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 enthusiast users are also squeezing the CPU for maximum performance by overclocking.   

Three things will be checked:

• dBA noise levels (with the AMD Ryzen 9 7900X and Intel Core i9 13900K)
• Temperatures of the AMD Ryzen 9 7900X s at 5.2 GHz clock for all cores.
• Temperatures of the Core i9 13900K at default settings

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, Intel Core i9 9900K, Intel Core i9 10850K (the two last ones didn’t have to be delidded, as it’s soldered), and Intel Core i9 12900K - this time, we are using the Intel Core i9 13900K. Please look at this review; if you want to check results for more coolers with the i7 8700K, this one is for the measurements using the i9 9900K, the following one is for the measurements with an i9 10850K, and this one for 12900K results and Ryzen 7 3700X.
The AMD Ryzen 9 7900X system is used from this review onwards. As with all other cooler tests, the TIM we used was Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut to eliminate the influence of thermal paste performance from the equation. We’ll test the CPUs at default clock frequencies. The reported temperatures come from the processor package sensor. There are slight differences between the cores in this particular CPU (1-3°C), so it’s safe to look at package sensor values instead. Because we are using soldered processors, it should be easier to show the actual performance of the cooler, making the charts flatter.

One important thing - we’re also checking the temperatures with a normalized noise level.

The test components for the AMD:

• AMD Ryzen 9 7900X (5.2 GHz all-core)
• Asrock X670E Steel Legend
• Asus RTX 3080 TUF
• Lian Li O11D Evo
• Asus ROG Thor II 1000W Platinum II

For those who know the new AM5 platform and its thermal behavior, it is a known fact now that these SKUs will hit right away 95°C, but it wasn’t the case – when the CPU was set to a 5.2 GHz clock for all cores.

And for Intel:

• Intel Core i9 13900K (stock)
• Asus ROG Maximus Z790 Hero
• Inno3d RTX 4090 iChill
• Phanteks Enthoo 719
• Seasonic Prime Titanium TX-1300 Titanium

What CPU stress program did we use?

We stressed the CPU using the Cinebench R23. The measurements were taken at default AMD/Intel systems CPU frequencies. 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 chip). We recorded the maximum temperature after 10 minutes of runs for LOAD testing.