Corsair H100i PRO review

Cooling 190 Page 12 of 13 Published by

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Core i7 4790K OC at 4600 MHz 1.3 Volts

Now we up the ante. Understand that 1.30V and higher voltages are the levels where Haswell processors get into serious problems due to the aforementioned heat-spreader versus TIM design applied solution from Intel. We now set the Core i7 4790K @ 4600 MHz and apply 1.30 volts on the CPU while loading it with 100% stress for wPrime to run on all available CPU threads three times. Below, you can see the IDLE results with the Core i7 clocked at 4790K @ 4600 GHz with 1.30 volts on the CPU. Again, the results are the IDLE temperatures thus you are on your desktop doing pretty much nothing. 

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The temps normally rise above and beyond 90 Degrees C for a lot of heatpipe based coolers, which is a definitive no-go. As you can see, we have dangerous temperatures for most coolers. LCS class coolers perform far better here and the H60 holds ground decently, let's up the anty and fire off even higher voltages at the processor:


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To advance on overclocking to see where our thermal threshold (the point of no return) is we tweak in four stages where we up the core voltage from 1.30v upwards to a more (unrealistic) 1.40v. Normally we can hardly reach 1.40v with a heatpipe cooler with this processor, however, the cooler did allow me to reach 1.40 Volts stable (which is hefty for this CPU). However, at 1.40 Volts DBa acoustic levels spun out of control to an unacceptable level. Up-to 1.35V you are good to go though.


Performance relative to temperatures and DBA levels based on FAN settings

In this last chart, we still apply the 1.30 Volts overclock on the CPU and put it under load. We now change the fan profile settings and look at the behaviouristics in terms of temperatures and DBa levels. 
 

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If you want silence, I found a sweet spot at the pump balanced settings where it is totally silent and offers good performance.

I've addressed the new Zero RPM mode before, the fans do not kick in until the LCS coolant reaches 40 Degrees C. That in fact might be a too high value as by then your proc will already have risen towards or over 80 Degrees or higher before that coolant flow reached 40 Degrees C. Be careful with that setting. It would be nice if Corsair could implement a configurable coolant temp, I'd prefer the fan kick in value at 35 Degrees C coolant temperature as opposed to 40 Degrees C.

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