Test System & Methodology
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.
Software Used
- CPUID HWMonitor
- Cinebench R23
- Unigine Superposition
