X-bit labs

I Am Legend: Scythe Ninja Copper Cooler Review (page 8)

Category: Coolers

by Sergey Lepilov

[ 02/06/2008 | 03:06 PM ]

Intel Core 2 Quad Platform

Quad-core Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 processor (B3 core stepping) with polished off heat-spreader cover overclocked to 3312MHz inside a system case when cooled with the weakest cooler of the three. Its 120mm fan was running at 860RPM. The test was performed with the processor core voltage increased to 1.45V:

CPU-Z as well as other above mentioned monitoring utilities reported a slightly lower actual voltage than what was set in the mainboard BIOS, namely around 1.425V. The OCCT test was once again passed successfully without any errors or throttling activation:

The results demonstrated by our coolers on a quad-core processor are given below:

Frankly speaking, I expected Scythe Ninja Copper to look as impressive on the hot Quad processor with B3 core stepping as it did on a dual-core one. However, I was wrong and I am actually very happy about it. To be fair, I have to say that the new Scythe Slip Stream 120 fan is not enough for Thermalright Ultra-120 eXtreme, because the gap between its heatsink plates is much smaller than by Ninja and its clone. Replacing Scythe’s fan with a Noctua one or two of those buys us about 1ºC or 2ºC respectively (we are talking about an open testbed only). At the same time, the same modification performed on Thermalright Ultra-120 eXtreme cooler improves its efficiency by 4ºC at first and then by another 2ºC, which makes this cooling solution an indisputable leader.

Compared with the results obtained on a dual-core platform, Scythe Ninja Copper running in fanless mode on top of a quad-core CPU performed a little bit more modest. The CPU worked stably at 3012MHz frequency (+25.5% above the nominal) with 1.3V core voltage (1.285V is the nominal). However, you should take into account that our quad-core processor is the one of the older B3 stepping, which is known for its hot “temper”. The chances that you will get one of these are getting smaller day by day, and the CPU with new G0 core stepping feature much lower heat dissipation, so their overclocking results with the Scythe Ninja Copper cooler in passive mode are very likely to be better. In conclusion I would only like to add that two other testing participants failed to ensure proper passive cooling of the overclocked Quad CPU.