X-bit labs

Battle of the Titans: Super Coolers from Scythe, Thermaltake and Zalman Face to Face (page 6)

Category: Coolers

by Doors4ever

[ 10/21/2005 | 11:44 AM ]

We should see a similar picture on the cooler’s base, too.

I’ve almost got to the tests proper, there is one more question. Which fan speed should be set for this cooler? Like with the choice of the ambient temperature, the answer is arguable and more subjective. People differ in their sensitivity to stray sounds. Someone may go mad at the screeching sound of a tree in the yard, while another wouldn’t even notice some building work done under his/her window.

The fan of the Zalman CNPS9500 LED rotates at about 2600rpm and I think this is rather loud. The FAN Mate 2 controller allows varying the speed from 1400 to 2400rpm. The cooler is silent at 1700rpm and lower and its noise becomes ever more noticeable at higher speeds. I decided to test the cooler at 2400rpm. I hope most users will think this amount of noise acceptable, especially since it is going to be suppressed by the system case.

So, the Idle temperature of the Prescott-core Intel Pentium 4 processor overclocked to 4.06GHz was 41°C at the launch of the system. It grew up and stabilized at 47°C after I had started the thermal chamber. The Load temperature was 59.5°C -61.5°C at a 100% CPU load created by means of the S&M utility. The whole process is represented on the following graph which is a little shortened for better readability.

The sinusoidal temperature fluctuations within the 59.5-61.5°C range are due to the operation mode of the thermal chamber. It is automatically turned on and off to keep the temperature near the specified 30°C.

So, we’ve got our first point of reference. Next goes Scythe’s Shogun.