Akasa Venom CPU Cooler

Test Setup
[COLOR=#000000][FONT=Tahoma]Testing will be quite rigorous and will be using for comparison purposes the Akasa 968 (retails at around £20 and is designed for X4 processors) and the AMD stock cooler. These coolers will all be used on my standard rig below:
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[COLOR=#000000][FONT=Tahoma]Firstly, we will test all 3 coolers with the processor at its stock speed of 3.4 GHz and measure the core temperature after 20 minutes(we will start timing from 1 minute after log-on has commenced to allow all the services to load). The computer will be left to idle with only the standard windows services running and no extra applications running as this will allow the temperature to settle while the processor usage will be less than 1%. All settings will be set to automatic for this test including the CPU fan speed (which is effectively set to maximum). [/FONT][/COLOR]

[COLOR=#000000][FONT=Tahoma]Secondly we will test all 3 coolers with the processor at an increased speed of 4.0 GHz by only adjusting the CPU multiplier from 17x (FSB is 200 MHz) to 20x giving the 4.0 GHz speed, all other settings will remain the same. This will also last for 20 minutes with the same idle conditions.[/FONT][/COLOR]
[COLOR=#000000][FONT=Tahoma]Thirdly we will run the same tests as above however this time we will run the program Prime 95 for the 20 minutes (we will wait 1 minute after log-on before running Prime 95 to allow all other windows services to reduce to the minimum) and of course no extra applications will be run. If you are not familiar with Prime 95 we are able to run a simple blend test which enables 100% usage across all 4 cores and is a very effective stress tester.[/FONT][/COLOR]

[COLOR=#000000][FONT=Tahoma]Finally, we will test for how efficient the CPU coolers are, by using AMD’s cool and quiet feature as well as using the on-board q-fan controller. AMD’s cool and quiet feature allows the CPU to underclock itself by reducing the CPU multiplier and greenvolting it (using a lower than stock voltage), this allows the CPU to idle at 800 MHz at a voltage of just over 1 V but as soon as load is applied it will clock back up to the pre-set value. In this case we will keep the CPU overclocked at 4 GHz, meaning the CPU multiplier will switch between 4x and 20x giving impressive speeds while keeping things ‘Cool and Quiet’. The q-fan feature which is available on nearly all motherboards allows the CPU fan to be slowed down to a quieter speed when the CPU temperature remains low. As the temperature increases the CPU fan speed will increase proportionally keeping the CPU as cool and quiet as possible. We will be testing this for the same 20 minutes but this time will be recording the fan speed of each as well as the temperature. This will show how efficient the cooler is and how quietly it can maintain temperatures while under more realistic conditions. [/FONT][/COLOR]

[COLOR=#000000][FONT=Tahoma]It must be also noted that we will not be using the thermal paste that comes with the CPU coolers but will be using Arctic’s MX-2 thermal paste, this is an attempt to keep the tests as fair as possible as they should all have the same thermal conductivity with the top of the processor. It will of course all be removed, cleaned and new thermal paste applied with each cooler.[/FONT][/COLOR]