Verdict: The X-Mars is easy to fit, but doesn't really provide any great reward, as its cooling potential is distinctly underwhelming.
X is the most mysterious letter of the alphabet; it can signify many things, from marking the spot where buried treasure lies, to representing a kiss or telling you that you got your sums wrong. It's also the harbinger of 'extremeness', but none of these seem to explain why the letter has been used for Asus' latest HSF.
There's very little that's extreme or mysterious about the X-Mars; compared with the Zalman CNPS9500LED, the X-Mars is a very simple design. It looks like an old-style heatsink, consisting of a block of aluminium with a copper base and a generic black 70mm fan on top. There are some concessions to modernity, though, in the form of a metallic blue cover and a heatpipe.
The X-Mars is only compatible with AMD CPUs, and it's easy to install. A clip attaches it to the plastic retention frame found on Socket 754/939/940 motherboards, and there's no fancy speed control dial for the fan, so it simply plugs directly into the board. The underside of the X-Mars has a pre-applied thermal pad that looks rubbery and unconvincing. It doesn't bode well for good thermal conductivity between the CPU and the heatsink. The X-Mars isn't too noisy, despite having a 70mm fan, which automatically varies in speed between 2,000 and 5,400rpm.
We tested the X-Mars in our usual Socket 939 thermal test rig, which uses an overclocked and overvolted 2.8GHz Athlon 64 FX-55. We kept the CPU busy by running Folding@home, so it pumped out plenty of heat. At 100 per cent load, the CPU was only 4ûC cooler with the X-Mars than it was with the AMD reference HSF. This isn't a sensational result; with the Gigabyte G-Power Cooler Pro, the same CPU was 19ûC cooler than it was with the reference HSF.
CONCLUSION
The X-Mars is easy to fit, but doesn't really provide any great reward, as its cooling potential is distinctly underwhelming.
