Specifications:

A Closer Look:

Retail front	Side	Rear	Side
Top layer	Cooler box	Manual	Mounting gear

    The Triton 75 comes packaged in a small retail box with some graphics on the front face. The rear of the retail package has the all important specifications of the product. The Triton 75 itself is held in place inside a cardboard cocoon. With the cooler removed from its protective enclosure, we now get to see its simple design.

3/4 left	Front	3/4 right	Heatpipes
Copper base	Upper/lower plate	Side view	Back view

    The Triton 75 is a copper-based heatsink with copper heatpipes and aluminum fins. The base is a two-piece design, with the base being copper and a top plate made from aluminum. Each plate has four half-circle channels carved in them, which sandwiches the heatpipes into place. The heatpipes curve up and away from the base, then take another 90° turn into approximately 54 aluminum fins.

    The Triton 75 is sold without a fan. This option allows for a silent setup - like in a HTPC setup - or giving the end user the option of buying a specific type of fan for their application. Some stock fans supplied with CPU coolers tend to be loud, inefficient, and cheap to keep the overall costs down, which makes this approach from ASUS regarding the fan issue a true breath of fresh air.

Installation:

Mounting gear

One clip on

Both clips on

    The ASUS Triton 75 comes with installation hardware for both AMD and Intel processors. It also comes with a set of spring clips to mount a fan to the aluminum fins. The spring clips make this operation tool-less. For my installation, I will be using the Intel hardware and the supplied thermal paste.

Close up of install

Install with fan

    The mounting hardware for an Intel installation is simple and straightforward. Simply screw each half of the bracket to the base of the heatsink, and that's it. Now, as that part is done, just apply thermal paste to the processor, place the clips in the holes on the motherboard, and push to lock.

Getting close

Mounting clip

Another angle

     For the fan install, two pre-shaped clips are supplied, and these clips hold the fan in place. The ends of the clips fit into grooves on the aluminum fins. The clips apply tension to the fan, thus holding it place.

Testing:

    For testing, BurnInTest Ver4.0 and Prime95 was used, running a total of three tests in a sequence of ON for one hour at 100% CPU load, then OFF for 30 minutes to cool. The temps are collected and an average temp is calculated.

TEST GEAR:

• ASUS P5E3 Deluxe WiFi-AP@n

• Intel Core 2 Duo E6850 (3.0GHz)

• Kingston 2GB DDR3 PC3 13000 CL7 RAM

• Sapphire HD2600XT Graphics card

• WD 80GB SATA II HDD

• Samsung Super WriteMaster SATA DVD+R DL

• KWI Absolute Power ABT-600CW Power Supply

Conclusion:

    The ASUS Tritron 75 is a very effective, silent CPU cooler. When using the computer under normal conditions the cooling was sufficient, but under full load the temps rose, and rose quickly, with no fan. Since unwanted noise from a computer system is always a concern, I decided to use the 120mm NF-S12 fan from Noctua. With the fan running, the temps quickly dropped and held steady during the remainder of the testing.

    All in all, the ASUS Tritron 75 did its job by out-performing the provided stock cooler and keeping the processor cool under load. Personally, I prefer to have a fan on my CPU cooler at all times, so having the option to choose the type of fan I want to use is a major plus. I want to thank ASUS for sending this item out for VH to review.