Testbed and Methods

The Auras coolers and their opponents were tested on an open testbed as well as in a system case with the following configuration:

• Mainboard: ASUS P5K Deluxe/WiFi-AP (Intel P35 chipset, LGA775, BIOS 0501)
• Processor: Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 (2400MHz, 1.2875V, 266x4MHz FSB, 2x4096KB L2 cache, Kentsfield B3)
• Thermal interface: thermal grease included with Auras coolers
• Graphics card: Sysconn GeForce 7900 GS GDDR3 (256MB, 256-bit, 575/1710MHz)
• Graphics card cooler: Arctic Cooling Accelero S1 in passive mode
• Memory: 2 x 1024MB Corsair Dominator TWIN2X2048-9136C5D DDR2 SDRAM (SPD: 1142MHz, 5-5-5-18, 2.1V)
• Disk subsystem: Hitachi HDT725032VLA360 (SATA-II, 320GB storage capacity, 7200rpm, 16MB cache, NCQ)
• Optical drive: Samsung SH-S183L DVD-burner (SATA-II)
• System case: ASUS ASCOT 6AR2-B Black&Silver with two 120mm 980rpm system fans Sharkoon Luminous Blue LED for intake and exhaust and a 120mm 750rpm Scythe fan on a side panel
• Power supply: Enermax Galaxy EGA1000EWL 1000W (a 135mm 850rpm fan for intake and a 80mm 1650rpm fan for exhaust)

The CPU was overclocked to its maximum frequency on the weakest of the tested coolers. The resulting frequency was 3204MHz at a core voltage of 1.475V.

All tests are performed in Windows XP Professional Edition Service Pack 2. SpeedFan 4.32 is used to monitor the temperature of the CPU, reading it from the CPU sensor. The CPU is heated up by means of OverClock Checking Tool version 1.1.0 in a 24-minute test during which the system remains idle in the first and last 4 minutes.

The mainboard¡¯s automatic fan speed management is disabled for the time of the tests. The thermal throttling of the Intel Core 2 Duo processor is controlled with RightMark CPU Clock Utility version 2.25. Our CPU begins to skip clock cycles on reaching a temperature of 82¡ãC and higher.

I perform at least two cycles of tests and wait for 20 minutes for the temperature to stabilize during each test cycle. The maximum temperature of the hottest CPU core in the two test cycles is considered as the final result (if the difference is not bigger than 1¡ãC ¨C otherwise the test is performed once again). Despite the stabilization period, the result of the second cycle is usually 0.5-1¡ãC higher.

The ambient temperature was monitored by means of an electric thermometer and remained at 25.5¡ãC during the tests (marked with a vertical red line in the diagrams). The fan rotation speeds are shown in the diagrams as reported by monitoring tools. The ASUS P5K mainboard series does not support the pulse-width modulation feature to control the CPU fan, so I had to set the subjectively quiet mode for the Auras coolers by means of the SpeedFan program.

We had tested coolers designed like the Auras SLC-747, so I didn¡¯t add a similar cooler into this test session, especially as the SLC-747 costs too high for coolers of its kind. The SLC-747 and the more interesting tower-like models LPT-700 and LPT-709 will be opposed in our today¡¯s tests by the Cooler Master Hyper TX (at its maximum 1890rpm and at a quiet 1470rpm speed). The Auras CTC-868 will contend with the Zalman CNPS9700 LED (at a quiet 1670rpm and at a maximum 2800rpm) that has a similar shape and design.