ASUS Silent Square Pro: Compact Embedded-Fan Heatpipe Tower

Final Words

The Silent Square Pro is the top cooler in ASUS' Silent Square "Gamer" series, which is the top cooler line produced by the Thermal Solutions group at ASUS. This is the same ASUS that is well known to any computer enthusiast as one of the largest and most prolific manufacturers of quality motherboards. ASUS is a tier-1 manufacturer who is often first to market with new chipsets and technology.

The Silent Square Pro is beautifully packaged and exquisitely finished. It is almost like an orange gem with a clear heritage of breeding and attention to detail. If looks alone were all that mattered then the Silent Square Pro would be the Miss Universe of the computer cooler set. However, my mother and yours probably warned you that "beauty is as beauty does". By that yardstick the Silent Square Pro is the ugly stepsister since it really "does" very little compared to other top heatpipe coolers.

This starts with the socket 775 mount on the Silent Square Pro. Either we had a bad sample or the design doesn't apply enough pressure to the socket 775 CPU for a good fit and proper cooling. By shimming the attachment clip we were able to reduce the idle temperature at a 3.73 GHz overclock from 55C to a more rational 42C. That, however, did not improve cooling performance in overclocking enough for the Silent Square Pro to be competitive with comparably priced heatpipe towers we have tested.

At stock speed the ASUS Silent Square Pro is a good performer, maintaining the CPU temp at 29C idle and 42C under load. This compares favorably with coolers targeted at silence like the Zalman 9500 and 9700. Despite the name, at full speed the fan is not silent, with idle and load noise clearly louder than the system noise floor. However, a slight reduction in speed moves noise below the system floor. Running "silent" at minimum speed the cooling is 33C idle and 48C load, which is still okay cooling in this worst case scenario. It is easy to find a happy and reasonably silent fan speed in the middle with the included digital readout fan controller. As a quiet cooler at stock speeds the ASUS Silent Square Pro is a big improvement over the stock Intel cooler. It cools better and it is certainly a lot prettier in your case than the Intel Retail HSF.

But ASUS advertises the Silent Square Pro as the ideal cooler for Core 2 Duo overclocking and gaming. Compared to other top coolers the Silent Square Pro is not a particularly good cooler for C2D overclocking. OC tops out at 3.81 GHz, where the Tuniq Tower 120, Scythe Infinity push-pull, OCZ Vindicator/SilenX, Scythe Ninja Plus B/SilenX, and Thermalright Ultra 120 all overclock to a stable 3.90GHz. The Thermalright Ultra 120 Extreme, our top air cooler so far, goes even further to 3.94 GHz. The less-than-top overclocking of the Silent Square Pro is compounded by the smaller and non-standard 90mm embedded fan. If a better replacement could be found the Silent Square Pro might be a better overclocker.

For gaming, we are talking about conditions similar to 80% CPU load, and the Silent Square Pro is not the best performer under load conditions either. Temperatures under load are not really competitive with the best coolers we have tested. Again the small fan with lower output is likely the issue. A higher output fan - if one were available - would likely solve much of this issue as well.

The ASUS Silent Square Pro is a beautiful and well-made compact heatpipe tower. However at a price from $41 for the lower-priced Silent Square online to as much as $70 for the Silent Square Pro, we do not find the cooler to be a very good value. Almost all of the top air coolers we have tested fall in this same price range, but most of them outperform and out-silence the Silent Square Pro. The Silent Square Pro competes better against mid-priced coolers in the $25 to $30 price range. None of these mid-range coolers look as fantastic as the ASUS Silent Square Pro, but if you are looking for performance the $25 to $30 coolers perform at about the same level as the more expensive Silent Square Pro.

As a quiet and effective stock-speed cooler the ASUS will please you. With a reworked socket 775 mount and a higher output fan the Silent Square Pro might even compete with the best. However, as it is now configured the Silent Square Pro is a beautiful diva who promises you everything, but then leaves you stranded all alone with nothing but the check from an expensive dinner.