Testing

The Ultra-X HSF was tested on a red-hot Pentium 4 EE based test rig consisting of the components listed below.  The ambient room air temperature was maintained at 23°C ±0.5°C.  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.

 

Test Rig Configuration

 

  • Asus P5N32-SLI Deluxe motherboard
  • Pentium 4 Extreme Edition dual core 955 @ 3.46 GHz
  • (2) Corsair CM2X512-8000UL DDR2
  • (2) nVIDIA 7800 GTX 512 MB video cards in SLI
  • Western Digital WD1200JD S-ATA HDD
  • SilverStone Zeus ST75ZF 750W PSU
  • Windows XP Pro with SP2
  • nVIDIA 91.31 nForce driver

Enzotech Ultra-X Active CPU Cooler Review - Cases and Cooling 23

 

Tests were conducted using the bundled Delta 120mm high speed fan at four different speed settings ranging from 2,600 rpm to 1,200 rpm.  A small Omega thermocouple is attached to the side of the 955 IHS with Arctic Alumina thermal epoxy to provide accurate CPU temperatures.  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)

Software Utilities

 

  • Lavalys Everest Ultimate Edition 2006 (hardware monitoring)
  • Asus PC Probe II (hardware monitoring)
  • CPUBurn (load the CPU)

For comparison, I included the results from three other popular HSFs for LGA775 platform.  All HSFs were tested on the same EE 955 CPU under the same conditions.

 

  • Thermaltake Big Typhoon VX
  • Thermalright XP-120 with Antec TriCool 3-speed fan
  • Thermalright Ultra-120 with Antec TriCool 3-speed 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).   

 

Enzotech Ultra-X Active CPU Cooler Review - Cases and Cooling 24

 

Amb — Ambient room air temperature

CPU — Temperature reported by Everest utility (internal diode)

Tc — Temperature obtained with calibrated thermocouple attached to 955 IHS

∆T — Fully loaded Tc temperature rise above ambient temperature

dBA — Sound pressure level recorded 3′ away (background ~30 dBA)

 

Note: My original P5N32-SLI Deluxe motherboard died awhile back and the CPU temperature reported by the replacement board is so far off (~20°C) its not worth mentioning — the thermocouple attached to the 955 IHS is much more reliable.

 

The Enzotech Ultra-X did an excellent job of keeping the fully loaded CPU cool — even the red-hot EE 955.  When operating at High speed (2,600 rpm) the fan noise was approaching loud.  Using the included fan speed controller to slow the fan down reduced the noise considerably and at Low speed (1,200 rpm) the cooler was very quiet and still delivered good cooling performance.  This combination offers a lot of flexibility.  Gamers and overclockers who aren’t too worried about noise can opt for maximum cooling while other users can maintain a quiet computing experience and still obtain good cooling.

 

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