Corsair COOL Water Cooling

Testing

For testing purposes I used the following system:

• AMD 3500+ Winchester
• DFI NF4 SLI-DR
• 1GB (2x512MB)Corsair XMS 4400C25PT
• OCZ Power Stream 520W PSU
• Cooler Master Centurion 5 case
• MS Windows XP Professional w/SP2
• Arctic Silver 5 thermal Compound
• All tests were run in a controlled environment of 74F (+/- 1F)

After installing the cooling system I ran it under normal operating conditions for a week to allow the thermal compound to settle as well as let the system settle in. For testing purposes, I ran Sisoft Sandra’s System Burn-in Wizard for 20 cycles at 100% CPU usage while at stock system settings. I then ran the system at various overclocking settings with various voltages to stress the system and cooler. I used Arctic Silver 5 as the thermal compound during installation because nothing else touches my system, just a personal preference, but after some bad experiences with other products, I will use or recommend nothing else.

For 2.2GHz I used the system default multiplier (200×11, 1.425V) and let the system run for 20 minutes to get an accurate reading.

As you can see, the Corsair Cool did a more than adequate job of cooling my processor, even at lower stress levels. Equally impressive was how rapidly the cooling system returned the processor to its idle temperature, in this case less than 7 minutes!

Moving right along I increased the settings on my system to incrementally stress the Cool. I set the system to 2.4GHz (240×10, 1.5V) Again the Cool did an outstanding job of cooling the processor while at idle, at this point 8C below that of my great Thermalright heat sink.

Again, I ran Sisoft Sandra’s Burn In wizard for 20 cycles, recording the temperature at the conclusion of the final cycle. While the Cool kept the processor at an incredibly cool 33C, the mosfets on my board, as well as the chipset, were both hovering slightly over 50C! Again, the Cool not only did an outstanding job cooling my processor under load, but also returned the system to its idle temperature in just under 10 minutes! Obviously the Delphi pump is moving some serious water!

2.6GHz (260×10, 1.6v) was the max I felt comfortable pushing the system to while using air cooling….not only is this a test system, but its my baby…..and I wouldn’t risk damaging it for anyone!

I was extremely impressed with the Cools idle temperature. While it did hover right around 30C, it stayed at 29 for over an hour while I finished up some other work. After the last cycle of testing I was extremely happy to see that the Cool maxed out at 36C while under load at 2.6GHz. While everyone knows that the AMD Winchester series is an extremely cool processor, getting 2.6GHz without cracking 40C is very nice.

While I am extremely impressed with this system, I cannot wait for Corsair to introduce some more water blocks to implement into this system as both the mosfets and chipset easily broke 50C while testing at both 2.4 and 2.6GHz. Regardless, this is a good lesson for everyone in that you need to keep an eye on ALL of your components while overclocking.

As a side note I have been playing with this system and various settings, running 1.65V through my Winchester without breaking 32C at idle. I am currently running my system at 272×10 completely stable, while idling at 30C!