CPU cooling baseline performance

Time to Test. As stated before, the cooler will work absolutely fine with any processor from low to hi-end (Athlon64, Phenom II/III, Core i5, Core i7 quad-core and even six-core included) at default operating speeds, also there is room left for overclocking as well.

Let me show you something; these are a bunch of processors clocked at stock speeds being cooled by the CPU cooler (PWM controlled by BIOS / Windows set to performance mode). The same settings are applied to Core2Duo e8500, Core i5 750 and Core i7 920.

Take a look at the stock speed results with ambient room temperature at 31 C (89F), that's a high ambient temperature as it's measures in Greece on a moderately warm day:

• Core2Duo e8500 at IDLE 36 degrees C (97F)
• Core i5 750 at IDLE 36 degrees C (97F)
• Core i7 920 at IDLE 37 degrees C (98F)
  
• Core2Duo e8500 with 100% LOAD 49 degrees C (120F)
• Core i5 750 with 100% LOAD 56 degrees C (133F)
• Core i7 920 with 100% LOAD 71 degrees C (160F)

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

Methodology we use a Gigabyte UD3R P45 motherboard, equipped with a Core2Duo e8500 E0 stepping processor, which we overclock to 4.3GHz / 1.35 Volts. Also, we use an Asus P7P55D P55 motherboard equipped with a Core i5 750 processor, which we overclock to 4GHz / 1.4v VCore & 1.35 IMC vtt. And for the big finale we use a Foxconn Flaming Blade GTI X58 motherboard, equipped with a Core i7 920, which is overclocked to 3.6GHz / 1.35 Volts. Now we'll test the cooler in two utilization stages:

1. Actively cooled - yet CPU has nothing to do (IDLE)
2. Actively cooled - all processor cores 100% stressed (LOAD)

Let's have a look at the results compared to other coolers we tested under the same conditions. Below, the IDLE and under LOAD 100% CPU usage temperatures. One more time, the ambient room temperature is 31 degrees C (89F).

Since this is a rather new multiplatform review based on LGA 775, 1156 and 1366 we have very few results available from other coolers, but you can see the big picture real fast the Killer Whale cooler positions itself in the mid/low end performance range. All other coolers are from Xigmatek and support Direct Heatpipe Touch technology instead of mainstream heatpipes.