Testing

The Asus Chilly Vent Lux CPU cooler was tested on an open frame Athlon64 K8 test rig consisting of the components listed below.  The ambient room air temperature was maintained at 24°C ±0.5°C and the CPU was loaded by running CPUBurn 24/7.  Tests were conducted with the bundled Everflow fan at three different fan speeds:

 

  • High              2,100 rpm
  • Medium         1,650 rpm
  • Low              1,200 rpm

Asus Chilly Vent Lux AMD CPU Cooler Review - Cases and Cooling 21

 

  • Asus K8N-E Deluxe nForce3-250 motherboard
  • AMD Athlon64 3200+ (0.13 mm Newcastle core)
  • Seasonic SuperTornado 400 watt ATX power supply
  • (2) Corsair CMX512-3200C2  DDR RAM
  • ATI Radeon 9800 Pro
  • WD800JB IDE HDD
  • Windows XP Pro with SP2

To facilitate taking more accurate CPU temperature measurements, a very small Omega thermocouple is attached 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)

For comparison, I included the results from several other popular HSFs for the K8 platform and the stock OEM aluminum cooler that comes bundled with the Athlon 64 3200+.  All of these HSFs use downward airflow and were tested on the same CPU under the same conditions.

 

  • Thermalright XP-90c with 80mm Panaflo L1A, 92mm SilenX, and 92mm Panaflo M1A,
  • Arctic Cooling Freezer 64 Pro (stock fan at 12V and 7V)
  • Cooler Master Hyper 6 with 80mm CM variable speed fan
  • Zalman CNSP7000A-CU with integrated Zalman variable speed fan
  • Athlon 64 3200+ OEM aluminum heatsink with 70mm fan

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). 

 

Asus Chilly Vent Lux AMD CPU Cooler Review - Cases and Cooling 22

 

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)

 

Thermal performance of the Asus Chilly Vent Lux is comparable with the stock cooler that comes bundled with most OEM AMD processors.  The Chilly Vent’s main strengths continue to be quiet operation, easy installation, small size, and affordability — not high-performance.   And the Chilly Vent Lux’s vertical airflow can help cool other components around the CPU socket area like VRMs (voltage regulators).

 

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