Introduction

A big thank you to Deepcool for supplying the review sample.

Deepcool got its start in 1996 and has from then on out grown to become an industry heavyweight. The company's focus on the enthusiast DIY market has paid off tremendously, with the company releasing well-regarded cases, power supplies, heatsinks, fans, and all-in-one liquid coolers. Overall, the company has shown an ability to think outside the box, along with a willingness to try new things. When you take that into consideration, it's no wonder Deepcool has become a popular manufacturer in the DIY PC market.


In today's review, I look at the Deepcool AS500. The eagle-eyed among you may notice its appearance is similar to the Gamer Storm Assassin III with one less cooling tower, and on the surface, you would be correct. However, a closer inspection shows Deepcool has made some notable changes. First, the cooler uses five heatpipes and comes equipped with an ARGB-illuminated top plate. For those wanting to minimize noise from their system, the fan has a very quiet RPM profile. That said, a quiet cooler doesn't mean bad cooling as I have reviewed many exceptional air coolers over the years that can be considered nearly silent. Therefore, considering how well the Assassin III performed, it will be quite interesting to see how the AS500 does. So without further ado, let's take a closer look at what this latest offering from Deepcool can do.

Packaging

Deepcool sticks with their bright green packaging for the AS500. The front of the box gives a good view of the cooler and lists support for various motherboard ARGB synchronization solutions, including MSI, ASUS, ASRock, Gigabyte, and Razer. Turning to the left side, you will find the cooler's dimensions along with some mechanical drawings as reference. Another turn to the back gives us a quick look at the cooler's features, listed in various languages. These features include its five 6 mm heatpipes shown as capable of handling up to 220 watts, a slim fin design for 100% memory compatibility, and its top plate with ARGB, to name a few.


Moving on to the right side, Deepcool lists a few more features, including the cooler's low noise output, 164 mm height, 100% RAM compatibility, and previously noted 220-watt TDP. Finally, the top just has the Deepcool logo and nothing else.

Contents

Opening the box, you will be greeted by the mounting hardware packaged in a smaller box. Beneath that sit the cooler and fan encased in foam, which is nice to see. Overall, the packaging is good, providing more than enough protection for the product.


When it comes to the mounting hardware, Deepcool's AS500 uses a tried and true design that is very simple and straightforward to where this style of mounting hardware is nearly industry standard at this point. I will also give them credit for including an ARGB controller and extension cable for good measure. It should be noted that the company has also included an extra set of fan clips for a dual-fan configuration for those who want to take that route.

Common parts supplied for mounting include:

• 4x Fan clips
• 4x Phillips head mounting nuts
• 4x Intel LGA2011/2066 screw pillars
• 4x Intel 115X/1200 screw pillars
• 4x AMD screw pillars
• 2x AMD mounting arms
• 2x Intel mounting arms
• 1x Intel backplate
• 1x 140 mm fan
• 1x Tube of thermal paste
• 1x Heatsink
• 1x Installation manual