Preparing the system

Preparing the system

The cooler will be tested in various scenarios. For some users, noise is the most critical aspect. Others want to know what the performance is like in a non-overclocked system. But there are also enthusiast users, squeezing the CPU for maximum performance by overclocking.   

Four things will be checked:

• dBA noise levels (with the AMD Ryzen 7 3700X and Intel Core i9 10850K)
• temperatures of the AMD Ryzen 7 3700X at default settings
• temperatures of the Core i9 10850K at default settings
• temperatures of the Core i9 10850K at 5.1 GHz, at 1.35 Volts

The room (ambient) temperature was about 22 degrees Celsius. Now, here’s the significant difference compared with the previous tests. Instead of the delidded Intel Core i7 8700K and Intel Core i9 9900K (which didn’t have to be delidded, as it’s soldered), this time, we are using the Intel Core i9 10850K. Please look at this review; if you want to check results for more coolers with the i7 8700K and this one for the measurements using the i9 9900K. The introduction of the AMD Ryzen 7 3700X system was done some time ago, so I’m not going to spend more time on it. As with all other cooler tests that we do, the TIM that we used was Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut to eliminate the influence of thermal paste performance from the equation. Because we are using soldered processors, it should be easier to show the actual performance of the cooler, making the charts flatter. We’ll be testing the CPUs at default clock frequencies and the Intel Core i9 10850K, at 5.1 GHz, at 1.35 Volts. That’s the lowest voltage that provided stability for this unit. The reported temperatures come from the processor package sensor. There are some slight differences between the cores in this particular CPU (1-3°C), so it’s on the safe side to look at package sensor values instead.

The test components:

• AMD Ryzen 7 3700X (stock)
• Intel Core i9 10850K @ 5.1 GHz @1.35 V
• Aorus X470 Gaming 7 Wifi
• Asrock Z590 Taichi
• Gigabyte RTX 3080 Ti Gaming OC
• Samsung 970 Evo 1 TB
• Seasonic Prime Titanium Ultra 850 W

What CPU stress program did we use?

We stressed the CPU using wPrime 2.10, which we ran three times at the 1024M setting. The measurements were taken at default CPU frequencies for the AMD/Intel systems and an OC on the Core i9 10850K (5.1 GHz @ 1.35 V). There’s a security feature enabled, which powers down the system when it reaches 95°C. We measured the package temperature, as per-core temps can differ slightly (though it depends on the CPU type and the particular chip). For LOAD testing, we recorded the maximum temperature after three full wPrime 1024M runs.