Performance

We used the following test system to evaluate the efficacy and performance of these Noctua coolers... 

Test Bed:

• AMD Althon 64 3500 + (200x11 @ 2200 MAX1.55 v)

  • ADA3500DEP4AW CBAEC 0426 SPMW

• A8V Deluxe

• 1 gig ram(2x512/2-2-2-5)OCZ Platinum R2

• XFX 7800 GS AGP

• WD740 Raptor Hard drive

• Antec p160 Case w 2x 12cm case fans

• Room Temp: 21-25C

First item on the list is to go to the bios screen and check to make sure the CPU tower installation was successful. At a stock clock rate and fresh into the bios, the temperature readings are running at 30C or 86F for the CPU and 21C or 69F for the motherboard. So far so good and everything is proving the installation went well. Once booted into the Operating system, it sat and idled for about an hour. The stock speed idle temps settled down to 33C or 91F.

Now to test how hot the system gets under some real world pressure. Using supreme commander dual monitor with eight supreme AI, we let them fight it out for over an hour. During this game test, the CPU reached a load temperature of 44C or 113F stable for a little over 2 hours. Following the real world test, the processor went through another hour and twenty-four minutes in prime 95. The prime95 ended up producing the same results.

For standard clock rates, this cooler hangs with best and is probably the quietest CPU fan this test bench has ever heard. When the U.N.L.A. is attached, the fan produces almost no noise above the base line of the system. Even though it had half as much airflow, the temperatures remained the same for the stock speeds. This is a huge indication of how much capacity this cooler has. In regards to the chipset cooler, it is definitely doing its job. The motherboard temperatures did not rise above +1C from room temperature the entire time.

With the chipset cooler combined with this system, we wanted to over clock the system to squeeze out that extra cycle without sacrifices temperatures. Going for a straight ten percent over clock, an increase of 20 MHz to the FSB as well as a voltage increase of .05V produces a 2420 MHz clock rate. Performing a system stability test in Everest produces similar results to the stock clock rates. The idle temperatures settle to about 35C or 95F. At full load, the temperatures ride steady with little fluctuation at 44C or 111F. One note though is that the room temperatures at the time of the test were 4C cooler than at the time of the stock test. This definitely has an effect on the top end of this cooler as well as the temperature of the motherboard. Even when over clocked, the chipset does more than a sufficient job of keeping the chipset as cool as possible. This cooler has much more potential that this older system could prove. For K8 systems, this is excellent.

Time to wrap things up...