ASUS Lion Square

This CPU heatsink may or may not contain real milk, nuts, or lion.

The name of a product is usually quite functional, from a toaster to a knife these names tell you what they do; but the ASUS Lion Square is one product that bucks traditional names. This, in other words, is ASUS placing its own spin on the heatsink scene. Named after the ‘legend of the Sword Lion’, the entire box seems to show this traditional Chinese theme in one way or another, from the bold red and black colours, to the glossy gold and black highlights.

The cooler comes sandwiched between two formed pieces of plastic that hold the cooler and accessories snugly, and it is very unlikely that it will get damaged during shipping. Included with the cooler is a small tube of ASUS-branded thermal goop, an LGA775 mounting bracket and screws, and an AM2 socket clip. You’ll have to take out the motherboard if you’re installing this on an Intel platform, but you can leave it in for an AMD system.

Thirty four thick aluminium fins are supported by a group of four heatpipes bent into a ‘U’ shape, effectively giving eight. Grooves are left out of the fins in four corners, allowing room to get a screwdriver in to install the heatsink, and all the fins are angled down to blow some cool air over the power regulation on the motherboard. The base of the cooler is smaller than most coolers, but still quite thick. Unfortunately the base is not polished to a mirror shine, with machining marks still clearly visible, but it is pretty flat and should make good contact with the CPU.

At the top of the Lion Square is a black plastic covering with an image of, well, a lion. All the heatpipe ends are capped with metallic pieces – this doesn’t improve performance, but it does help the uniformity of the top of the heatsink. Nestled deep within this heatsink (just under the top piece) is a 92mm blue LED fan that idles at 52.8dBA and hits 56dBA under load – similar to many graphics cards in terms of noise. The blue light seeping out of the cooler lights up the fins and surrounding motherboard; those with windowed cases looking for something that looks extremely interesting should definitely grab one of these simply for looks alone.

Firing up our stress-test program on a 65nm QX6850 we found that temperatures recorded at stock settings were pretty good, with an idle at only five degrees higher than the TRUE. Load temperatures were actually a degree cooler here, a trend that (amazingly) continued when the chip was overclocked – besting even the TRUE in both load and idle temperatures. The included fan managed to move a significant amount of air – the airflow could still be felt up to a few feet away from the cooler.

A great looking cooler, with performance better than the previous best and an included fan. What’s not to like?