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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 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).

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*(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).

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

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