Testbed and Methods

The new Swiftech H₂O-220 Compact liquid-cooling system and its today’s only opponent were tested only inside a closed system case with the following configuration:

• Mainboard: Gigabyte GA-X38-DQ6 mainboard on Intel X38 chipset (LGA 775, BIOS F8D)
• Processor: Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9650 (3.0GHz, 1.25V, 2x6MB L2 cache, 4x333MHz FSB, Yorkfield, C0)
• Thermal interface: Arctic Silver 5
• Graphics card: Sparkle GeForce 8600 GT 256MB/128bit (passive cooling)
• Memory:
  • 2 x 1024MB DDR2 Corsair Dominator TWIN2X2048-9136C5D (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)
• Optical drive: Samsung SH-S183L SATA-II DVD RAM & DVD±R/RW & CD±RW
• System case: System case: ASUS ASCOT 6AR2-B Black&Silver (ATX) with 120mm ~900RPM Scythe Minebea fans for air intake and exhaust, and a 120mm ~840RPM Scythe Slip Stream 120 SY1225SL12L fan on a side panel
• Control and monitoring panel: Zalman ZM-MFC2
• Power supply: Enermax Galaxy EGA1000EWL 1000W (a default 135mm ~850RPM fan for intake; 80mm ~1550RPM Noctua fan for air exhaust)

Using the weakest cooling system of the two tested today we managed to overclock our quad-core processor to 4.05GHz with the Vcore increased to 1.6125V in the mainboard BIOS. The monitoring utilities reported the core voltage setting a little bit lower than what was originally set in the mainboard BIOS: around 1.575~1.6V. The system memory was working at 1077MHz efficient frequency with 5-5-5-16_2T timings and 2.05V voltage.

All tests are performed in Windows XP Professional Edition Service Pack 2. SpeedFan version 4.34 Beta 40 was used to monitor the temperature of the CPU, reading it from the CPU core sensor:

The data it reported matched the readings from Core Tempt v0.96.1 utility that was used for additional temperature monitoring. The mainboard’s automatic fan speed management system was disabled for the time of the tests in the mainboard BIOS. The CPU thermal throttling was controlled with the new RightMark CPU Clock Utility version 2.35.0 that now supports Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9650 processor.

The CPU was heated up with OverClock Checking Tool version 1.1.1b in a 23-minute test with maximum CPU utilization, during which the system remained idle in the first and last 4 minutes:

This test was long enough to demonstrate the cooling efficiency of both: the liquid-cooling system and the air cooler, because the processor temperature reached its peak after 14-16 minutes into the test already and didn’t increase any more even after an hour of running non-stop. Of course, we could run stability tests for days, but it wasn’t the plan and is not really an objective of our today’s review.

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. The maximum temperature of the hottest CPU core of the four 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 ambient temperature was checked with an electronic thermometer that allows monitoring the temperature changes over the past 6 hours. During our test session room temperature stabilized at around ~25°C. It is used as a staring point on the temperature diagram. Note that the fan rotation speed is shown in the diagrams as the average reading reported by SpeedFan, and not as the official claimed fan specification.

The noise level of each cooler was measured according to our traditional method described in the previous articles with the help of an electronic noise meter – CENTER-321. The subjectively comfortable noise level was considered 34.5dBA and is marked with a dotted blue line in the diagram. The ambient noise from the system case without the CPU cooler didn’t exceed 33.2dBA when measured at 1m distance.

Swiftech H₂O-220 Compact system will be competing against the most efficient air cooler inside a closed system case. Thanks to the 120mm case fan in the side panel, Thermalright SI-128 cooler appears more efficient inside ASUS ASCOT 6AR2-B system case than Thermalright Ultra-120 eXtreme that is the best in an open testbed. Moreover, to make Thermalright SI-128 an even stronger opponent for our today’s liquid-cooling system, we equipped it with a high-performance Scythe Ultra Kaze 120 fan measuring 120mm x 38mm (DFS123812H-3000) with the nominal rotation speed of ~3,000RPM. Of course, we have also tested the air cooler in a quiet mode at ~1,300RPM fan rotation speed.

Well, this is a pretty worthy opponent. At least there are very few mass production liquid-cooling systems that can outperform this cooler. Let’s see if Swiftech H₂O-220 Compact can do that, too.