Tests of coolers - ASUS, Scythe, and Cooler Master
Author:
Date: 06.06.2006 |
|
ASUS Silent Square
Over a year ago, ASUS presented its first cooler StarIce aimed at PC enthusiasts. In fact, the phrase "its" is taken be taken in quotation marks since the cooler was too similar to the model ThermalTake Beetle and most likely was manufactured as an OEM order. It is also hardly aimed at PC enthusiasts because the cooling efficiency of StarIce was low and the noise level too high. As a result, the cooler hasn't gained popularity,and ASUS have taken a timeout for a year. In 2006, the company presented the new model Silent Square with ten heat pipes!
The cooler is package in a cardboard box with transparent windows and a handle to carry it around:
Inside it, apart from the cooler itself, we found a kit of fasteners, fastening frames for various platforms, an enforcement plate for a motherboard, a tub of thermo paste, as well as a brief installation guide.
The design of the cooler is rather simple: the aluminum base is linked with a radiator using heat pipes (10 pieces); the radiator is made up of two parts between which there is a 92 mm fan of 1800 RPM rotational speed. It produces 32.25 CFM air flow, with the noise level not exceeding 18 dBa. We should note straight off that the cooler operates almost noiselessly, which confirms the declared specifications.
The fan is inside a plastic package, which does not let the user to replace it with a more powerful (e.g. that in Scythe Mine). Inside package, there is a couple of blue LEDs which provide good illumination to the cooler.
As our tests showed, the cooler's efficiency is high enough and the noise level is minimum. So most users will find the specifications of this cooler more than satisfactory.
The processing quality of the base is high enough, but is still to far to the mirror surface:
Of note are the rather massive dimensions of ASUS Silent Square. Its length is 140 mm, width - 115 mm, and the height is 140 mm. As a result, during its installation there may come up various issues related to blocking of other system components (e.g., memory modules, a fan on the chipset or a video card). The cooler weighs 656 g.
Actually, issues with its installation came up at quite an unexpected place. In particular, the enforcement plate did not fit tightly to the motherboard (ASUS P5WD2 Premium) because of traces left by the solder.
In fact, this issue is not big one and is solved with a rubber washer and longer screws. But the second issue proved much more critical: we received a specimen for the press, and its package bundle lacked a fastening frame for LGA775 (but there were two pieces for AMD platform). So we made the following fastener with materials at hand:
Since the fastener differs from the factory-made, the results of tests for ASUS Silent Square cooler are presented solely for estimation, and we'll come back to tests of this product in further materials.
Despite the apprehension, we successfully fitted the cooler and none of the critical components was blocked:
The retail price of the cooler is over 55$ which may seem too much, at first glance. So, we'll see the totals of the review to find out how justified the price was.
Pros:
- Excellent efficiency;
- Almost noiseless operation;
- Compatibility to all the popular platforms.
Cons:
- Large overall dimensions;
- Somehow overstated price.
 |
Content: |
 |
|
|
Top Stories: |
|
 |
|
MoBo:
|
|
|
|
VGA Card:
|
|
|
|
CPU & Memory:
|
|
|
