Radiator Performance Testing
Cooler Testing Methods
To best gage the quality of the system coolers under review, system CPU temperature and cooling system audio measurements were taken with the CPU idle and under load. To replicate CPU idle conditions, the system was rebooted and allowed to sit idle for 30 minutes. To replicate a stress system load, a combination of LinX and FurMark were run over a 1 hour period with LinX running for 500 loops with Memory set to All and FurMark running at 1280×1024 resolution and 2x MSAA in stress test mode. After each run, the system was shut down and allowed to rest for 10 minutes to cool down. Then the CPU heat plate was removed, cleaned, and remounted to the CPU with fresh thermal paste applied. This procedure was repeated a total of six times for each cooler – 3 times for the stock speed runs, and 3 times for the overclocked speed runs.
Temperature measurements were taken directly from the CPU thermistors using RealTemp v3.70. For both the idle and load temperatures, the highest recorded value in the application were used for the run. Note that the temperature values are reported as deltas rather than absolute temperatures with the delta value reported calculated as CPU temperature – ambient temperature.
CPU Stock Speed Testing
The CPU stock speed testing was conducted with the BIOS defaults set for the CPU and Turbo Mode disabled, equating to a 3.4GHz CPU speed, 1600MHz memory speed, and 100MHz base clock. The Intel Speedstep functionality remained enabled for the duration of the testing to get realistic CPU idle performance conditions.
The performance spread at stock CPU speeds remained tight between the three radiator setups with the XSPC RX360 slightly outperforming both the single and dual Swiftech MCR 320-QP radiator configurations. However, the temperature delta difference under load between the single Swiftech MCR 320-QP and the XSPC RX360 is a mere 2 degrees Celsius. This indicates that the none of the radiators are really being taxed by the heat load generated by the stock speed CPU. The Corsair H110 unit remains competitive because of its dual-fan, 140mm radiator.
CPU Overclocked Speed Testing
The CPU overclocked speed testing was conducted with known stable settings from a previous board review for the CPU and Turbo Mode disabled, equating to a 4.4GHz CPU speed, 1960MHz memory speed, and 105MHz base clock. The Intel Speedstep functionality remained enabled for the duration of the testing to get realistic CPU idle performance conditions.
Board voltage settings were configured as follows:
- CPU Core Voltage – 1.2750
- CPU I/O Voltage – 1.150
- DRAM Voltage – 1.6255
- System Agent Voltage(SA) – 1.0850
- CPU PLL Voltage – 1.7500
- PCH 1.05 – 1.0995
This get a bit more interesting with the temperature delta numbers under load with the CPU overclocked. The performance spread between the three radiator configurations continued to remain tight at a 4 degree difference between the best and worst performer. The single Swiftech MCR 320-QP radiator's performance lagged the dual radiator configuration by 3 degrees Celsius and the XSPC RX360 radiator by 4 degrees Celsius. I expected the dual Swiftech radiator configuration and the XSPC radiator configuration to remain close, but the performance of the single Swiftech radiator configuration was surprising. The dual Swiftech and XSPC configurations have similar heat dissipation characteristics due their similarity in cooling surface volume – two of the Swiftech MCR 320-QP radiators about match the thickness of the single XSPC RX360 radiator.
Please do more water cooling
Please do more water cooling articles!! Love this stuff!
Good to see some water
Good to see some water cooling reviews here. Now to convince EK to send stuff.
FPI does help quite a bit. Have a BlackIce Xtreme 360mm rad with 20fpi cooling an i7 3820 and 7970. Works quite well even though it does sound like a wind tunnel at times. How long was the loop left running and is there any thoughts as to if different fans would affect the cooling performance?
We *may* have one of more
We *may* have one of more EK-related articles coming out in the future.
As far as the testing, I let the loop run for an hr at a time at load and took the highest core temperature recorded by RealTemp and repeated this three times. The idle numbers were obtained in the same manner but with the system left idle for at l0 minutes. Between each run, the thermal paste was removed and reapplied.
As far as fan performance testing, I kept that static during these tests to reduce the number of variables affecting performance. By using the same fans and loop makeup for all three radiator tests, it is easier to make conclusions concerning the performance of the radiators themselves.
Good to know and thanks for
Good to know and thanks for the reply.
Morry, watercooling is like
Morry, watercooling is like an SSD. Buy a trusted brand name part, and relative performance doesn’t really matter. The change will be mindblowing no matter what.
I agree, water cooling is
I agree, water cooling is mind blowing, but does take a bit of work – especially when using a custom loop and not one of the pre-made cooling systems. The yearly cleaning is always "fun"…
Just as an FYI for anyone
Just as an FYI for anyone that doesn’t follow watercooling, Martin at http://martinsliquidlab.org/ does good scientific hardware testing on fans/pumps/radiators. I believe these two rads were tested as part of his radiator roundup which can be used as a second opinion or verification of results.
Good stuff indeed. Very
Good stuff indeed. Very interesting results. Nice job.
Morry, maybe you could do some fan testing at some point and write as useful article on that.
What surprises me the most
What surprises me the most about this review is how well the Corsair H110 holds up against much more expensive custom water cooling setups. I know the custom water cooling people hate the all in one kits such as those from Corsair and now I can see why. Much better bang for the buck and a LOT less hassle!
The thing with watercooling
The thing with watercooling is that its a lot of work to figure out how to build a system. I bet 100 bucks that everybody who runs a watercooled system know how it feels when a radiator or something else doesnt fit a you thought.
Or something is leaking or whatever…
The point is if you dont want to have a lot of work, stay with air cooling and if you want it quiet you better buy the more expensive stuff like EK. Just to make sure it will work.
That’s what power tools are
That’s what power tools are for. Yes it can be a lot of work, but if done well can be amazing.
EK makes some fine stuff, but
EK makes some fine stuff, but there are many other decent vendors of watercooling peripherals out there also – Swiftech, Bitspower, XSPC, Aquacool, Heatkiller, even Koolance – to name a few…
The different FPI
The different FPI configurations of radiators affect how well they respond to air flow. Higher FPI allows for better heat dissipation at lower fan speeds. Low FPI allows more airflow such that at higher fan speeds they outperform the high FPI radiators.
The trade off point between the two approaches is typically around 1600rpm depending on the exact model of the fan and its static pressure and other characteristics. Since the Coolermaster fans used are 2000 rpm (very high for a watercooling loop by the way) then it heavily favours the lower FPI configuration. In order to test radiators correctly and show this difference you need to vary the fan speed and fans used. Investing in some Gentle Typhoon AR15’s for example would be a good idea as these produce near enough the best performance you can get from a fan on a radiator at a lower noise level than the competition.
If you want to learn how to test watercooling equipment well I highly recommend going through the reviews on the xtremesystems.com forums and martins labs. They have quite advanced methods which isolate the various components and will give you an idea how to do these types of reviews better.
I would liken this as a review of a graphics card with a single average FPS figure in todays market. Its lacking in necessary detail and fatally flawed as an approach.
The thing about watercooling
The thing about watercooling is that there is little point in only cooling the CPU unless you are a mad overclocker.
Watercooling though allows you to cool both CPU & GPU for minimal extra noise (and a fair bit extra cost!). You end up with a high performance ultra low noise machine
I originally got into
I originally got into watercooling many years ago before all the mass produced components and all-in-ones were popular as a way to boost my CPU clocks. I overclock not only because I like the challenge of it, but I can't afford the $500 – $1000 for the top of the line Intel chip (kids are expensive). Watercooling does reduce noise, but I and probably many others, do it to push there budget procs as far as they'll go.
GPU waterblocks are more of an add-in in my opinion – they are a bit pricey and are only usable on a single card. If your lucky (and get inventive with the hold-downs) you can use the same CPU block across many proc families…
Tell me if I’m missing
Tell me if I’m missing something here, but if your temperature difference is 3 degrees between using one radiator and two of the same radiators, you’re not testing this properly. Maybe it has to do with the fact that you sandwiched it, using hot air on the second rad instead of introducing fresh air on both rads. That set-up will never happen in an actual build.
Seems to me this test is
Seems to me this test is flawed because copper has a thermal conductivity of 400 – k – W/(m.K) while brass is only
109 – k – W/(m.K)
So while both the XSPC RX360 and the Swiftech MCR 320-QP have copper fins the XSPC RX360 has Copper Body material and the Swiftech MCR 320-QP has Brass body material. I assume the body includes the water passages between the fins, therefore heat transfer to the copper fins is greatly reduced by the brass. Also the brass water passage ways would not be as hot, so less cooling effect as more of the heat stays in the water itself.
you guys never answered this
you guys never answered this lets say u have a liquid cooler pump and reservoir but no radiator will their be a huge difference if u add a radiator to the pump?? if so by how many degress by more then 5 degress?? or wuld adding a radiator only affect the temp by a few degress?? what u think??
The radiator of liquid
The radiator of liquid cooling is a key component. If you have a functional loop without a radiator, the heated liquid has no place to cool down, and as such will heat up the loop and the components you are trying to cool down. However, if you meant with or without a fan, that can be an interesting question. Though I believe that having a minimum of one fan to move air through the fins, and thus transporting the heat out of the loop and into the room is definitely a must.
I was doing some research on
I was doing some research on cooling for race cars. I find it interesting that computer are so cooling needy. As they say in racing “power is heat and heat is power”. If I may suggest that you tried unpainted radiators. The paint acts as an insulator a lot more than the color black dissipates heat. This way you may be able to use a smaller cooler (less $).