Thermal Performance

During our test session we could overclock our Intel Core 2 Duo E6400 (2133MHz nominal speed) to 3500MHz by raising the processor Vcore to 1.45V (+64.1%):

Well, now we just have to check which one of the two Ultra coolers is more efficient:

The difference of almost 7°C in thermal performance between the results Ultra Chill-TEC cooler demonstrated in a closed and on an open testbed prove that this thermo-electric cooling solution lacks fresh airflow and that one single 92-mm fan is not enough. Besides, the cooler is pretty noisy. Even though it is as efficient as the best air cooler in an open testbed, you pay pretty high price for that. On the other hand, Enzotech Ultra-X cooler won the today’s ultra-cooler duel, because it not only ensured highly-efficient CPU cooling at low fan rotation speed and with low level of generated noise, but also provided proper cooling of the elements in the area around the processor socket. Something that the cooling solutions with the Ultra Chill-TEC design will never be able to offer.

There is one more thing that I would like to point out here. As you know, the monitoring LCD displays the thermo-electric module temperature and it starts functioning at full power (50W) when the temperature hits 25°C. Unfortunately, the manufacturer doesn’t specify the temperature of what side of the Peltier element is being monitored by the control unit. And this is actually very interesting to know, because I didn’t see anything higher than 38°C on the LCD screen even when the CPU was loaded to its maximum. Considering that the difference between the CPU core temperature and TEC control unit readings is pretty significant, I dare assume that the LCD display reports the temperature of the top Peltier element plate. So, what could be the practical value of these temperature reports if the numbers are so far from the actual CPU temperature? – I have hard time answering this question.