Whilst
in the process of moving to a new LGA775 test bed I was offered
the chance to look at a new CPU Cooler, so naturally I said yes.
Now this may not seem out of the ordinary until you see this cooler.
It is without a doubt the largest cooler I have ever seen, it
is made by a company known better for their excellent reputation
as motherboard manufacturers and it supports all of the major
new CPU socket formats as well as the previous generation P4's
and K7's. Let's check out the ASUS
Star Ice Cooler.
Features
Universal
- 4-in-1 cooler: Just want to be with you forever, no matter if
you upgrade your CPU engine or platform!
Powerful - High performance heatsink, pure Copper base with Copper
fins and 3 heatpipes
Expertise - Side airflow direction, the excellent "cold-in
/ hot-out" airflow management to stop air circulation
Upgradeable - Optional 2nd fan for extreme performance
Silent - Smart 3-in-1 fan: Matching any kind of gamer's demands
Stylish - Unique and fantastic outlook with UV LED lights make
your PC attractive!
The
packaging for the ASUS Star Ice Cooler shows off the Cooler
with lots of clear plastic packaging allowing you to instantly
see what you are getting. It looks like a 'jet' style cooler
with its 'mutant Cooler Master Jet' looks, but further inspection
also shows that the copper base has a triple heat pipe array
and that a single standard fan (not a crossflow fan) are used.
The base of the packaging holds all the extras for the ASUS
Star Ice Cooler which are quite numerous.
We
have three options for fan speed control (although only one
can be used at a time), two of which are readily apparent from
the photo's; A rear PCI slot dial and a 3.5" aluminum bay
unit, again with a dial. The third option is included in one
of the bags of extras and is a temperature probe. It's quite
obvious just from looking at the extra's that ASUS have put
a lot of thought into this cooler to make sure everything you
could possibly need is there for you out of the box. We have
frag tape for mounting the temperature probe, we have the dial
controllers, we have a TIM (thermal insulating material), various
screws and other mounting fixtures and of course the mounting
brackets themselves.
Also
included are a parts list leaflet (a must with the amount of
parts here) and a small booklet which serves as an installation
and usage manual. The manual could probably do with being a
little larger, although the content is fine (I just have bad
eyes and the small size of the text due to the size of the pages
made reading a little difficult). Both the manual and the parts
list contain multiple languages.
OK,
let's finally move onto the cooler itself. As I mentioned before,
this is one very big cooler, although it actually features only
a single 80mm fan on the front. I say features only a single
fan, but perhaps it would be better to say that only a single
80mm fan is mounted on the cooler, as the rear has holes for
mounting a second 80mm cooling fan for a push-pull configuration.
From the rear we can see the copper heatpipes extending up and
into the multiple copper fins providing a lot of surface area
for cooling. The copper part of the actual cooler appears to
be square in nature so the circular nature of the surround in
blue plastic would seem to be for aesthetic quality only.
Speaking
of which, moving to the top shows off the blue UV plastic cover
with the ASUS logo embedded into it. When powered up, two integrated
LED's light this area, or rather the edges of this area so we
get a rather nice glowing ASUS logo. In the pictures, the area
looks to be bathed in light but this isn't the case in real
life, as the light has a more subtle and edge enhancing aura.
The
bottom plate of the cooler is flat to the touch and to the eye,
but there are a few machining marks to be seen, and it might benefit
from a bit of lapping.
NEXT
