X-bit labs

New Super Cooler: ASUS Silent Knight Review (page 3)

Category: Coolers

by Sergey Lepilov

[ 01/12/2007 | 11:28 AM ]

The diameter of the fan is smaller than the diameter of the heatsink – you can see this even in the photo. I measured the distance from the top of the fan blade to the top edge of a heatsink’s rib and found it to be as big as 15mm! I wonder why they didn’t install a 110mm fan back at the factory and added a speed controller into the bargain. This simple and insignificant improvement would have helped increase the cooler’s efficiency to some extent. Perhaps we are going to meet a Silent Knight Pro in near future?

I also have one idea that can only be implemented at the factory. Why not to place the heat pipes in loops of a different diameter and length instead of same-size loops as they are. The first loop and the two innermost pipes on both sides of the fan would have the biggest diameter. Next there would go smaller pipes, and the outermost pipes would be the smallest. This would ensure a more uniform distribution of heat in the heatsink’s ribs and the fan would have more work to do because the heat pipes, shifted relative to each other, would provide a stronger resistance than if they are placed in a linear manner. That’s why a larger fan is necessary, desirably with adjustable speed so that we could check out the cooler’s performance depending on the airflow strength. That’s only my theory, but I guess it would be interesting to see how it works in practice.

But let’s get back to the Silent Knight. The ends of the pipes are sealed at the cooler’s bottom. The pipes have contact with the base by means of soldering (very neatly done, without a trace of solder on the edges).

The copper plate at the cooler’s base is 3.5mm thick in its thinnest spot, i.e. under the pipes. There is a groove for each pipe – I had complained about the lack of such grooves in my review of the Scythe Infinity.

The cooler’s base left a perfect trace of thermal grease on a piece of glass. Its finish quality is almost ideal, too:

There’s no mirror shine here, but the surface is perfectly flat.

The only thing I have to add in this section is that the weight of the cooler is 610g.