Conclusion
The Silent Square Pro is another product from ASUS that has done nothing but impress us. The quality of craftsmanship was evident the second we took it out of the package, and the performance the cooler ultimately displayed is undeniable. The package contents are very comprehensive, and a simple yet elegant fan controller is also included. We were perhaps most smitten with the installation of the Silent Square Pro, which seems to be completely idiot-proof: if you screw up, it won’t work; if you do it right, it works great. The design of the cooler is unique enough to allow ASUS to differentiate it from the rest of the field, yet not so radical that the tried and true performance of the heatpipe tower design is compromised. At $59.80, you will be hard-pressed to find any cooling solution that performs this well on quad-core processors. For dual-core processors, however, the Silent Square Pro is probably not the best choice. The lower thermal design power of dual-core chips means that smaller, more moderately priced air coolers can perform just as well if not better than the Silent Square Pro. While such coolers might struggle if not fail while trying to cool a quad-core processor, they may well be an overall better choice.

As much as we like the Silent Square Pro, there are two important issues – only one of which we came across – that we have with the cooler. The first issue is regarding noise. While not the loudest cooler we have tested (that distinction belongs to Intel’s stock HSF/leaf blower), the Silent Square Pro, under heavy load, is not exactly what we would call Silent. The fan being encased within the design itself certainly does wonders for keeping everything quiet, but it is not enough to dampen the noise produced under 100% operation. This problem might be something that could be fixed on the fan selection level, but 92mm fans in general produce more noise to generate the same airflow as their 120mm counterparts. If the size of the SSP would not be affected too much by such a change, we would recommend a 120mm fan be incorporated into the design in place of the current 92mm fan. The second issue we have is in regards to size. While not excessively wide or long by any stretch of the imagination, the SSP is enormously tall. So tall, in fact, that it will have a hard time fitting in some cases, particularly those with modifications/augmentations to the side panel. We had no issues with this cooler in our Vigor Force Screwless Gaming Chassis, but we can see this being a problem with thinner enclosures.

In the end, the Silent Square Pro from ASUS is the best cooler we have tested to date for quad-core processors and is definitely worthy of your consideration if you are in the market.

Pros
+ Great design
+ Quality craftsmanship
+ Excellent cooling performance
+ Superior package contents
+ Solid installation method
+ Reasonably priced
+ Will not interfere with surrounding motherboard components (on almost all motherboards)
+ Quiet except when fan is at 100%
Cons
- Fan can be loud at 100%
- Probably not the best choice for dual core
- Very tall; might not fit in most cases
Rating
9.8 out of 10
While the Silent Square Pro is an amazing cooler, its performance increase over our previous top performer is not quite enough to give it our Editor's Pick award for Air CPU coolers. There is a good chance that we will come back and give this cooler the Editor's Pick award, but for now there are still tons of Air CPU coolers out there earning quite an impressive reputation - some of which are on their way here as we speak. We'll make sure to let you know in future articles where the SSP stands in the great scheme of things. Hopefully you take from this review the knowledge that the ASUS Silent Square Pro is a cooler worthy of any moderate overclocker's system.