X-bit labs

Cooler Master Aquagate S1 Liquid Cooling System Review (page 5)

Category: Coolers

by Sergey Lepilov

[ 02/12/2008 | 12:45 PM ]

Testbed and Methods

The new Cooler Master Aquagate S1 cooling system and its opponents were tested in the following system:

• Mainboard: ASUS P5K Deluxe/WiFi-AP (Intel P35 chipset, LGA775, BIOS 0705)
• Processor: Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 (2400MHz, 1.2875V, 266x4MHz FSB, 2x4096KB L2 cache, Kentsfield B3)
• Thermal interface: Arctic Silver 5
• Graphics card: Sysconn GeForce 7900 GS GDDR3 (256MB, 256-bit bus, 575/1710MHz) with Arctic Cooling Accelero S1 in passive mode;
• Memory:
  • 2 x 1024MB Corsair Dominator TWIN2X2048-9136C5D DDR2 SDRAM (1142MHz, 5-5-5-18, 2.1V)
  • 2 x 1024MB DDR2 CSXO-XAC-1200-2GB-KIT DIABLO (1200MHz, 5-5-5-16, 2.4V).
• Disk subsystem: Samsung HD501LJ (SATA-II, 500GB storage capacity, 7200rpm, 16MB cache, NCQ)
• System case: ASUS ASCOT 6AR2-B Black&Silver with 120mm ~960RPM Scythe Minebea fans for air intake and exhaust, and a 120mm ~940RPM GlacialTech SilentBlade GT12025-BDLA1 fan on the side panel;
• Power supply: Enermax Galaxy EGA1000EWL 1000W (a 135mm ~850RPM fan for intake and a 80mm ~1650RPM fan for exhaust).

The quad-core Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 (2400MHz) processor with polished-off heat-spreader was overclocked to its maximum frequency with the today’s tested liquid-cooling system running in the quietest fan mode. The resulting frequency was 3308MHz at core voltage increased to 1.45V. According to monitoring data from CPU-Z, SpeedFan and Everest, processor Vcore equaled 1.425V. Vdimm was increased to 2.15V, and other mainboard voltages remained default. CPU Voltage Reference parameter was set at 0.63x in the mainboard BIOS, and CPU Voltage Damper set to Enabled. The automatic fan rotation speed control system (Q-Fan) was disabled in the mainboard BIOS.

All tests are performed in Windows XP Professional Edition Service Pack 2. SpeedFan version 4.34 Beta 37 was used to monitor the temperature of the CPU, reading it from the CPU core sensor. The data reported by the new version of this utility matched the readings from Core Tempt v0.96 utility. The thermal throttling of our test CPU activated at 100 ºC (determined empirically). For our Intel Core 2 Quad processor it was controlled with RightMark CPU Clock Utility version 2.30. The CPU was heated up with OverClock Checking Tool version 1.1.1b in a 60-minute test with maximum CPU utilization, during which the system remained idle in the first and last 4 minutes:

I performed at least two cycles of tests and waited for ~20 minutes for the temperature inside the system case to stabilize during each test cycle. Since Cooler Master Aquagate S1 can only be installed into a system case, we didn’t run any tests in an open testbed. The maximum temperature of the hottest CPU core in the two test cycles was considered as the final result (if the difference was not bigger than 1°C – otherwise the test was performed at least once again). Despite the stabilization period, the result of the second cycle was usually 0.5-1°C higher.

The noise level of each cooling system was measured according to our traditional method described in the previous articles. The subjectively comfortable level of 36dBA is marked with a dotted line in the diagram; the ambient noise from the system case, without the CPU cooler, didn’t exceed 33.4dBA when measured from a 1m distance.

The ambient temperature was monitored with an electronic thermometer that allows monitoring the temperature changes over the past 6 hours. During our test session room temperatures stabilized at around ~25°C. It is used as a staring point on the diagrams. Note that the fan rotation speeds for the liquid-cooling system and the processor cooler are shown in the diagrams as the average readings reported by SpeedFan, and not as the official claimed fan specifications.

One of the testing participants competing against Cooler Master Aquagate S1 will be Cooler Master Hyper TX2, a very efficient and inexpensive cooling solution selling for only $22:

Besides, we also included the results for Ice Hammer IH-4400 A, which is also very affordable, but offers remarkable efficiency for this price. This super cooler was tested with one Noctua NF-P12 fan (120 x 120 x 25mm, 1380RPM rotation speed).