Asus X-Mars Athlon 64 Heatsink Review
CPU Cooling
by jmke
@ 2006-01-05
Asus send us their latest retail Athlon 64 cooler, it?s aimed at the budget minded people and comes with an autosensing fan and promises plug and play installation. Let?s take it for a test-drive.
Intro & Specs
Asus X-Mars:Supplied by:
Asus
Asus, best known for their high quality motherboards and video cards, have been adding CPU coolers to their product line-up. Today we take a closer look at the X-Mars. A compact cooler, made out of copper and aluminum and features 2 heat pipes.
The photo above is from the backside of the packaging, it’s clearly visible that they compare the X-Mars with a stock Athlon 64 heatsink when they talk about an 27% increase in surface area.
The unit can be found priced as low as
~€30.
Specifications :Compatibility:
AMD: Athlon64/64+ Socket754/940/939
Fan included: 70x70x15mm
Fan Speed: 2000-5400rpm
Heatsink + Fan Dimensions: 112x97x62mm
Weight: 385gram
In the Box :
A descriptive installation and de-installation manual
A small bag of thermal goop
The Thermal compound is included in case you want to install the unit on different systems, or if you upgrade your CPU. The X-Mars comes with pre-applied thermal compound on its base.
Construction :
The X-Mars follows a compact, light-weight design; they chose for a copper/aluminum construction and a small 70mm fan which opens up to the top, to allow more air to be sucked in. The heat sink is giving a bit more “oomph” through the addition of 2 heat pipes.
You are probably wonder where the aluminum fins are, well, they come plated, so a bit harder to spot as these are electro-plated fins.
The base shows clear traces of machine lapping, performance might suffer slightly from the lack of a “mirror finish”.
The Smart Fan:
A whole section about a fan? Well the X-Mars’ 70mm one deserves it, although it certainly has no unique features, we found the temperature regulated speed-o-meter to be very effectively implemented.
In the photo below you see the make and model of the fan, but also a part of PCB sticking out. This is most likely a part of the “brain” of the Smart fan.
An even smaller PCB and temp sensor stick out at the other side:
In our performance tests we saw the fan speed increase/decrease keeping the CPU below critical temperatures, but we are running ahead of ourselves, let’s check out how to get the X-Mars installed ->
Results & Conclusion
Test ResultsSince the fan on the X-Mars is temperature controlled, we decided to include 2 results for each test setup; One where we let the “fan” decide which speed it’ll be spinning, and one where we set the fan to 100% “manually”.
You can
permanently set the fan to full speed by removing the temperature sensor. So unless you’ve got some good soldering skills, this modification will turn the fan into a normal, none-temp-controlled, one.
Test Setup 1: Overclocked & Silent
Since we are using the exact same setup as in our last roundup we’ve included results from previous heatsink stressing tests.
On auto setting the X-Mars let the fan spin at 4200rpm which was enough to keep the CPU running below 70°C, however at 45dBA it comes close to the noise generated by the Stock A64 cooling. At full speed the fan rpm was near 5200rpm and extremely noisy (56dBA), temperature did not drop too much (-2°C), so running this fan at full speed will not give you the best performance/noise ratio… by far!
Our first chart has the heatsinks sorted by CPU+(PWM/2)+dBA . The entrees near the bottom provide the best noise/performance ratio.
On “auto” fan setting the X-Mars makes a good showing compared to the stock heatsink, although the CPU temperature was kept low, the X-Mars does not score “better” due to the noise generated by the small 70mm fan.
Nonetheless it must be said that the “auto” fan speed adjustment worked fast and effectively, when the CPU was running idle the fan dropped towards a 2300rpm “low” and became totally silent. So if you are playing games with sound ON, you won’t notice the increased fan noise. And when you are chatting on MSN, or watching a DVD movie, you won’t notice the FAN either.
Most motherboards feature an auto fan speed option, but not all users “dare” or “know how” to do this. The Asus X-Mars offers a fail-safe solution for those people.
Our 2nd chart is sorted by CPU temperature.
The X-Mars is one of the top performers with its fan at high speed generating quite a bit of noise.
Test Setup 2: Stock speeds & Silent
This system setup we have not tested before (in our last roundup we tested stock speeds with 2 case fans and an actively cooled PSU), so only comparison with the Stock A64 you will see in the charts.
The “auto” fan setting in this test resulted in a fan speed of 3666rpm.
The first one is sorted by CPU+(PWM/2)+dBA
Second one sorted by CPU temperature
The X-Mars manages to drop the CPU temperature by almost 10°C compared to the A64 stock cooling, and does this ~6dBA more silently.
The Verdict:
Asus has produced a high quality product with high versatility; the X-Mars keeps it promise by taming our overclocked Athlon 64 and at the same time not sounding like a tornado. The included fan features a nifty temperature control which works as it should.
While it might not cater to the needs of more demanding enthusiasts due to a not so impressive performance/noise ratio when the unit is placed under stress; it’s its easiness of installation, competitive price and most of all, the auto-speed-adjusting fan, which will make it a product to consider for the novice users out there.
PRO
Good performance
Easy Clip-On Installation
Smart Temperature controlled fan
Competitively priced
CON
Quite noisy when the fan speed surpasses ~3000rpm
Not the best noise/performance ratio
Where to buy/Product Page?
Questions/Comments: forum thread
