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
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.
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.
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.