Cooling Efficiency Tests

First of all let’s see how a passive NINJA 2 copes with a quad-core processor running at its nominal speed of 3000MHz with 1.25V Vcore:

As you see, the CPU temperature under maximum workload didn’t exceed 60ºC. Our overclocking experiments with a passive NINJA 2 stopped at 3700MHz with 1.275V Vcore, although the hottest CPU core heated up to 92ºC:

Of course, this is more of a theoretical test, because I wouldn’t recommend to have the CPU running so close to critical temperature for a long time. If we compare NNJA 2 against NINJA Copper in passive mode, we will have to admit that the new cooler turned out more efficient. Our QX9650 processor overclocked only to 3670MHz with 1.45V Vcore with Scythe Ninja Copper and reached peak temperatures of 91ºC.

Well, I believe it is enough for relatively rarely used passive modes. Now let’s move on to more widely spread active usage with one or two fans attached. Using the “weakest” cooling system we managed to overclock our quad-core processor to 3800MHz with the processor Vcore increased to 1.5V. Here are the obtained results:

Well, Scythe NINJA 2 didn’t really stand out against one of the best super-coolers, even though its results are almost the same as those of the copper model. It is also interesting that a second quiet fan installed on the side of the heatsink hardly has any effect on the cooling efficiency, however one fan at ~2000RPM lowers the temperature of an overclocked processor by 5ºC in an open testbed as well as in a closed system case! Adding another powerful fan wins another 2ºC inside a system case. In an open testbed the improvement will be 4ºC, which makes Scythe NINJA 2 almost as efficient as Thermalright Ultra-120 eXtreme. Unfortunately, from the acoustic prospective it is not like that at all.

Nevertheless, it would be interesting how Scythe NINJA 2 equipped with two powerful and noisy fans will do in terms of maximum CPU overclocking. And we did check it out in an open testbed. Our CPU topped with NINJA 2 with two 2000-RPM fans managed to reach almost the maximum frequency: 4004MHz at 1.6V Vcore. The hottest processor core under peak workload stayed around 79ºC:

Very decent result, but unfortunately, the cooler was very noisy. At a more acoustically comfortable rotation speed of ~1000RPM we managed to overclock our CPU to 3920MHz at 1.55V Vcore and peak temperature of 81ºC (in an open testbed).