Cooling & Noise
Cooling System & Backplate
What makes this solution special is its use of a "sandwich" system, which employs a cooling and stabilizing frame between the board surface and the actual heat sink. Again, it's unfortunate that Asus does not use a dedicated VRM sink built into the cooler to improve thermal performance.
| Cooling Overview | |
|---|---|
| Type | Air-cooling |
| Heat Sink | Nickel-plated heat sink, GPU only |
| Cooling Fins | Aluminum, horizontal orientation Very narrow configuration |
| Heat Pipes | 6x 6mm, nickel-plated |
| VRM Cooling | Via cooling frame Only MOSFETs are cooled |
| RAM Cooling | Via mounting frame, and indirect cooling via heat sink |
| Fans | 3x 9cm fan modules 8.6cm rotor diameter 11 rotor blades Semi-passive regulation |
| Backplate | Aluminum, blackenedDoes not aid cooling performanceIncludes back-lit logo |
The backplate is purely aesthetic. While it does sport a snazzy-looking ROG logo, it does nothing for cooling performance.
Asus' cooling and mounting frame absorbs heat produced by the memory modules and transfers it to the main sink through a layer of thermal pads. The voltage converters are also cooled by this frame; a thick pad facilitates contact with the cooling fins above them. Since those fins aren't angled by 90°, it is reasonable to assume that this solution was an afterthought. To stabilize the contact a bit better, the cooler is placed on a thick adhesive pad.
The heat sink is nickel-plated and very smooth. Six nickel-plated pipes made from a composite material cut through the sink and help dissipate the GPU's waste heat evenly through a pair of fin arrays. Bends in some of the pipes turn out to be relatively large. This, coupled with the small-diameter pipes, helps improve cooling performance.
Fan Speeds And Noise
The fan curves indicate a conservative, volume-optimized setup. There's a bit of jittery hysteresis as the fans spin up. However, the number of starting impulses is acceptable without becoming particularly annoying.
The measurements from our stress test aren't much different. A slight dip in power consumption correlates with lower RPM.
| Fan Speed And Noise Output | |
|---|---|
| Fan Speed (Open Test Bench, Maximum) | 1715 RPM |
| Fan Speed (Open Test Bench, Average) | 1702 RPM |
| Fan Speed (Closed Case, Maximum) | 1884 RPM |
| Fan Speed (Closed Case, Average) | 1874 RPM |
| Noise (Air Cooling, Maximum) | 39.0 dB(A) |
| Noise (Air Cooling, Average) | 38.8 dB(A) |
| Noise ( Air Cooling, Idle) | 0 dB(A) |
| Acoustic Characteristics | Almost no low-frequency bearing noise Very audible motor noise < 1 Hz Discernible oscillations due to slightly different fan speeds Hardly any coil buzzing noise Audible air/tearing noises |
This snapshot illustrates the entire frequency range of our laboratory measurements, adding some data to our subjective observations.
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