X-bit labs

Big Typhoon Squared: Cooler Master GeminII Review (page 7)

Category: Coolers

by Sergey Lepilov

[ 04/04/2007 | 03:05 PM ]

Thermal Performance

The CPUs at my disposal were overclocked to the last drop of juice during this test session. The AMD Athlon X2 3800+ was overclocked from its default clock rate of 2000MHz to 2860MHz (a frequency gain of 43.0%) at a 286MHz clock-gen frequency and with a core voltage increase to 1.5625V. The Intel Core 2 Duo E6400 stepping B2 processor was overclocked from its default 2133MHz to 3550MHz (a 66.4% frequency growth) with a core voltage increase to 1.475V.

So, the Cooler Master GeminII has got a strong opponent and difficult test conditions. Let’s see if the new cooler can stand any chance against the absolute leader of our earlier test. There are only two coolers so I can put all the numbers into one diagram:

There’s nothing much to comment upon. We’ve just got one super-cooler more. The new product from Cooler Master is a mere 1-2°C worse than the Enzotech Ultra-X, which is just an excellent performance. You can take a look at our previous testing when the Ultra-X left no chance to such monsters as a Scythe Infinity with a couple of fans, Zalman CNPS9700-Cu LED and Thermaltake Big Typhoon. And here, the Cooler Master GeminII almost equals the performance of today’s most efficient cooler on CPUs that are overclocked even harder. Of course, the Ultra-X can be made to use a higher fan speed and win some 3°C more, but this would make its noise uncomfortable.