Asus Shows Off Glorious TUF Sabertooth Z170 Mark 1 Motherboard

[HMan2828]

The armor only really would make senseif it was a giant aluminium heatsink with actual metal to metal contact to the chipset, regulators, etc... Which it doesn't seem to be since the chipset has its own heatsink already. All it does is obstruct airflow to the surface of the board, hindering cooling... But it does look nice. The backplate is the same kind that you see on some GPUs, it helps tremendously with heat distribution across the board in addition to additional structural stability.

 

[atheus]

"Two small fans take care of moving air underneath the shield."
One thing I've learned over the years is that the small fans usually die first, usually because they get choked by dust that the bigger fans muscle through & disperse more easily.

So color me not impressed by something that is likely better served by just having better airflow design engineering.

Same. I had a chipset fan on one of my motherboards from about 12 years ago, and I had to replace that thing pretty much every year.

 

[a2kross]

Quote: "Two small fans take care of moving air underneath the shield."

If I had my druthers. I'd druther leave off the shield & 2 small extra fans.

Passive Cooling....No fans...No noise....Effective heat sinks....No watts wasted