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
Noise
For many enthusiasts upgrading cooling the goal is maximum stable overclock, and they will live with the inconvenience of a louder system. For other users silence is the most important factor, and these users will forgo maximum overclocking if that increases system noise levels.
There are virtually no power supplies that do not include a fan. While Zalman and a few others do make an expensive fanless power supplies, we have not seen a fanless unit larger than 500W, or one that would be used for seriously overclocking a system. With that in mind the noise level of the system with all fans turned off except the power supply was measured. The power supply used for the cooling test bed was the OCZ PowerStream 520, which is one of the quieter of the high performance power supplies.
We have also measured the Corsair 620-watt and Mushkin 650-watt power supplies which are reported to be quieter than the OCZ. Both the Corsair and Mushkin are indeed quieter at idle or start up speed. However, as soon as load testing begins and the PSU fan speed kicks up the measured noise level is almost exactly the same as the OCZ PowerStream 520 watt power supply.
We are currently in the process of evaluating "quieter" power supplies for an update to our cooler test bed. We will make changes to that test bed as soon as we are confident in the noise measurements and test procedures with a variable speed quiet PSU. We plan to evaluate additional power supplies and configurations in our upcoming 120mm fan roundup, at which point we will complete the transition to a revised and lower noise cooler test bed.
The noise level of the power supply was 38.3 dB from 24" (61cm) and 47 dB from 6" (152mm). The measured noise level of the test room is 36.4 dB, which would be considered a relatively quiet room with a noise floor slightly below the OCZ PowerStream 520 PSU.
We measured noise levels with the ASUS Silent Square Pro under both load and idle conditions. Results were then compared to the system noise floor. The fan did not have a specified noise rating, but we suspected higher noise levels than we typically find with the better 120mm fans. The smaller 90mm fan in the Silent Square Pro turns at 1020 RPM on lowest speed and it turns at a much faster 2500 RPM at full speed. These are much higher fan speeds than we typically see in 120mm fans and a sleeve bearing fan is not likely to hold down the noise from the increased fan speeds.
Measured noise levels in this chart should be considered worst case. Measurements were taken with an open side of a mid tower case 6" and 24" from the HSF. Real world would be a completely closed case resulting in a further reduction in noise.
At the minimum speed of 1020 RPM the measured noise at 6" and 24" is below the system noise floor. However, minimum speed does reduce cooling efficiency with idle cooling increasing from 30C to 33C and load cooling increasing to 48C from the max speed 42C. Cooling at lower speeds is not as good, but the system still will run fine all day long at stock speeds with the low-speed fan. Don't, however, expect to overclock much with the fan on minimum.
At the maximum rated speed of 2500 RPM (measured 2280 RPM) noise is above the system floor. Even at idle the 44.6 dB-A noise from the fan will be heard. It is even more pronounced under load at full fan speed with a 51.3 dB-A rating. ASUS calls this cooler the Silent Square Pro, but it is reasonably silent only with the fan speed and cooling efficiency turned way down. At rated fan speed the ASUS Silent Square Pro can definitely be heard in your system.
The odd 90mm fan size makes finding a fan to improve noise performance unlikely. The fan is a standard 25mm thick so it may be possible to replace the fan with a better one if you can find a better 90mm fan. The fan mounts in the center of the cooler.
For many enthusiasts upgrading cooling the goal is maximum stable overclock, and they will live with the inconvenience of a louder system. For other users silence is the most important factor, and these users will forgo maximum overclocking if that increases system noise levels.
There are virtually no power supplies that do not include a fan. While Zalman and a few others do make an expensive fanless power supplies, we have not seen a fanless unit larger than 500W, or one that would be used for seriously overclocking a system. With that in mind the noise level of the system with all fans turned off except the power supply was measured. The power supply used for the cooling test bed was the OCZ PowerStream 520, which is one of the quieter of the high performance power supplies.
We have also measured the Corsair 620-watt and Mushkin 650-watt power supplies which are reported to be quieter than the OCZ. Both the Corsair and Mushkin are indeed quieter at idle or start up speed. However, as soon as load testing begins and the PSU fan speed kicks up the measured noise level is almost exactly the same as the OCZ PowerStream 520 watt power supply.
We are currently in the process of evaluating "quieter" power supplies for an update to our cooler test bed. We will make changes to that test bed as soon as we are confident in the noise measurements and test procedures with a variable speed quiet PSU. We plan to evaluate additional power supplies and configurations in our upcoming 120mm fan roundup, at which point we will complete the transition to a revised and lower noise cooler test bed.
The noise level of the power supply was 38.3 dB from 24" (61cm) and 47 dB from 6" (152mm). The measured noise level of the test room is 36.4 dB, which would be considered a relatively quiet room with a noise floor slightly below the OCZ PowerStream 520 PSU.
We measured noise levels with the ASUS Silent Square Pro under both load and idle conditions. Results were then compared to the system noise floor. The fan did not have a specified noise rating, but we suspected higher noise levels than we typically find with the better 120mm fans. The smaller 90mm fan in the Silent Square Pro turns at 1020 RPM on lowest speed and it turns at a much faster 2500 RPM at full speed. These are much higher fan speeds than we typically see in 120mm fans and a sleeve bearing fan is not likely to hold down the noise from the increased fan speeds.
Measured noise levels in this chart should be considered worst case. Measurements were taken with an open side of a mid tower case 6" and 24" from the HSF. Real world would be a completely closed case resulting in a further reduction in noise.
At the minimum speed of 1020 RPM the measured noise at 6" and 24" is below the system noise floor. However, minimum speed does reduce cooling efficiency with idle cooling increasing from 30C to 33C and load cooling increasing to 48C from the max speed 42C. Cooling at lower speeds is not as good, but the system still will run fine all day long at stock speeds with the low-speed fan. Don't, however, expect to overclock much with the fan on minimum.
At the maximum rated speed of 2500 RPM (measured 2280 RPM) noise is above the system floor. Even at idle the 44.6 dB-A noise from the fan will be heard. It is even more pronounced under load at full fan speed with a 51.3 dB-A rating. ASUS calls this cooler the Silent Square Pro, but it is reasonably silent only with the fan speed and cooling efficiency turned way down. At rated fan speed the ASUS Silent Square Pro can definitely be heard in your system.
The odd 90mm fan size makes finding a fan to improve noise performance unlikely. The fan is a standard 25mm thick so it may be possible to replace the fan with a better one if you can find a better 90mm fan. The fan mounts in the center of the cooler.
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.