In order to examine thermal efficiency of our coolers under review, we put the same methods into service as in testing cooling systems for Socket 478 as well as AMD Socket 754/939/AM2. The primary data used for the consequent calculation of thermal resistance are temperature readings of the thermal diode built into a processor. Only the thermal source (Pentium 4 550), the base platform (ASUS P5AD2-E Premium motherboard), and a set of applications are different.
We are also measuring the temperatures of the inductance coils in the CPU voltage regulator. To be specific, we are measuring the temperatures of the PL24, PL25 and PL26 inductance coils near the socket. This provides additional data that helps us evaluate the cooling efficiency. CPU voltage is also raised to 1.525 V in order to generate more heat in the testbed. The resulting heat power is 150 W.
Testbed configuration:
We use the S&M utility to create maximum thermal load on the processor and Speedfan to monitor temperatures. The Thermal Monitor is disabled in all the tests.
Notes
Each cooler is tested with Stars 420 thermal paste
The diagram contains complex results
Note
Thermal resistance θja is defined as the relation
θja = (Tj - Ta)/Ph, where Tj is the temperature of a CPU core, Ta is the environment temperature (it's 25°C in this case), Ph is the thermal capacity of a processor (in this case it's 150 Watts).
Finally, at the end of this article we publish the noise measurement results (the procedure is described in the article Noise characteristics of coolers and the noise measurement method) as well as the efficiency/noise rating of the coolers.
Note: Background noise level
18 dBA
Note
The efficiency/noise ratio (ENR) is calculated as:
ENR = DM*(Rt/P¢C)/(NL/Rn), where
Rt - reference temperature (the reference thermal resistance θja of the cooling system - 0.25°C/W), TC - the core temperature with the operating cooling system, Rn - reference noise (the reference noise level is 20 dBA), NL - noise level, generated by the cooling system, DM - denominate multiplier (10).
Our today's cooler under review, the V1, is definitely a success! The new product from Thermaltake demonstrates a decent balance of thermal efficiency and noise characteristics, worthy of a High-End model. It's notable for individual thermal design and a user-friendly retention module. There are some technical flaws, of course - simplified coupling between the heat pipes and the finning, as well as mediocre quality of the on-board fan. But considering good overall functionality of the V1, we can shut our eyes to them. Summing up all pros and cons, if this cooler has an adequate price (below 35-40 USD), it will be a good choice for top Intel LGA775 and AMD Socket AM2 processors.
Thermaltake V1 gets our Original Design award for its interesting heatsink design and improved ergonomics of the retention module.
We wish Thermaltake every success in designing new attractive and interesting products! Let's hope this company won't disappoint us. And we shall keep tabs on the situation in the High-End sector of cooling systems.