Published: January 10, 2009 |
Source:
Asustek |
Author:
Rich Weatherstone
Asus Triton 81 Skt1366 CPU Cooler
Packaging & Appearance
The exterior packaging is nothing out of the ordinary with a picture of the main cooler on the front of the box, the features on the rear along with examples of the airflow on one side with the specifications on the other. A convenient carry handle sits atop of the box though the package does not surprisingly weigh that much.
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Opening the box we find that the main cooler is encased in a blister style package not too dissimilar to Intel retain CPU packages. Part of the Asus package is a trapezium shaped box containing the attachments and paste seen below. The paste itself is very similar in appearance to Arctic coolings MX-2 so let’s hope it performs just as good. 3 different attachments are included with support for AM2, skt775 and skt1366. The Intel fittings are attached to the heatsink via 4 screws while the AMD cross member simply straddles the base of the cooler.
The heatsink itself is not overly sized but does stand fairly tall, measuring 144.7mm high, so please ensure you have sufficient room in your case to house this cooler. The fins are aluminium while the four heatpipe and ridged baseplate are copper. The 2Â x 92mm fans are attached to the cooler via a sliding mechanism which can be released by removing two screws. This could allow the use of bigger 120mm fans but sadly no extensions or clips were included for this option.
The fans themselves were not noisy during normal operation with only a slight hum being apparent. Run them at 100% and prepare to be blown away. Not by the airflow but by the noise which is terrible. To be quite honest, you would not want to expose yourself to for too long as the noise very grating and actually louder than the Intel stock cooler on full tilt. Thankfully the fans can be controlled by the 4pin CPU header allowing your motherboard settings decide which speed to run the fans at, resulting in a much more peaceful atmosphere.
The base of the cooler is akin to a standard Thermalright cooler with very small pits & crevices apparent resulting in a dull finish. This allows the TIM (Thermal Interface Material) to fill the gaps, increasing heat transfer. Four heatpipes loop through the base and are capped at the heatsinks top which should be sufficient to wick plenty of heat away from the CPU to be dissipated by the Aluminium fins.
Let’s take a look at our test setup before proceeding to the results section…
