iXBT Labs - Mid-End Heatpipe Cooler Shootout

Part 3. Test Results (Intel), Summary Table

Part 1. Arctic Cooling, ASUS, Cooler Master, and GlacialTech products

Part 2. Products from Scythe, Thermaltake, and Titan

Test results on the Intel platform

In order to examine thermal efficiency of our LGA775 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 also measure temperatures of the inductance coils in the CPU voltage regulator. To be specific, we measure 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:

Motherboard: ASUS P5AD2-E Premium rev. 1.05
Processor: Intel Pentium 4 550 (3.4 GHz Prescott, HT Technology)
OS: Microsoft Windows XP

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.

Diagram 1. Temperature readings (Intel)

Notes
Each cooler is tested with Stars 420 thermal grease

Diagram 2. Thermal resistance (Intel)

Note
Thermal resistance θ_ja is defined as the relation
θ_ja = (T_j—T_a)/P_h, where T_j is the temperature of a CPU core, T_a is the environment temperature (it's 25°C in this case), P_h is the thermal capacity of a processor (in this case it's 150 Watts).

Diagram 3. Temperature readings (temperature of near-socket components)

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.

Diagram 4. Noise characteristics

Note: Background noise level 18 dBA

Diagram 5. Efficiency/noise ratio

Note
The efficiency/noise ratio (ENR) is calculated as:

ENR = DM*(R_t/P¢C)/(NL/R_n), where

R_t—reference temperature (the reference thermal resistance θ_ja of the cooling system - 0.25°C/W), TC—the core temperature with the operating cooling system, R_n—reference noise (the reference noise level is 20 dBA), NL—noise level, generated by the cooling system, DM—denominate multiplier (10).

Summary table

Table 1. Summary data on the coolers we tested

Cooler	TR, C/Watt²	Noise, dBA	Weight, g¹	Dimensions, WxLxH, mm	Retention module	Price, USD³
Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro	0.28^*	37^*	530	107x97x127	LGA775	25
ASUS Triton 70	0.33^*	33^*	435	90x78x125	LGA775 Socket 754/939/AM2	32
Cooler Master Hyper TX2	0.31^*	36^*	480	107x118x138	LGA775 Socket 754/939/AM2	30
Cooler Master Vortex 752	0.39^*	38^*	360	107x107x70	LGA775 Socket 754/939/AM2	26
GlacialTech Igloo 5610 Silent	0.35	32	400	99x66x110	LGA775	16
GlacialTech Igloo 5610 PWM	0.31^*	41^*	400	99x66x110	LGA775	16
GlacialTech Igloo 5710 Silent	0.33	31	485	93x102x135	LGA775 Socket 754/939/AM2	30
GlacialTech Igloo 5710 PWM	0.28^*	40^*	485	93x102x135	LGA775 Socket 754/939/AM2	30
GlacialTech Igloo 5750 Silent	0.29	30	515	96x120x120	LGA775 Socket 754/939/AM2	40
GlacialTech Igloo 5750 PWM	0.25^*	40^*	515	96x120x120	LGA775 Socket 754/939/AM2	40
Scythe Samurai Z Rev.B	0.37	36	375	128x85x98	LGA775 Socket 754/939/AM2 Socket 478	30
Scythe Katana 2	0.34	32	550	105x82x150	LGA775 Socket 754/939/AM2 Socket 478	35
Scythe Kama Cross	0.32	32	560	140x120x132	LGA775 Socket 754/939/AM2 Socket 478	40
Scythe Mine Rev.B	0.27	34	580	109x105x150	LGA775 Socket 754/939/AM2 Socket 478	38
Thermaltake Sonic Tower Rev.2	0.33	32	860	112x140x150	LGA775 Socket 754/939/AM2	38
Thermaltake TMG i2	0.37^*	37^*	385	102x115x103	LGA775	25
Titan TTC-NK45TZ Bomber	0.33^*	36^*	505	110x79x150	LGA775 Socket 754/939/AM2	17

¹Full weight, including a retention module

²TR—thermal resistance

³Average retail prices (Moscow) or recommended prices (new products) for December 11, 2007.

^*This parameter corresponds to maximum fan speed

There seems to be no need in any comments here. Let's proceed to test results on the AMD platform!

Part 4. Test results (AMD). Summary table. Conclusions

Vitali Crinitsin (vit@ixbt.com)
January 15, 2008