ASUS Silent Knight II Heatsink Review

Asus is such a well known computer brand that it's not surprising the company is expanding into thermal solutions, though sometimes we think this area is better left to dedicated firms. Asus has released a handful of heatsinks each year since it began selling Asus-branded thermal solutions, and Frostytech has already tested a half dozen of these models. The results have been mixed, and thus far the Asus name doesn't immediately equate to a given performance standard in the world of heatsinks.

With established thermal solutions brands like Arctic Cooling, Zalman and Thermalright, you generally get back what you expect. Asus have some good heatsinks, the Triton 77 comes to mind, but you need to do a little research before committing to a purchase.

In this review Frostytech is evaluating the ASUS Silent Knight II heatsink. The Silent Knight II is a copper heatsink vaguely reminiscent of the Zalman CNPS9700NT. Like most thermal solutions being introduced, it's compatible with Intel Core 2 Duo/Quad/Extreme and AMD Athlon64 processors. A 92mm PWM fan is set within the body of the heatsink and spins at 800-2300RPM, generating no more than 46 dBA in Frostytech's real world measurements. A pair of blue LEDs illuminate the translucent impeller blades, giving the Silent Knight II a nice visual effect.

The heatsink itself is almost entirely made of copper, the base and fins and heatpipes all utilize this thermally conductive metal. Six copper heatpipes wind around in a semi-circle from the base to support a donut of copper cooling fins that wrap around the inset fan, so clearly Asus are aiming for low noise operation over sheer performance. The heatsink weighs 610 grams and runs about $70USD.


Accompanying the Asus Silent Knight II heatsink is a mountain of brackets so it can be installed on Intel or AMD processors. In both situations the user must remove the motherboard to install a specialized back plate and upper metal retention frame. It's complicated and a little unwieldy, and it would be unnecessary if an appropriate clip had just been designed that fit over the top of Asus Silent Knight II's base.


The AMD bracket is compatible with socket 754/939/940/AM2/AM2+ processors, the Intel bracket with LGA775. Once installed the Asus Silent Knight II fits into the center of a metal frame, and a K8-like bracket clamps down on the base of the cooler to apply clamping pressure.

Base Finish and Flatness

Flipping a heatsink over to inspect the business end is often a simple indicator of overall cooler quality. More practically speaking, a heatsink is in many ways only as effective as the contact it makes with the processor - the flatter and smoother the better. Base finish is one of the criteria that Frostytech measure in the course of evaluating heatsinks, and it involves two distinct aspects. Surface Finish is the first; this is calculated with the aid of Surface Roughness Comparator that has a cross section of common machine surface finishes and their numerical surface roughness equivalents in microinches. The second is Surface Flatness. This is tested with an engineers straight edge or proven flat surface, in two axis.

The copper base of the Asus Silent Knight II heatsink has a brushed surface texture, with a surface roughness of about ~32 microinches, which is considered good. It is generally quite flat in both axis.
FrostyTech's Test Methodologies are outlined in detail here if you care to know what equipment is used, and the parameters under which the tests are conducted. Now let's move forward and take a closer look at this heatsink, its acoustic characteristics, and of course its performance in the thermal tests!

The 25x92x92mm fan is illuminated with a pair of blue LEDs. Power is supplied by a 4-pin motherboard fan header. The Asus Silent Knight II heatsink stands 140mm tall, so it should easily fit within most computer cases. If you're not careful it's easy for the fan cable to get tangled in the impeller, so watch out for that when installing the Silent Knight II.

Two 40mm wide sections of cooling fin form the basis of the Asus Silent Knight II heatsink. With the 92mm PWM fan set in between, both intake and exhaust airflow is put to use cooling the processor. The six copper heatpipes are 6mm in diameter, and soldered at the joint and base plate. The base is 4mm thick copper. Each copper fin is 0.15mm thick and spaced 4mm apart at its widest.

The copper base plate measures 38x39mm in size. It has a smooth sanded texture that is generally flat in both axis. The bulk of the Asus Silent Knight II heatsink is 45m above the base, so there is some clearance for adjacent motherboard components.

