ASUS Silent Square Pro: Compact Embedded-Fan Heatpipe Tower
by Wesley Fink on April 16, 2007 2:30 AM EST- Posted in
- Cases/Cooling/PSUs
Cooling at Stock Speed
Some users will never overclock their CPU, but they still want to run the coolest CPU temperatures possible to enhance stability and extend CPU life. The ASUS Silent Square Pro kit includes a moderate output low noise 90mm fan. This is an unusual fan size which makes it difficult to find a fan to replace the stock fan.
Initial test with the Silent Square showed extremely poor results at idle at 3.73GHz. We have seen several Silent Square reviews that reported poorer performance with socket 775 than with socket AM2. This led us to suspect that the mounting plate was not flat or the mounting method did not provide enough CPU contact for effective cooling. The cooler was removed and thermal paste was spread evenly on both mounting surfaces indicating good contact. However the thickness of the paste indicated more pressure was needed on the cooler mount. After experimenting we found that adding two thicknesses of plastic credit card under the clip that holds the cooler against the CPU was most effective in cooling the CPU. Temperatures dropped from 55C idle with a stock install to a more reasonable 42C at idle with the credit card shims.
These findings may explain the poorer performance on socket 775 processors reported elsewhere. It appears the mounting clip needs a tighter coupling to the processor for better cooling on LGA775. This can be accomplished by shortening the stand-offs a small amount on the universal retention mount or by using shims under the mounting clip. Both methods worked fine in benchmark testing. Out of the box, it appears the socket 775 attachment is flawed in the ASUS Silent Square.
With the stock fan at stock speeds with the modified install of the Silent Square Pro, temperatures were an impressive 29C compared to the 40C with the unmodified 775 install. These results compare favorably to stock idle results with the better coolers tested at AnandTech.
It is more difficult to effectively simulate a computer being stressed by all of the conditions it might be exposed to in different operating environments. For most home users CPU power is most taxed with contemporary gaming. Therefore our stress test simulates running a demanding contemporary game. Results are comparable to running the Intel TAT stress test at 80% CPU usage.
The Far Cry River demo is looped for 30 minutes and the CPU temperature is captured at 4 second intervals with the NVIDIA monitor "logging" option. The highest temperature during the stress test is then reported. Momentary spikes are ignored, as we report a sustained high-level temp that you would expect to find in this recording configuration.
Cooling efficiency of the ASUS Silent Square Pro was tested under load conditions with the stock fan at stock speed. Results are compared to the Intel retail HSF and other recently tested CPU coolers.
The Silent Square Pro under load at stock speeds reached a maximum temperature of 42C. This result was not nearly as impressive as performance at stock idle. However, keep in perspective that the Intel retail fan under load at stock speeds reached 56C, so the ASUS Silent Square Pro is a significant improvement of 14C in cooling performance compared to the Intel retail HSF. Top coolers in our test like the Thermalright Ultra 120/Ultra 120 Extreme and Tuniq Tower 120 reached low to mid 30's Centigrade under these same test conditions.
The ASUS Silent Square Pro is a decent cooler at stock speeds and a big improvement over the Intel retail cooler. At idle its performance is among the best we have tested, while under load it falls in the middle of the pack for performance of the coolers we have tested. ASUS advertises the Silent Square Pro as ideal for overclocking the Core 2 Duo, however. They also classify the cooler as developed for the gamer. To test those claims we took a closer look at cooler performance scaling.
Some users will never overclock their CPU, but they still want to run the coolest CPU temperatures possible to enhance stability and extend CPU life. The ASUS Silent Square Pro kit includes a moderate output low noise 90mm fan. This is an unusual fan size which makes it difficult to find a fan to replace the stock fan.
Initial test with the Silent Square showed extremely poor results at idle at 3.73GHz. We have seen several Silent Square reviews that reported poorer performance with socket 775 than with socket AM2. This led us to suspect that the mounting plate was not flat or the mounting method did not provide enough CPU contact for effective cooling. The cooler was removed and thermal paste was spread evenly on both mounting surfaces indicating good contact. However the thickness of the paste indicated more pressure was needed on the cooler mount. After experimenting we found that adding two thicknesses of plastic credit card under the clip that holds the cooler against the CPU was most effective in cooling the CPU. Temperatures dropped from 55C idle with a stock install to a more reasonable 42C at idle with the credit card shims.
These findings may explain the poorer performance on socket 775 processors reported elsewhere. It appears the mounting clip needs a tighter coupling to the processor for better cooling on LGA775. This can be accomplished by shortening the stand-offs a small amount on the universal retention mount or by using shims under the mounting clip. Both methods worked fine in benchmark testing. Out of the box, it appears the socket 775 attachment is flawed in the ASUS Silent Square.
With the stock fan at stock speeds with the modified install of the Silent Square Pro, temperatures were an impressive 29C compared to the 40C with the unmodified 775 install. These results compare favorably to stock idle results with the better coolers tested at AnandTech.
It is more difficult to effectively simulate a computer being stressed by all of the conditions it might be exposed to in different operating environments. For most home users CPU power is most taxed with contemporary gaming. Therefore our stress test simulates running a demanding contemporary game. Results are comparable to running the Intel TAT stress test at 80% CPU usage.
