A Closer Look:

The Silent Knight II is one of ASUS' newest in a long line of heat pipe CPU coolers. As a matter of fact, the entire line up of current CPU coolers all are designed with heat pipes from the smallest to the most expensive. The Silent Knight II has a couple of improved features over the original Silent Knight. The biggest is the improvement made to the heat pipes, which is most likely internally. And the cooler weighs in at a moderate 610 grams.

Front

Back

If you've been following past and present coolers, then you've no doubt seen that some of the best weigh in above 700 grams and in some cases, much more. Given the size of the SK II, its surprisingly light weight and easy to manage. You can't really judge it based on sight alone. Copper always has a way of either being really heavy, or really light. If copper is too thin, it can easily dent and be disfigured by moderate contact. The SK II feels pretty sturdy none the less and is safe to handle.

Camera 1

Camera 2

The top of the cooler is very well polished over all, from the heat pipes to the fins. There aren't any visible or weak solder points at all including the ends of the heat pipes at the top and bottom.

Side	Polished Pipes

There is also a glossy black shroud that wraps the center mass of the cooler that directs air flow and protecting the fan. You can also see the clear, blue LED fan which is rated to 25db at optimal speeds. We'll confirm that during tests shortly.

Sexy Emblem

Fan View

The base of the cooler isn't all that well polished. You can see and feel the grooves in the machined surface. A little better lapping would ideally ensure that there is optimal surface contact between the processor and cooler. Thicker grooves or rough machining can inadvertently hinder performance a little. Testing will determine if that will be the case here.

Bottom

Copper Base

Looking over the included mounting kits, there are various back plates and clips all designed to work with all the current AMD and Intel processors. There aren't many screws to keep track of which helps keep things simplified. The manual has illustrations easy enough to understand that give a lot more direction than the actual typed steps. One thing I'm not quite entirely fond of is the clip mechanism. Let's install it and take a test look.

Included Hardware

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