The heat output from Intel processors varies widely between single and multi-core processors, so Frostytech relies on two thermal values that represent the upper limits of existing CPU families. With a 150W heat load applied by the Intel LGA775 version of FrostyTech's synthetic thermal test platform, the Asus Silent Knight II heatsink maintains an test temperature of 34.9°C over ambient. Noise levels hold steady at 46.2dBA.

If we drop fan speed from 2300RPM to ~800RPM, the Silent Knight II yields a 38.8°C rise over ambient for 41.0 dBA noise.

For the next round of testing the Asus Silent Knight II heatsink was tested with an 85W heat load. In this case the Silent Knight II heatsink maintained a 21.4°C rise in temperature at full fan speed, and 24.3°C at the reduced fan speed.

With a retail price of about $70, the Asus Silent Knight II heatsink seems expensive for what you get. While noise levels are kept moderate, and the heatsink is compatible with both AMD and Intel processor platforms, the Asus Silent Knight II's thermal performance is a mixed bag. On the AMD platform the heatsink performed well at stock fan speed. The thermal test results on the Intel platform were a little disappointing.

The Asus Silent Knight II maintained acceptable temperatures with a 150W simulated Intel CPU thermal load, but for the price Asus are asking there are plenty of other heatsinks which perform significantly cooler while keeping noise in check. Given these results, Frostytech recommends you look to another AMD/Intel heatsink and pass on the Asus Silent Knight II

Intel to Launch its First Quad-core Mobile CPU in 3Q08 '

Intel to Launch its First Quad-core Mobile CPU in 3Q08 '

Intel outlined plans to launch its first quad-core CPU for notebooks, the Core 2 Extreme QX9300, in the third quarter of this year with pricing set to US $1038 in thousand-unit tray quantities. While not expected to become standard in performance laptops, the new CPU will have some enviable characteristics. It will be manufactured using the company's advanced 45nm process, and have a core frequency of 2.53GHz (1066MHz FSB). Using a socket P package, the chip will include 12MB L2 cache and maximum TDP of 45W.

Patriot Memory Introduces 2GB DDR3 1800MHz Low Latency Kit

Patriot Memory Releases Viper Series 2GB DDR3 1800MHz Low Latency Kit

Patriot's DDR3 1800MHz Low Latency Kit: Optimized for Intel's Quad-Core CPU's


Patriot Memory today announced the release of their DDR3 Extreme Performance, 2GB Viper Series PC3-14400 (2 x 1GB) enhanced latency kits. "Patriot Memory is excited to offer consumers our 1800MHz Low Latency Kits", says Les Henry, Technical Director for Patriot Memory. "Intel's pioneering Quad-Core technology is forward thinking and to be able to offer a solution that matches with this technology says a lot about the innovative culture that Patriot Memory possesses."

Each kit is programmed with Intel's Extreme Memory Profile (XMP), an exclusive set of Serial Presence Detect (SPD) settings that automatically configure the memory settings to allow uncomplicated overclocking capabilities for consumers looking to maximize the performance of their systems.

For more information on Patriot's Extreme Performance DDR3 PC3-14400 2GB kit and other memory module and flash memory solutions, please visit http://www.patriotmemory.com

MSI N9600GT-T2D512-OC (GeForce 9600 GT)

Introduction

At the risk of sounding like a stuck record, we have to point readers to yet another updated report on the state of the desktop graphics market. The scores are in for fanboys from both sides. Despite the generally optimistic outlook many of us had about the Radeon HD 3800 series, these cards failed to halt NVIDIA as it plowed to gain a massive 71% of the discrete graphics card market in the fourth quarter of 2007.

Overall, the desktop market has actually grown quite spectacularly, so all those doomsayers predicting the end of PC gaming may just have to wait a while longer. A small decrease in total revenue however from the third to fourth quarter hints that the growth is likely fueled by a drop in prices, the timing of which suggests that the arrival of the popular and attractively priced GeForce 8800 GT may have been the catalyst for this growth. If true, it's a pretty big sign of the market potential of consumers genuinely wanting more graphics horsepower at more sane prices instead of the super high-end stuff that costs more than an average console or even whole PC systems.

The arrival of the mid-range GeForce 9600 GT will go a long way towards pulling in the mainstream consumer. Although 'mainstream', we have seen it do quite decently in the latest games, provided that you're not overly ambitious. The 256-bit memory bus and 512MB frame memory certainly helps raise the bar on what constitutes mainstream and while ATI's Radeon HD 3800 series is capable of matching the newcomer on performance, prices have to be adjusted to stay competitive. Consumers will definitely benefit from this, though we can't say the same for ATI's (AMD) revenue.

In any case, even after our recent shootout involving a number of GeForce 9600 GT cards, there have been new review units coming our way, so without further ado, here's a slightly overclocked GeForce 9600 GT from MSI:

Given the highly competitive scene in the NVIDIA graphics card business, with multiple vendors vying to push the same product, MSI has rightly tried to spruce up its GeForce 9600 GT offering with a custom cooler. This is your basic if well-made cooler that uses heat pipes to distribute heat to the cooling fins. The fan itself is relatively quiet though we found the red translucent plastic shroud rather unsightly. It is however well secured to the cooler so no unnecessary vibrations here. Besides the well performing non-standard two-slot cooler, the card is identical to the reference board.

We have seen quite a few custom coolers for the GeForce 9600 GT SKU so far and MSI is another.
It takes up an extra slot but the quiet operation and good cooling from this heatsink fan make it worthwhile.

The amount of overclocking on this MSI card is decent and on par with many of its competitors. The core has been upped to 700MHz while the memory is now at 1900MHz DDR. The stream processors also got a slight increase to 1680MHz. Obviously, we have seen more extreme versions out there but 700MHz is in fact quite common among retail overclocked GeForce 9600 GT editions.
Pretty standard I/O ports at the back.

MSI has also included quite the collection of accessories and cables for the prospective buyer. The S/PDIF cable to interface with your audio device and channel digital audio through the graphics card's output (via HDMI) is included, along with a DVI-to-HDMI adapter. This perhaps will make up somewhat for the lack of any games or applications in the package.

The complete list is as follows:
- Driver CD
- Installation guide
- DVI-to-VGA adapter
- DVI-to-HDMI adapter
- 6-pin Molex power connector
- 7-pin mini-DIN to Component/S-Video dongle
- S-Video extension cable
- S/PDIF cable

Conclusion

It's early days since the introduction of the GeForce 9600 GT but from what we found on online retailers like Newegg, prices have quickly plunged from the launch price set by NVIDIA. The competitive market, with ATI's own recent price cut, has made this a good time to buy. A mainstream price of around US$150 now also entices consumers to finally upgrade their graphics cards, especially as the mediocre GeForce 8600 series probably turned off some previously.

A decent GeForce 9600 GT with an improved, albeit two-slot cooler. For its specifications, it has a very competitive price at S$299.

To distinguish itself, MSI has gone through its book of tricks, from overclocking the N9600GT-T2D512-OC to having a custom cooler. The usual MSI proprietary software and applications are mostly missing however, so another 'Diamond' edition may be in the works, with features like CoreCell, D.O.T and likely even higher clock speeds. The present version we have now however works at giving users excellent value. No doubt, it is hardly the fastest card, or the quietest or even the coolest. Yet, from our results, it has scored well in all these aspects, making it a well rounded GeForce 9600 GT. Finally, its value is best exemplified by the very competitive S$299 local price. At this price, one could probably get a basic standard clock GeForce 9600 GT with little frills, though ASUS' Glaciator equipped GeForce 9600 GT at the same price, does pose an attractive counteroffer to the MSI. The clincher is as we mentioned, a combination of factors that make the MSI an above average choice for those doing comparison shopping. Coupled with the reliability and warranty support of an established vendor, the choice is none too difficult.