Testing

The Aquagate Mini R120 water-cooling system was tested on an open frame K8 test rig consisting of the following components.  The ambient room air temperature was maintained at 23°C ±0.5°C.  The CPU was loaded by running Folding@Home 24/7.  Several dozen temperature reading were recorded and averaged over 3~5 days for each test.  Total run time was approximately four weeks.

 

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  • Asus K8N-E Deluxe nForce3-250 motherboard
  • AMD Athlon 64 3200+ (200 FSB x 11.0 at 1.5Vcore)
  • Seasonic SuperTornado 400 watt ATX power supply
  • (2) Corsair CMX512-3200C2 Pro DDR RAM
  • ATI Radeon 9800 Pro AGP
  • WD800JB IDE HDD
  • Sony 16X DVD, FDD
  • Windows XP Pro with SP1

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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)

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). 

 

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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 with air-cooling, here are the results from several high performance HSFs for the K8 platform and the stock OEM aluminum HSF that comes bundled with the Athlon 64 3200+.  All were tested on the same CPU under the same conditions.

 

  • Thermalright XP-120 with 120mm Panaflo L1A and 120mm Delta SHE
  • Cooler Master Hyper 6 with 80mm CM variable speed fan and 80mm Vantec Tornado
  • Cooler Master Hyper 48 with 92mm Delta and 92mm Sunon Tornado
  • Athlon 64 3200+ OEM aluminum heatsink with 70mm fan 

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The Aquagate Mini R120 did an excellent job of cooling the Athlon 64 CPU. With its fan running at medium to high speed, it performed very well, matching or beating the results of today’s best HSF’s at equivalent noise levels.  At low speed the R120 was very virtually silent but temperatures increased noticeably. 

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