System and testing methodology

We tested the cooler on the following system, mounted both on an open bench both inside the newest Silverstone Raven 3 case (with two AP181 Air Penetrator fans set to full speed by the appropriate regulator to make the most of the chimney effect), with an ambient temperature of about 25°C.

In the Raven 3 a GTX 480 was used instead of the 5450 and a 700w Xigmatek power supply. Recall that the Silverstone Raven 3 case is characterized by the positioning of the motherboard into a 90 degrees clockwise rotated position, so that the air flow is more linear and that the "chimney" effect is exploited.

We chose to use a Core i7 920 revision D0 CPU because it can properly put stress on the heat sink, thanks to its TDP of around 130W at default. The temperatures were compared with those of the Noctua NH-C14, the newest Scythe Mugen3 and the newcomer Scythe Kozuti, a very interesting and of new concept low-profile cooler. The other heat sinks were tested only at the banquet.

We measured the temperatures at idle and full load with the Realtemp software. The temperature at full load were measured after 25 minutes of Prime95 stress "InPlaceLargeFFTs" (maximum stress and consumption), benchmark known for its ability to heavily stress the CPU, much more than any video game.

With regard to measurements, they were performed with fan speed set to a minimum and maximum speed, using the BIOS settings specifically on silent (1050/1100 rpm) and turbo (1250/1300 rpm); in addition to this we used the sink also in fanless configuration, within the Raven 3. The thermal paste used is Arctic Cooling MX-4.

We used three different test sessions, with the following frequencies: