Thermal Performance Benchmarks

We can see right away that a 3.68 GHz Core 2 Duo with 1.4v of core voltage will push all of these coolers pretty hard. The lone air cooler in our test - the Cooler master HyperTX 2 - struggles at 72 degrees Celsius under load, and that’s definitely higher than we are comfortable with. Perhaps the HyperTX 2 could handle this CPU speed in a case with more airflow, but this isn’t a temperature we’d be happy to live with long term.

The Swiftech H20-120 Compact does a passable job under load when the fan is set to 7 volts, but at 66 degrees Celsius it’s on the edge of what we find acceptable on this overclocked processor.

At the 12v fan setting, the Swiftech H20-120 does much better, with a load temperature of 60 degrees. That’s acceptable to us and leaves a little wiggle room for changing ambient temperature.

Note the low idle temperatures of the TEC/liquid hybrid coolers like the Freezone and Eliminator. The load temperature of the Eliminator is very similar to the Swiftech, which explains it’s similar but slightly higher price tag.

The Freezone achieves the best load temperature of the competitors, but keep in mind that it’s a much more expensive system. It should also be noted that the Freezone displayed some interesting characteristics, first allowing the CPU temperature to rise to 64 degrees before lowering it to 53 degrees. It was as though it was monitoring the temperature and then decided to increase its performance when the going got tough.