ASUS Silent Square Pro: Compact Embedded-Fan Heatpipe Tower

Overclocking

As cooling solutions do a better job of keeping the CPU at a lower temperature, it is reasonable to expect the overclocking capabilities of the CPU will increase. In each test of a cooler we measure the highest stable overclock of a standard X6800 processor under the following conditions:

CPU Multiplier: 14x (Stock 11x)
CPU voltage: 1.5875V
FSB Voltage: 1.30V
Memory Voltage: 1.90V
nForce SPP Voltage: 1.35V
nForce MCP Voltage: 1.7V
HT nForce SPP <-> MCP: Auto

Memory is set to Auto timings on the 680i and memory speed is linked to the FSB for the overclocking tests. This removes memory as any kind of impediment to the maximum stable overclock. Linked settings on the 680i are a 1066FSB to a memory speed of DDR2-800. As FSB is raised the linked memory speed increases in proportion. The same processor is used in all cooling tests to ensure comparable results.


The ASUS Silent Square Pro could only reach 3.81 GHz overclock with stability. This is a poor performance for a cooler targeted at the gaming market. These results are not comparable to the top tier of the heatpipe towers tested, where most top heatpipe towers reach 3.90 GHz with the same CPU and 3.94 GHz for the top performing cooler.

The design of the cooler is very similar to the Tuniq Tower 120, which suggests the ASUS Silent Square Pro should be an effective design. These results were with our modified installation that lowered temperatures, so the comparatively poor results cannot be blamed on a poor mount. We suspect that the performance is hampered by the smaller 90mm fan, which has to work harder to move air due to the smaller size. The odd 90mm fan size also makes replacing the 49.6 CFM fan with something better an unlikely event. It will be difficult to find any fans that will fit the Silent Square Pro. The smaller heatsink size is also a possibly factor in the lower cooling performance.