The Far Cry River demo is looped for 30 minutes and the CPU temperature is captured at 4 second intervals with the NVIDIA monitor "logging" option. The highest temperature during the stress test is then reported. Momentary spikes are ignored, as we report a sustained high-level temp that you would expect to find in this recording configuration.
Cooling efficiency of the ASUS Silent Square Pro was tested under load conditions with the stock fan at stock speed. Results are compared to the Intel retail HSF and other recently tested CPU coolers.
The Silent Square Pro under load at stock speeds reached a maximum temperature of 42C. This result was not nearly as impressive as performance at stock idle. However, keep in perspective that the Intel retail fan under load at stock speeds reached 56C, so the ASUS Silent Square Pro is a significant improvement of 14C in cooling performance compared to the Intel retail HSF. Top coolers in our test like the Thermalright Ultra 120/Ultra 120 Extreme and Tuniq Tower 120 reached low to mid 30's Centigrade under these same test conditions.
The ASUS Silent Square Pro is a decent cooler at stock speeds and a big improvement over the Intel retail cooler. At idle its performance is among the best we have tested, while under load it falls in the middle of the pack for performance of the coolers we have tested. ASUS advertises the Silent Square Pro as ideal for overclocking the Core 2 Duo, however. They also classify the cooler as developed for the gamer. To test those claims we took a closer look at cooler performance scaling.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
24 Comments
View All Comments
Avalon - Tuesday, April 17, 2007 - link
Good review. Useless cooler.I'm still going to throw my vote out there for you guys possibly reviewing the Coolermaster HyperTX. That thing is supposed to cool extremely well while providing awesome mosfet cooling.
poohbear - Monday, April 16, 2007 - link
thanks for the review as heatsink reviews are always good to see! however, could u start using bar graphs in your reviews as they're MUCH easier to read then the ones u choose to use. Much simpler to view the info instead of sifting through all the names on the side and numbers on the right. please and thank u.Wesley Fink - Monday, April 16, 2007 - link
The bar graph idea sounds good, but the charts are trend line charts with 4 or 5 points for each cooler and fan configuration. It would take at least 5 bar graphs to replace each chart, and then the trend would also be lost. We have added a "click to enlarge" feature to the charts to make them more usable for those who closely scrutinize the temperature data.Frumious1 - Monday, April 16, 2007 - link
Every now and then some whiner will come along and dislike the scaling graphs, Wes. Just ignore them! Anyone that can't understand the intent of a scaling graph needs a lesson in reading comprehension anyway. My only thought is maybe some sorting of the data in the scaling graphs would be useful. They crurently seem to be sorted by when you reviewed the coolers, and most people probably could care less about the chronological aspects.At some point, you're going to need to start dropping coolers from those scaling graphs as well. That's my opinion at least - they're already very crowded! Maybe select the "best" coolers (or just a reasonable baseline group) and just leave those in the scaling graphs, with the complete list of coolers in the other charts? You could have the Thermalright Ultra 120 Extreme (is that out yet!?), Tuniq 120, Cooler Master Hyper 6+, Monsoon Lite II, Scythe Ninja B, and the lowly Intel retail. Then just add the specific cooler being tested. Right now there's definitely an "information overload" aspect ot the scaled charts, and it will only get worse with time as more HSFs are added.
/$0.02
strikeback03 - Monday, April 16, 2007 - link
Or possibly the best few coolers in each price bracket, along with the tested cooler, and a link to a large image of all of the tested coolers. Something interactive, where you could turn individual coolers on and off, whould be nice, though I don't know if there is software that would allow these to be easily made.JarredWalton - Monday, April 16, 2007 - link
I know our graphing engine is currently undergoing some development/design work, but when that will be complete and what it will offer I do not yet know. If we could get something interactive, that would be pretty cool. Right now, our engine doesn't handle scaling graphs at all, which is why we just use Excel to generate those manually. We can hope, though! :)NARC4457 - Monday, April 16, 2007 - link
It feels like the noise measurement methodology needs a tweak since there are many coolers that are sitting right at the noise floor. I know that you are testing these in real-world conditions, with components that enthusiasts are likely to use. But I guess it just feels like the test is becoming less meaningful if the results are the same across many coolers.I don't really have a suggestion here, because I don't think people would like it either if you simply stated that the cooler was not louder than ambient without showing the method and
Wesley Fink - Monday, April 16, 2007 - link
We will be revamping our test bed when we do the 120mm fan roundup. We are currently evaluatig components to find a little lower noise floor and to priduce some consistent test methods that don't get spoofed by variable speed PS fans. Thanks for your comments.flipmode - Monday, April 16, 2007 - link
Thanks for another HSF article - these are valuable contributions to the enthusiast scene. But I have to ask if you can start cropping and upscaling your graphs - they're darn near unreadable now that you've made such a wonderful effort to test 20 coolers. I want to actually be able to read what you've take the time to present.Scythe Ninja Fanboy
crimson117 - Monday, April 16, 2007 - link
Or provide a link to a larger version of each graph.