Testbed and Methods
Test Setup

• Case: Vigor Force
• Power Supply: Cooler Master Real Power Pro 850
• Motherboard: Foxconn N68S7AA
• Processor: Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6700, varying MHz
• Hard Drive: Western Digital WD2500KS 7,200RPM
• Video: NVIDIA GeForce 8800GTS
• Sound: Creative X-Fi XtremeMusic
• Physics: ASUS PhysX P1
• Memory: 2048MB (2x1024MB) G.Skill PC2 6400
• Optical Drive: Lite-ON SHW160P6S05
• Cooling: Vigor Monsoon II, OCZ Vindicator, Intel HSF (stock)

Hardware Settings

• CPU Voltage (before droop): 1.35V (stock speed), 1.625V (overclocked)

Software Configuration

• Operating System: Windows XP Professional with Service Pack 2
• Video Driver: NVIDIA ForceWare Version 158.22 (May 17 release)

There really is not much to mention about the test setup we’re using for this test. Hopefully we can manage to keep it the same throughout a good stretch of tests so results are transferable from older articles. The case we’re using is very large and the motherboard is easily removed from it, so installing coolers is significantly easier than with most cases. We would like to have a more open setup in the near future that would make the process even easier, but we have no ETA on that. Furthermore, until we get some thermocouple thermometers to get truly accurate physical temperatures at repeatable locations on the CPU in the general area, we will be using software monitoring. To better provide for software testing, we are going with Intel’s Core 2 Extreme QX6700 processor, as the Core 2 family has a fairly reliable and accurate on-die temperature diode for each core. The program we will be using to monitor the temperature in Windows is RightMark CPU Clock Utility. This utility not only measures load and temperature on each core independently, but also provides a graph to record temperature variance over time.

To generate the load, we will be using an application called BURNK6. BURNK6 was developed in the days of AMD’s K6 core, but works conveniently well with Intel’s latest processors as well. BURNK6 has been proven by industry professionals such as Gabe Rouchon of Swiftech to be extremely effective at loading the CPU in a manner from which the greatest amount of heat is generated. The load generated by BURNK6, which is available as part of the CPUBURN package, remains constant over time, rather than slightly fluctuating such as with Prime95 and/or ORTHOS. A separate instance of BURNK6 will be used for each core on the processor, in this case four. Temperatures will be read from the RightMark CPU Clock Utility after 10 minutes of load (and idle) and the average temperature across all four cores will be reported. Temperatures will be recorded at idle and 100% load for each cooler tested in a given review. The processor will be overclocked to the point of failure with each cooler, and the maximum clock speed will be recorded.