Testing
Both the MCX64-V and MCX6400-V coolers were tested on an open frame K8 test rig consisting of the following components. The ambient room air temperature was maintained at 24°C ±0.5°C. The CPU was loaded by running Folding@Home 24/7. Several dozen temperature reading were recorded and averaged over 24 to 48 hours for each test run.
- Asus K8N-E Deluxe nForce3-250 motherboard
- AMD Athlon 64 3200+ (200 x 11.0) 1.50 Vcore
- Seasonic SuperTornado 400 watt ATX power supply
- (2) Corsair CMX512-3200C2 DDR RAM
- ATI Radeon 9800 Pro
- WD800JB IDE HDD
- Sony 16X DVD, FDD
- Windows XP Pro with SP1
To facilitate taking accurate CPU temperature measurements I attached a very small Omega thermocouple to the side of the Athlon 64 IHS with Arctic Alumina thermal epoxy. The measurement equipment used during testing included:
- CPU/IHS — Barnant Model 115 digital thermometer (accuracy +/- 0.4º C)
- Ambient air — Barnant Model 115 digital thermometer (accuracy +/- 0.4º C)
- Extech Model 407736 digital sound level meter (accuracy +/- 1.5 dB)
In addition to the Delta fan supplied with the MCX64-V running at 12V and 7V, I also tested each cooler with a 80mm Sunon Tornado fan (PMD1208PMB1-A) to see how the cooler would respond to higher airflow.
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(Edit 11-16-04: As you can see, the Vantec Tornado fan is actually made by Sunon. Removing the reseller’s label from the backside of the fan uncovers the Sunon label.)
The following data is presented for comparative purposes only. Your actual results may be different depending on the variables unique to your system (CPU, overclock, ambient temperature, case air flow, temperature monitoring, etc).
CPU — Temperature reported by Asus PC Probe utility (internal diode)
Tc — Temperature obtained with calibrated thermocouple attached to IHS
Delta T — Fully loaded Tc temperature rise above ambient
dBA — Sound pressure level recorded 3′ away (background ~30 dBA)
For comparison, here are the results from several other popular HSF’s for the K8 platform and the stock OEM aluminum HSF that comes bundled with the Athlon 64 3200+. All HSF’s were tested on the same CPU under the same conditions.
- Cooler Master Hyper 6 with included 80mm CM variable speed fan
- Cooler Master Hyper 48 with included 92mm Delta low speed fan at 12 VDC
- Thermalright XP-120 with 120mm Panaflo L1A at 12 VDC
- Gigabyte 3D Rocket Cooler-Pro with integrated, variable speed, blower-style fan
- Zalman CNSP7000A-CU with integrated Zalman variable speed fan
- Athlon 64 3200+ OEM aluminum heatsink with included 70mm fan
As you can see, both of the Swiftech MCX-V series coolers did a very good job of quietly cooling the stock Athlon 64 processor. With the additional airflow provided by a higher speed, higher flow fan the cooling performance increased noticeably, but so did the noise.
The following chart shows the relationship between the thermal resistance of each heatsink (C/W) and airflow.
As you would expect, each cooler responds to increased airflow with lower C/W values, which translates to lower CPU operating temperatures. For a processor dissipating 70 watts of heat, the resultant temperature difference between the two coolers is roughly 1.9ºC~1.4ºC (depending on airflow), which appears consistent with my test results.
