Cooling
The Formula V is packed full of features but there is one that stands out above the rest. Its Fusion Thermo System, as Asus calls, is both eye catching and very unique. What Asus has done is combine a water cooling and air cooling solution that doesn’t rely on both at the same time. In other words it has water cooling built in but you aren’t going to have problems if you don’t water cool it. This is unique because past designs like this would have trouble when you don’t use the built in water cooling. They managed to do this by creating a design that uses heat-pipes as well as the water cooling channel. That means that the heat will still be spread around the heatsink, even without water cooling.
The Fusion Thermo System is all in place to help keep the CPU VRM temperatures down and even without water cooling it does a good job of that. Having the water cooling option has a side benefit as well. When you water cool your CPU there is a downside that most people forget. Without a CPU fan/fans blowing over the area sometimes the motherboard itself can get warmer. Having the option to include the Formula V in your water cooling loop is a nice option, especially without having to throw down the additional money for a motherboard water block kit. I do have one complaint about the setup though. You are locked in with both fitting design and size with the Formula V. Please keep this in mind when picking up parts for your build, you will need 3/8” ID tubing. I personally like to run ½” ID tubing because I prefer the way it looks, for me this means ether changing down to 3/8” ID or running two different sized tubing. In addition you can’t run compression fittings. It would have been perfect if Asus went with G ¼” threads here and let people go with what worked better for their system.
By now you have to be curious about the rest of the cooling on the Formula V right? Well down below the CPU we have a small black heatsink that also doubles as the motherboards billboard with a light up Republic of Gamers logo on it.
Down next to the PCIe slots we have the chipset cooling as well. This one matches the Fusion Thermo heatsink perfectly with its angled vents and rough black finish. This is also where you will find the Asus logo. They kept the height down on this one for clearance with long video cards. There isn’t much to it but it did help keep the Z77 chipset cool during all of our testing so we can’t really complain.