Reviewed by Barry Little - July 3, 2008

Manufacturer: ASUS

Model: 90-PN5A1CM-00000

Price: $58.99 at Directron.com

“A famous general once led his armies to defeat a group of strong enemies after an invasion. The shields that were equipped by the armies were carved with a lion-tattoo and the swords were placed through lion’s mouth. Later generations believe that this lion-tattoo symbolizes Strength, Courage, and Good Fortune.” So goes the story behind the latest flagship CPU cooler from ASUS. In the competitive high-end CPU cooler market, can the ASUS Lion Square’s performance match the awe-inspiring performance of the legend behind it? Let’s find out…

About ASUS

ASUS, a technology-oriented company blessed with one of the world's top R&D teams, is well known for high-quality and innovative technology. As a leading provider of 3C (computers, communications and consumer electronics) total solutions, ASUS offers a complete product portfolio to compete in the new millennium. In 2006, the company shipped 55 million motherboards, which means one in three desktop PCs sold last year was powered by an ASUS motherboard. Our 2006 revenues reached US$16.5 billion, and is expected to garner US$23 billion in 2007.

To succeed in this ultra-competitive industry, great products need to be complimented by speed-to-market, cost and service. That's why all 100,000 over employees of ASUS strive for the "ASUS Way of Total Quality Management" to offer the best quality without compromising cost and time-to-market while providing maximum value to all customers through world-class services.

With unyielding commitment to innovation and quality, ASUS won 2,168 awards in 2006, meaning on average, the company received over 5 awards everyday last year. BusinessWeek ranked ASUS amongst its “InfoTech 100” for the 9th straight year. The readers of Tom's Hardware Guide, the world's largest IT website, selected ASUS as the best maker of motherboards and graphics cards. Furthermore, the company is ranked as No.1 in quality products and services by the Wall Street Journal.

The Box

Whether online or brick-and-mortar retail establishments, it’s hard to miss ASUS products thanks to the simple yet striking packaging used that is as much an ASUS trademark as the quality and innovation behind their products. So it goes with the Lion Square. Using a black and red design inspired by ancient Chinese culture and history, what appears to be the shield from the aforementioned legend on the front of the box is actually the top of the Lion Square cooler displayed through the clear plastic shipping “clamshell” inside. “Great Cooling Choice for Quad-Core Overclocking” beneath the Lion Square name is bound to get the attention of anyone looking for a CPU cooler that can easily handle overclocking today’s multi-core processors. Especially when they see on the right-hand side of the box that the 8mm heat pipes of the Lion Square—some of the largest heat pipes ever used in a CPU cooler—can transfer up to 30% more heat than other coolers that use smaller heat pipes.

On the left side of the box is an ancient scroll with the Sword Lion legend. A nice touch. It’s also a bit of a shame that it’s rather difficult to read due to the reduced size and style of the font. Beneath it is an illustration of the Lion Square mounted on a motherboard with a diagram of its airflow characteristics—your first clue of the sheer size and cooling power of this unit. Specifications of the Lion Square are on the back, and the box has a convenient fold-out carrying handle.

Opening the box, we find the ASUS Lion Square CPU Cooler protected by an easy-open plastic clamshell container. The accessory box, which sports the same ancient Mandarin design as the main box, is tucked securely within its own form-fitting section at the rear of the clamshell, as is the Socket 775 motherboard retention bracket. Inside the accessory box, you’ll find the Socket 775 mounting bracket and screws, a retention arm for supported AMD motherboards, and a small tube of ASUS brand thermal paste. The multilingual Installation Guide is the fold-out variety, with black and white illustrations that walk you through installing the ASUS Lion Square on Intel and AMD motherboards more effectively that the written instructions, which may be a bit small for some folks.

The ASUS Lion Square

Measuring 126 x 126 x 144mm with a net weight of 730g, the ASUS Lion Square CPU cooler clearly falls into the same category as other popular oversized, hi-performance “tower” coolers. Four massive 8mm heatpipes rise from the base of the heatsink forming a “U” as they make their way through 34 dual-sided aluminum fins shaped like the shield of the Lion Sword legend. The cooler is crowned with a helmet of black high impact plastic sporting flames molded on the front and back edges with the ASUS logo on the left and right edges, accented by a stamped aluminum Lion Sword logo in the center. The capped heat pipes help give the Lion Square the aggressive and intimidating look you would expect from a shield wielded by an ancient Chinese warrior.

The base of the cooler and heat pipes are made of nickel-plated copper. You may find that the base of the Lion Square is a bit smaller than similar coolers. That shouldn’t be a problem though, as it does provide the necessary coverage and heat transfer for all supported Intel and AMD processors. The base has a machined finish—not as refined as the Noctua NH-U12P, nor highly polished as the Zalman CNPS9700 NT—and is drilled for the Intel Socket 775 mounting bracket, and slotted for the AMD retention arm.

