Nexus XiR-2300 Aluminium Edition Real Silent CPU Cooler Review
Andy Ruffell / 14 years ago
Test Setup
As part of the testing process it’s important to keep conditions consistent throughout the entire process. The room temperature was 20 degrees throughout testing. The following hardware was used to test each cooler:
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| Test System | |
|---|---|
| Processor (CPU) |
AMD Phenom II X2 560 Black Edition
|
| Motherboard |
MSI 770-C45
|
| Memory (RAM) |
4GB Corsair 1333 MHz DDR3
|
| Graphics Card |
HIS HD5770 1GB DDR5
|
| Primary Hard Drive |
Seagate 7200.12 500GB
|
| Case & Power Supply | Antec 1200 + Corsair HX620 |
| Operating System |
Windows 7 Home Edition 64-bit SP1
|
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As part of this test process we will be using the following coolers to compare against the Nexus ViR-2300 CPU Cooler.
- Zalman CNPS 9500 AM2
- Tuniq Tower 120
- Arctic Freezer 64 Pro
- AMD Stock Cooler – Heatpipe version which comes shipped with the Phenom II Series of CPUs
We will be testing all the Coolers in the following environments:
- Idle Temperature at the stock speed of 3.3GHz
- Load Temperature at the stock speed of 3.3GHz
- Idle Temperature when overclocked to 4.0GHz
- Load Temperature when overclocked to 4.0GHz
All of the temperatures are of the overall CPU temperature and not the individual core temperatures and were checked using both SpeedFan and HWMonitor throughout the testing process. All coolers and the CPU were cleaned with Tim and were tested using Arctic MX-2 compound.
The Idle temperature was monitored for 15 minutes after windows had completed booting and the CPU was in an idle state. The temperature was then recorded. If the temperature was not static after 15 minutes then the most dominant temperature throughout the testing was used.
To gain the load temperature we run Prime95 for 15minutes. In each case the load test was run straight after the idle test to ensure fair testing. If the temperature was not static after 15 minutes then the most dominant temperature throughout the testing was used.
