BFWGaming

Congratulations to the people involved in the ASUS Ultimate Overclocking Show 2009!

We all know ASUS has got to be the most reputable Mobo+VC maker in there world. They stay true to their motto which is “Rock Solid, Heart Touching”. But then does this cooler respect the motto? For example, Gigabyte has plenty of good stuff ranging from Mobos, VCs, PSUs, Casings and Water Cooling Solutions. That are their good products, their bad products are their coolers. Some of their coolers don’t work better than a stock HSF which is going to be a bad example on their company. But does ASUS tap this Gigabyte problem? Let’s find out!

Actually, this is the first cooler I have ever owned. I have touched or installed several coolers but then I don’t have a chance to own them. I have managed to find some temperature differences of those coolers and I hope I can apply most of it for comparison in here(Seriously, I won’t compare this cooler to another because I might trash its reputation). I just really hope I do good in this first ever review of a cooler

Today’s Product is the ASUS Triton 81 Cooler. Price range is around 2900 Pesos(2900/47=$61). I have looked around google for the real price yet that is the only price I have found. There’s newegg? I’m too dumb to find the cooler in newegg? Think again. The article of this cooler is a deactivated item already in there. So you won’t find the price in there. You’ll just find the pictures and some comments in there. Those comments are positive yet I do not have an idea why the product is deactivated

The eye catching part of the box of this cooler is the 1366 Socket Support. So if you’re low on budget and you are going on i7 but doesn’t want the Stock HSF, this is a good temporary Cooler since it supports 1366. In my theory, this cooler seems to be ASUS’ solution to the LGA 1366 processors. So thank ASUS for cooler so you won’t have problems anymore on looking Coolers that have 1366 support

Here’s another view of the box of the Cooler. Another great feature of the Cooler is that it has PWM Control. I don’t really know what’s the function of this thing but I’ll find out soon. So far the only thing I know about the PWM Control is that you will be able to control the Fan Speeds. Or if you don’t want to tinker around with the BIOS, there’s SMART fan where the computer automatically adjusts the Fan Speeds if the Processor gets too hot(AKA. #prochot). The fans do a great part in terms of controlling Fan Speeds which I will cover later.

Here is the cooler taken out with the extra stuff inside. It includes the fastening kits for AMD, Intel LGA 775, LGA 1366, A printed manual and a Thermal Paste. The Manual is not hard to understand, its straight forward that everything just fits like lego blocks. The fastening kits are just like the stock HSF’s method of fastening. So you won’t have problems taking it off unlike other cooler out there which requires you to take off the entire motherboard just to take off the cooler.

The Cooler has 2 92mm fans which is placed strategically to solve airflow problems. 1 of the coolers is intake while the other one is a exhaust. The box says it has a Optimal 4-way airflow design in which if it truly works, it’s cool. 2 of the 4 way airflow design is a side exhaust(not a exhaust fan) from the cooler itself. 1 is an intake and 1 is a exhaust. Speaking of the exhausts of the cooler, my intake fan is conflicting with the side exhaust of the cooler which is not good(cold air from the intake meeting hot air from the side exhaust of the cooler). So make sure you position your cooler and your fans to the correct aerodynamic flow.

As you can see, the heatpipes are not exposed instead there’s that metal plate that is the only that that will have contact with the processor. I don’t know if that metal plate is bad or not since the processor won’t have direct contact with the heatpipe. However, thermalright has the same concept of having that metal plate as the only contact between the processor and the cooler. Thermalright is known for good cooling solutions though.

Here’s the thermal paste that is included in the box. It’s just around 3-4cm long and you have to pour everything in it to make sure the paste is surely spread

By the way, Im not sure what kind of thermal paste ASUS uses here. I’ve tried searching around yet ASUS may have kept their Trade Secrets away from the public about the thermal paste. If you want to make sure that the thermal paste is reliable, better buy a aftermarket thermal paste.

Here’s the cooler installed. I never had problems installing it. As ive said ago about the manual, Everything fits just like lego blocks. I didn’t have any problems with obstacles and stuff, so installing the cooler will be a walk in the park in all human difficulty ranges. Just make sure you have more than 2 neurons in your brain.

If anyone noticed the dust in the sleeving, I apologize for such dirty thing in my rig. I haven’t done my general cleaning for 2 months already.

More pics up there after installing the cooler. Looks cool man.

Here’s the cooler and the rig with the job done. Just incase anyone doesn’t know, the fans in the cooler has blue leds. So any enthusiasts out there who are spectrumphiles(light addicts), this could be good for you. But then my computer is in a red theme, the fan leds just contradicts the color scheme. Oh well…

Finally, I have here the benchmarks and the temperatures. The test I used is the System Stability Test from Everest Ultimate Edition v5.00 with everything turned off except for the CPU stress testing. I have the graph below from Everest that compares my old stock HSF cooler temps into the ASUS Triton 81 Cooler. I did the stress testing for 5 minutes and monitored the temps in idle for 3 minutes. A timestamp is included just incase room environment is taken into consideration

As you can see, both coolers in idle perform the same. They more likely have the same temperatures. However, with the Fan control capabilities of the ASUS Triton 81 Cooler, the lesser the temperature, the slower the fan turns and the cooler performs just like a stock HSF. But when the temps get hotter, the fan control rings the bell, the faster the fan turns to cool the cooler. The faster it gets, the noisier it goes.

I don’t really notice the noise since I use headphones but then I can hardly hear the noise even if I don’t wear the headphones. So, sure thing dude.

The ASUS Triton 81 performs just like the stock HSF in idle temps. The cooler just starts to rev up if the temps go high which is good. As shown on the graphs above, you can really see the difference between the two coolers in stress test mode. The idle temps? The temperature difference is just really small. ASUS Triton 81 cools just 1 centigrade lower than the stock HSF which is disappointing. As a conclusion, The ASUS Triton 81 cools better than the normal Stock HSF.

PS: I just noticed this a while ago, when the stress test started in the stock HSF, the temps increase GRADUALLY. You will notice the small curve of the temperature increasing at the start of the test. Another example you can see is when the stress test ends, it takes few seconds to actually cool down the Stock HSF. However with the Asus Triton 81 Cooler, you can see that in any of the ends, at the start of the test the temps increase instantly but then when the test ends, the temps decrease instantly. This is a job well done for the Asus Triton 81 Cooler.

If you’re not much of a gamer guy(more like office work), I don’t recommend this cooler. Stick with the Stock HSF instead. But then if you’re a gamer guy, you can get this but I don’t recommend it. There are better coolers out there than this one for the same price. For overclockers, I don’t suggest it. I haven’t tested the cooler in overclocking environments yet I highly doubt ASUS Triton 81 can withstand the OCing environments.

As the conclusion, The cooler is big, average in performance, easy to install and average in price. But this cooler does not top the mid-range coolers. If you are interested with the cooler and wants one, good luck on finding a seller. Because newegg even had the product deactivated, or probably ASUS cancelled the product. I suggest you find a better cooler than this where you can find it easier(there are plenty lying around waiting for your money)

Thank You Fine Upgrades and ASUS for the cooler! I hope you guys get me another product to review