As you may appreciate, we review a lot of coolers here at eTeknix. As such, our prior results sheet was getting more than a little crowded. We have, therefore, applied a new system in which we have picked those coolers we consider most popular, recent, or most relevant to this design.
Test system:
NZXT Z690 ATX
Intel Core i9-12900K @ stock and & 4.9 GHz all P-Core 4 GHz E-Core 1.3v
Aorus RTX 2080
16GB Crucial DDR4 4400 MHz
512GB NVMe SSD
Thermaltake Tough Power 750W
NZXT H7 Flow RGB Case
All testing is conducted using NT-H1 thermal paste
We’d like to say a big thank you to Gigabyte, Noctua, Crucial, Intel, Thermaltake, NZXT and more for providing us with the above testing equipment and their ongoing support.
Testing Methodology
We always use Noctua Noctua NT-H1 thermal paste to make sure testing reveals the efficiency of the tested coolers not the efficiency of the bundled thermal paste
Cinebench R23 is run for 10 minutes to calculate “load” results
Unigine Superposition is run for 10 minutes to calculate “gaming” results
Multiple readings are taken with the average of the package temperatures calculated for our recorded result
Fans are left to operate at default PWM profile speeds unless otherwise stated
For water cooling tests, all pumps have been operated at 12 volts unless otherwise stated
Ambient temperatures should be between 21-23 degrees in all our tests unless otherwise stated
Acoustic measurements are taken 10cm horizontally and 10cm vertically away from the CPU cooler with the VGA fan disabled
Stock tests are performed using “out of the box” settings for the CPU
All coolers were tested under identical settings unless otherwise stated.
There is approximately a 1-degree Celsius margin of error in our temperature recording software CPUID HW Monitor
There is approximately a 1.5dBA margin of error with our Benetech GM1351 decibel meter
In all these graphs we may have a few “reference” results of particular products that do not fit within that category for comparative purposes.
As a child still in my 30's (but not for long), I spend my day combining my love of music and movies with a life-long passion for gaming, from arcade classics and retro consoles to the latest high-end PC and console games. So it's no wonder I write about tech and test the latest hardware while I enjoy my hobbies!