. Whether the largest cooler of the manufacturer can prove itself in the test or whether maybe savings were made in the wrong places, you can find out in the following review:

Packaging / Scope of delivery

Similar to the OVP of the water cooling system, a simple design is also used here. Colored product images on front and side, otherwise white and black areas with some blue on back. Info texts provide information about specifications and the most important features. Small seals with the inscription “Quality assurance in Poland” must be removed before opening.

The size of the box is best described as “as small as possible, as large as necessary”. Compact and yet well protected from all sides by fans and accessories individually packed in cardboard boxes. At the bottom there is a foam plate cut to fit, which encloses the coldplate.

The accessories box contains everything you need: mounting brackets, fan clips and a small tube of thermal paste. In addition to the usual screws and spacers, there is even a mini wrench included as a little bonus. A short installation guide is also included, which is actually missing on the manufacturer’s site. There is the appropriate menu item, but they forgot to put the download link at the time of the review.

The two included fans are different sizes, the smaller fan for the front is supposed to allow better RAM compatibility:

Overall, hardly any plastic bags are used, so there is commendably little waste left over. Other manufacturers should also make the leap to cardboard/cardboard, everything does not have to be individually bagged!

Assembly / Installation

For the AM4 socket, the backplate of the motherboard is used again, four plastic spacers are placed on the holes and the silver mounting frame is mounted with screws. Two further screws then fix the cooler to the frame. The easiest way to do this is to place the motherboard on the table or to fix the backplate with some tape.

Processing of the cooler is average to good, the fins are deburred and surprisingly stable. The coldplate is slightly convex and quite large. But here there is a small thing to grumble, my copy looks namely almost “dirty” with several spots. Even wiping with isopropanol could not remove them. So whether the residue from manufacturing will negatively affect cooling performance remains to be seen.

Due to the symmetrical design of the Grandis 3 and the direction-independent logo, it doesn’t matter which way the cooler is turned. However, the smaller Sigma HP should be 120mm forward so that the RAM banks are not blocked. The larger 140mm fan for the center is a bit more difficult to install, as little extra space was left. However, with a little emphatic sensitivity it should work without major problems.

In the last step the fans are fixed with the clamps. Optically, everything is kept very simple, the black color scheme without special accents should adapt well to most systems. If you prefer something more colorful, you can go for the version with white ARGB fans.