Cooling Efficiency and Acoustic Performance

Cooling Efficiency Tests

The results obtained during our test session are given on the diagram below:

And again, no wonder happened. In fact, what happened was a pretty usual thing for compact cooling systems: they lost to a decent air cooler indisputably. And today’s defeat is honestly a real fiasco for all three cooling solutions tested, because losing 13ºC even to a very efficient air cooler is an inexcusable mistake for innovative solutions and liquid-cooling systems. It may determine their future in a not the most favorable manner.

Nevertheless, I would still like to point out one of our testing participants specifically. It is Akasa Revo. At first, I really doubted that it would work at all, but then this practically weightless cooler turned out capable of dealing with an overclocked quad-core processor! The “magic bubble” system does work, though not as efficiently as we may have wanted it to. However, practice makes perfect.

Now let’s check out the results of our noise measurements.

Acoustic Tests

We measured the level of noise generated by our today’s testing participants from a 3cm, 1m and 3m distance. The results are given on the diagram below:

The situation here is pretty sad, as you may see. Under peak workload none of the tested cooling systems remained within comfortable acoustic range and the noisiest one is XIGMATEK solution. The results obtained at minimal fan rotation speeds are not given here, because as you may have guessed, 92mm fans of the Akasa Revo and AURAS Conditioner as well as the 80mm fan of XIGMATEK AIO-S80DP rotating at around ~1100RPM or less will not be audible against the background noise from the rest of the system case. I would only like to add that I didn’t detect any motor crackling by any of the coolers.