The main advantage of the height and shape of the ASUS Lion Square, is that it provides excellent clearance for tall North Bridge heatsinks and other potentially problematic motherboard components—better than other oversized coolers. Still, you should take the Lion Square’s dimensions into careful consideration if you’re installing it inside a small or mini-tower case to make sure there are no other potential obstructions—like the power supply, side panel air ducts, removable motherboard tray height and chassis width, and so on. In addition to providing excellent airflow and cooling the Lion Square also provides cooling to the motherboard MOSFETS, as shown in the illustration below:

Courtesy of ASUS

The Lion Square’s fan is mounted in the center of the cooler’s array of fins—a 92 x 92 x 25mm Sunon Model KDE1209PTVX MagLev fan, rated at 18 dBA at normal operation with a fan speed of 2,300 RPM (± 10% with PWM control). Sunon’s MagLev^® motor fan technology works on the deceptively simple principle of a toy spinning top and their advanced Vapo Bearings for quieter operation and longer life.

Courtesy of Sunon

Courtesy of Sunon

More information on Sunon’s MagLev® motor fan and Vapo Bearing technology can be found here.

If you choose to do so, the Lion Square does allow you to swap out the existing fan with one of your choice. Remove the two screws that holds the decorative cap on top of the cooler in place. Next, remove the four fan H-bracket screws and lift the fan out. The fan is attached to the bracket with four plastic push-pins. Since the Lion Square is most likely to be used in a case with a windowed side panel, a circuit board attached to the fan with four blue LEDs provides a little extra “bling.” ASUS has also sleeved the 4-pin PWM fan cable for an extra touch of class and hot-glued the cable to the circuit board to prevent any possibility of the cable’s connector from working loose or inadvertently being tugged loose.

Installation

Owners of AMD Socket 939/940/1207/1207+/AM2/AM2+ motherboards are in luck. You can install the ASUS Lion Square without removing your motherboard using the supplied AMD CPU socket retention arm. If you have an Intel Socket 775 board, you’re going to have to remove it—nothing new if you’ve dealt with oversized coolers before. But the good news is, you won’t have to put up with the OEM-style push-pin arrangement for securing the Lion Square to the motherboard, which most likely would be disastrous considering the cooler’s weight.

For Socket 775 installations, you’ll need to affix the supplied X-shaped backplate to the bottom of the motherboard underneath the CPU socket. Unless the cooler mounting brackets are designed to attach to the backplate first (like the Noctua NH-U12P and Zalman CNPS9700 NT), allowing you to install the cooler afterwards, this can be the trickiest part of the install. ASUS has taken a simple approach to fixing that, by applying an adhesive film to the backplate where it comes in contact with the bottom of the CPU socket. This holds the plate in place while you install the motherboard inside the case or on the removable tray if your case is equipped with one. Otherwise, you would have to sit the backplate on a flat surface and line the motherboard up with the screw holes, install the cooler and then the motherboard. Installing a motherboard with a heavy cooler attached can be quite a nerve-wracking experience, especially within the cramped confines of a case.

The only downside to ASUS’s method, is that the adhesive tends to really hold on after awhile, making the backplate a real pain to remove should you wish to swap your Lion Square onto another motherboard. I found that the best and safest way to pry it free is with an old credit card (do not use a screwdriver as you might damage one of the traces on the motherboard). Also, no matter how clean it looks, it’s not a bad idea to clean the base of the CPU cooler before you install it. If you look at the photo of the base of the Lion Square I received, you’ll see what I mean.

Once the backplate is installed, flip the Lion Square upside down and screw the mounting brackets to the base of the cooler with the four supplied screws. Note that the brackets go on top of the base with the “bent” side facing inward, and are secured by screws underneath the mounting flanges of the base. After you’ve made sure that the heat spreader has been clean with an application of the thermal compound of your choice, gently lower the Lion Square down into position, making sure that the arrow labeled AIR is pointing towards the back of the motherboard at the rear I/O ports and your case’s exhaust fan, and that threaded pins go into holes of the backplate.

The Lion Square uses spring-mounted screws for Socket 775 installations to lock it down, which has become my favorite method of securing a Socket 775 cooler to the CPU and motherboard. The mechanism is similar to the SecuFirm™ mounting system used on Noctua coolers, with the difference being that the bracket, screws and tensioning springs are already one assembly.

You can get by with an average length Phillips screwdriver if you work slowly and carefully, but a long bladed Phillips is best. Hold the Lion Square in place but don’t bear down on it as you tighten the screws down in a criss-cross pattern working from the front to the back. As soon as one of the screws stops turning, stop tightening—you’ll damage the motherboard if you don’t. Finally and most importantly, connect the fan cable to the header marked “CPU Fan” on your motherboard. Boot the system, jump into the CMOS and check the CPU fan speed and temperature for any anomalies that may indicate that the Lion Square may not be installed properly or that you may not have used the correct amount of thermal paste.

Prep and installation of the ASUS Lion Square on the test bed system took roughly ten minutes. I found it easier to follow the illustrations than trying to read the tiny print of the written instructions (though I did actually read them for reference as well). Although not as quick (or potentially annoying) as the standard push-pin method, I find the Socket 775 mounting mechanism for the ASUS Lion Square vastly superior and much safer for a cooler this size and weight (you should still observe the usual cautions of moving around a system with an oversized, heavier CPU cooler, though), and well-worth the extra effort of assembly and motherboard removal.

Testing

For the review, I’ll be putting the ASUS Lion Cooler up against the previously reviewed Noctua NH-U12P in both single and dual-fan configuration, on the following test bed:

Noctua’s NT-H1 Thermal Paste was used on both the ASUS Lion Cooler and the Noctua NH-U12P. The CPU head spreader was thoroughly cleaned with Arctic Silver’s ArctiClean when switching between coolers. With room temperature at 68°, the test bed was booted cold and allowed to run for thirty minutes before recording idle temperatures with EVEREST Ultimate Edition. EVEREST Ultimate Edition’s System Stability Test was used to fully load the E6600’s dual cores, cache and FPU while providing critical and comprehensive monitoring of temperatures, fan speeds and voltages, and reporting minimum, maximum and average temperatures of the CPU.

Click to Enlarge

Removing as much extraneous noise from the room as possible, a Galaxy Audio CM-130 Check Mate SPL Meter was used to obtain the decibel readings for both CPU coolers used in the test. The meter was placed six inches from the cooler and positioned to minimize the impact the fan’s airflow would have on the readings. Noise levels were recorded over the length of the Stability Test and then averaged. Keep in mind that the results obtained are specific to the particular configuration of the test bed used, which is an open-air environment to facilitate faster and easier hardware changes. Your results will vary depending on your specific hardware configuration.

Let's take a look at the cooling results first. I’ve broken the idle and load temperatures out into two separate charts to make the information a little easier to digest.

The ASUS Lion Square comes close in idle and load temperature performance to a Noctua NH-U12P equipped with a single Noctua NF-P12  120mm fan. Keep in mind this is no small feat for a cooler with a smaller 92mm fan. ASUS definitely had the right idea boosting the Lion Square’s cooling performance by utilizing larger 8mm heat pipes. The Lion Square only falls behind the NH-U12P when a second NF-P12 is added to the NH-U12P in a push-pull configuration—which is to be expected. Now let’s look at noise:

Again, the fact that a single 92mm fan can perform in the same ballpark as a pair of premium 120mm silent fans when it comes to keeping the decibels down, is no small feat, and a testament to engineering prowess of Sunon’s development team and their MagLev and Vapo Bearing technologies.

Final Impressions and Conclusion

The ASUS Lion Square is clearly the most impressive cooler in the company’s line up. It’s not as utilitarian and “conservative” in appearance as the Noctua and similarly-designed coolers. But it’s not outrageously over-the-top in design or execution like some coolers, either. The Lion Square is quiet (for a 92mm fan) under load, cools efficiently, is well-designed and easy to install. Although I only had a dual core to test with, I don’t doubt for a minute that the Lion Square could just as effectively cool an overclocked quad-core without breaking a sweat (no pun intended), as advertised.

It wouldn’t surprise me that if the Lion Square was equipped with a 120mm fan, it could easily outperform many of the top 120mm coolers on the market. Of course, that would also mean that the Lion Square would have to be a bit larger and heavier than it currently is, increasing its chances for clearance problems with large North Bridge heatsinks, though the mounting mechanism is certainly up to the task of supporting a few more grams of additional weight—at least for Socket 775 motherboards. And if you’re not happy with the Sunon MagLev, it’s not too much trouble to swap it out with another 92mm fan of your choice. For those of you who prefer a heatsink base with a more polished finish, the Lion Square should respond to a lapping kit just as well as any other cooler out there.

The only complaint I have about the Lion Square is a relatively minor one—namely, the adhesive backing on the Socket 775 backplate. Once it’s been installed on a motherboard for awhile, prying it off is going to be a pain in the ass. Be sure to keep an old credit card handy to pop it off with, if you plan on moving your Lion Square to another motherboard in the future. If you upgrade motherboards a lot, it probably won’t hurt to leave the paper backing on the backplate’s adhesive. Removing the backing and the adhesive with a good cleaner will also solve the problem.

Price-wise, you can find the ASUS Lion Square on the street for around $55 - $59, which certainly isn’t a bad price for a high-end CPU cooler. While the Lion Square is cheaper than the $62 -$67 price range you’ll find the Noctua NH-U12P for, keep in mind that if you really want to push your processor to the limit without investing in a water cooling set-up, unlike the NH-U12P, you can’t add a second 92mm fan to the Lion Square to pump-up its cooling power.

Traditionally, when enthusiasts think of high-end CPU coolers, companies like Thermalright, Sunbeam, Noctua, Zalman, Scythe and Arctic Cooling immediately comes to mind. While the ASUS line of coolers aren’t exactly terrible by any stretch of the imagination, they’re rarely spoken or thought of with the same reverence as the aforementioned brands. ASUS coolers it seems, have always been treated like Rodney Dangerfield by hardcore gamers and overclockers—they “just don’t get no respect.”

The ASUS Lion Square CPU Cooler however, just might change that…

Final Score: