Test Hardware Configuration
To simulate real-world conditions, all testing was performed on an Intel P4 Extreme Edition LGA775 955 dual core CPU inside a closed mid-tower case. The following equipment was used.
Test Rig Configuration
- SilverStone SST-TJ05 mid-tower case1,2
- Asus P5N32-SLI Deluxe motherboard
- Pentium 4 Extreme Edition dual core 955 @ 3.46 GHz
- (2) Corsair CM2X512-8000UL DDR2
- nVIDIA 7800 GTX 512 MB video card
- Western Digital WD1200JD S-ATA HDD
- SilverStone Zeus ST75ZF 750W PSU
- Windows XP Pro with SP2
- nVIDIA 91.31 nForce driver
1Two 120mm case cooling fans, one in front, one in the back
2Rear stamped case fan grill removed and replaced with wire grill
Heatsinks and Fans
The Thermlaright HR-01 passive heatsink was tested in passive mode (no fan or fan duct) and pseudo-passive mode using the Thermalright 120mm Fan Duct that comes with the HR-01. When using the fan duct, air is pulled thru the HR-01 by the rear 120mm SilverStone case fan (1,900 rpm).
HR-01 in Passive Cooling Mode
HR-01 in Psuedo-Passive Cooling Mode using Thermalright 120mm Fan Duct
An Antec 120mm TriCool fan was used with the XP-120 and Ultra-120 heatsinks at three different speeds (2,000 — 1,600 — 1,200 rpm). The stock SilverStone case fans were used during all the tests.
XP-120 in Active Cooling Mode
Ultra-120 in Active Cooling Mode
Test Instruments
To facilitate taking more accurate CPU temperature measurements, a very small Omega thermocouple was attached to the side of the P4-955 IHS with Arctic Alumina thermal epoxy. Two Barnant Model 115 digital thermometers (accuracy +/- 0.4º C) were used to measure CPU/IHS and internal case air temperatures. A FLUKE 52 II digital thermometer was used to measure the ambient room air temperature.
Software Utilities
- Lavalys Everest Ultimate Edition 2006 (hardware monitoring)
- Asus PC Probe II (hardware monitoring)
- CPUBurn (load the CPU)
Note: Four instances of CPUBurn were executed at the same time (two to load both physical cores, and two to load the two virtual HyperThreading cores), which resulted in 100% CPU usage.