Testing Configuration and Benchmarks Used

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To verify that the cooler kit operates up to specs, the Raystorm D5 Photon RX480 V3 water cooling kit was tested with the CPU running at stock and at a known stable overclocking speed using Z77-based and Z87-based motherboards, so that comparative results could be provided for both Ivy Bridge and Haswell-based systems. Additionally, the cooler was run with the CPU at stock and at a known stable overclocking speed using Z87-based motherboard with the GTX 780 graphics card at stock speeds integrated into the cooling loop. The results are presented for the cooling kit under review as well as the XSPC Raystorm 750 EX240 water cooling kit, Koolance EXT-440CU Liquid Cooling System, Cooler Master Glacer 240L liquid cooler, Corsair H100i water cooler, and the Thermalright SilverArrow SB-E air cooler for performance comparison purposes. The benchmark tests used should give you a good understanding of the cooler's capabilities so that you, the reader, can make a more informed purchasing decision. The comparison coolers were selected based on their superior performance capabilities.

Test System Setup
CPU Intel Z77-based system
Intel Core i5-3570K
Stock – 3.4GHz, 34 x 100MHz Base Clock
Overclocked – 4.4GHz, 42 x 105MHz Base Clock

Intel Z87-based system
Intel Core i7-4770K
Stock – 3.5GHz, 35 x 100MHz Base Clock
Overclocked – 4.68GHz, 28 x 167MHz Base Clock
Motherboards MSI Z77 MPOWER
MSI Z87 MPOWER
Memory Intel Z77-based system
G.SKILL 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-2133 modules
Stock – 1600MHz, 11-11-11-30-1T
Overclocked – 1960MHz, 11-11-11-30-1T

Intel Z87-based system
Corsair Vengeance Pro 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1866 modules
Stock – 1600MHz, 9-10-9-27-1T
Overclocked – 1780MHz, 9-10-9-27-1T
Hard Drive Samsung 840 EVO 250GB SSD
Intel 520 240GB SSD
Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB SATA III HD
Sound Card On-board sound
Video Card Intel Z77-based system
MSI R7870 Hawk 2GB

Intel Z87-based system
ASUS Poseidon GTX 780 3GB graphics card
CPU Cooling XSPC Raystorm D5 Photon RX480 V3 water cooling kit
XSPC Raystorm 750 EX240 water cooling kit
Koolance EXT-440CU Liquid Cooling System
Cooler Master Glacer 240L CPU cooler
Corsair Hydro Series™ H100i Extreme Performance CPU Cooler
Thermalright SilverArrow SB-E CPU Air Cooler
Video Drivers AMD Catalyst 13.12
NVIDIA 335.23
Power Supply Corsair 650
Corsair HX750
Operating System Windows 7 Ultimate x64
Thermal Paste MG Chemicals 860-60G Silicone Heat Transfer Compound
Coolant XSPC Raystorm 750 EX240 kit and Glacer 240L cooler
1 liter Distilled water
3 capfuls Redline Water Wetter
1 capful Iodine (10% solution)
1 drop PT Nuke

XSPC Raystorm D5 Photon RX480 V3 kit and Koolance kit
Koolance LIQ-702 High Performance Liquid Coolant

The 64-bit Windows 7 based test bench used for Z77 LGA1155 board testing includes an Intel Core i5-3570K CPU, 8GB of DDR3-2133 memory, an MSI R7870 Hawk 2GB video card, and an Intel 520 240GB SSD drive. Using the selected components gives us the ability to demonstrate the cooling system's capabilities rather than that of the system components.

The 64-bit Windows 7 based test bench used for Intel Z87 LGA1150 board testing includes an Intel Core i5-4770K CPU, 16GB of DDR3-1866 memory, ASUS Poseidon GTX 780 3GB graphics card, and a Samsung 840 EVO 250GB SSD drive. Using the selected components gives us the ability to demonstrate the cooling system's capabilities rather than that of the system components.

Benchmark Tests used for evaluation:

  • LinX Intel Linpack Benchmark v0.6.4 (Intel Z77-based testing)
  • AIDA64 Engineer Edition v4.30 (Intel Z87-based testing)
  • Geeks3D FurMark v1.10.2
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