Baseline testing the cooler

Testing The Cooler

Time to test. The cooler will work absolutely great with any processor from low to high-end (Core i3/Core i5/Core i7 quad-core and even six-core included up-to 130W) at default operating speeds, and there's room left for overclocking as well.

Now what we always do (for a little more serious testing), is test it with the processor and motherboard set at defaults AND with higher requirements, mildly overclocked as a reference. We change the processor frequency and voltage.

Methodology -- We use an eVGA p55 Classified 200 motherboard, equip it with a Core i5 870 (2.93 GHz) processor, which we overclock to 3200 GHz/1.3 Volts. Now we'll test the cooler in two utilization stages:

1. Actively cooled - The CPU has nothing to do (IDLE)
2. Actively cooled - Four processor cores / 8 threads 100% stressed (LOAD)

Test 1 - The Baseline Performance

Above we show two baseline temperatures modes. The H100 is set at NORMAL RPM level (mode 2).

The processor at default processor settings with Speedstep CE1 enabled etc (clocks down in frequency and voltage in IDLE). Now if you do not plan to overclock, that is your baseline temperature at 26 Degrees C in IDLE and 44 Degrees C under full load.

Then in dark blue you can see the results done with a tiny slight overclock at ~3.2 GHz on the processor, we apply 1.3v on the CPU and still get excellent temperatures. Roughly 47 Degrees C when we stress all the processor cores.

Test 2 - IDLE Temperature

Let's have a look at the results compared to other coolers we tested under the same conditions. Below, the IDLE temperatures, thus your processor is doing barely anything. Just sitting and waiting in your system.

Now we compare all cooler based on that small overclock and fixed 80% fan RPM. As you can see, the cooler positions itself in the high-end performance range of heatpipe based coolers (with a fan), 33 Degrees C.

This is liquid cooling, the coolant will overall in idle be warmer than a heatpipe cooler as the ambient temperature is also your LCS coolant temperature at minimum.

Test 3 - LOAD Temperature

But now let's have a look at the processor's LOAD temperatures. I do have to make a note here, typically we measure in a 21 Degrees C ambient room temperature yet the AC was broken and it was a warm day with roughly 23-24 degrees C room temperature. This does effect the coolant, albeit a little bit.

With any LCS kit, the ambient temperature will effect your overall temperature, never forget that.

Please understand, for the above results -- temperatures are based on a slightly overclocked (3.2 GHz) processor with a little extra voltage (1.3v), the fan speed is set at NORMAL RPM on the Corsair H100 (option 2).

• Anything at roughly 50 Degrees C or lower we consider enthusiast class cooling.
• Anything in-between 51 to 60 Degrees C we consider performance cooling
• Anything in-between 61 to 70 Degrees C we consider mainstream cooling
• Anything above 71 Degrees C we consider average cooling

We are way below 50 Degrees C with the processor slightly overclocked under full load. That means it's high-end performance.

Roughly 47 Degrees is what we get returned with the overclocked processor. The temps will differ a little per country depending on how warm it is.

The three stage RPM controller is located at the top of the cooling block.