Cooling Efficiency Tests

As you understand, when we ran the tests using different utilities our 45nm quad-core processor overclocked differently with the cooler working in quiet mode. Here are the results:

• LinX (Linpack 32-bit) – 3.78 GHz at ~1.5 V;
• OCCT 2.0.0а – 3.95 GHz at ~1.56 V;
• Unreal Tournament 3 – 4.05 GHz at ~1.56 V.

The detailed results for both coolers are given in the table below (click to enlarge) and on the diagram. The results are grouped according to the testbed type (case or open testbed) and according to the noise level:

Click to enlarge

In fact, there is barely any difference between the two. Thermaltake BigTyp 14Pro proved as efficient as one of the best air-coolers (or maybe even THE best air-cooler). Thermalright SI-128 SE is just a little bit ahead of the competitor in OCCT burn mode and even less ahead in Linpack. However, we can say that both coolers are equally efficient with an overclocked quad-core processor.

Installing an alternative 140-mm fan onto Thermaltake BigTyp 14Pro doesn’t make any significant difference. The cooler shows ~3.5°C better result in Linpack only in quiet mode in a closed system case. In all other test modes the default fan of the Thermaltake BigTyp 14Pro yields 1°C at the most to the Scythe Kaze Maru, which may be written off to the rotation speed difference (almost 200 RPM in favor of Scythe). It is hard to tell, but if Kaze Maru had been of the same height as the default BigTyp 14Pro fan, it could have had a bigger efficiency advantage. Unfortunately, we didn’t have a 140 x 30/38 mm fan at our disposal at the time of tests.

Although there are no results for the good old Thermaltake Big Typhoon cooler (we don’t have it in our lab any more), it is fairly easy to actually compare against it. If you remember, Thermaltake have MaxOrb cooler in their product range that we compared against Big Typhoon back in the days and that fell only a little behind it. And right now we have already completed testing MaxOrb EX (the article will be coming out shortly) that proved 1-2°C more efficient than its counterpart. So, we can actually say that Thermaltake Big Typhoon and MaxOrb EX coolers are equally efficient (with a few allowances).

Now that we made this conclusion, we decided to simply add the results for MaxOrb EX into our today’s Super Cooler battle, however, the latter turned out unable to ensure the same processor frequencies as achieved with Thermaltake BigTyp 14Pro and Thermalright SI-128 SE. Once we lowered the CPU frequency to 3.65GHz and Vcore to ~1.45V, we could get our CPU with MaxOrb EX to finally pass Linpack test twice with CPU temperature at 84°C. In the same testing conditions Thermaltake BigTyp 14Pro cooled the CPU ~8°C better. In other words, the new flagship solution from Thermaltake is about 8°C more efficient than the legendary Big Typhoon.