Evercool Buffalo CPU Cooler Review

Test Setup
[COLOR=#000000][FONT=Tahoma]Testing will be quite rigorous and we will be using for comparison purposes the Akasa Venom, 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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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]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]