Overclocking And Heat

The Pentium Extreme Edition 955 has great overclocking potential as long as it's kept cool. Testing revealed that the processor would crash consistently at 79 degrees Celsius, so every attempt was made to increase clock speed within that temperature threshold.

The highest processor speed and voltage at which the Scythe Ninja Plus Revision B could stay within the EE955's heat-stability limit was 4.12 GHz at 1.30V. Raising the core voltage to 1.45 V allowed all the TEC coolers to support the CPU at 4.33 GHz. Any further increase in clock speed required another increase in CPU core voltage, resulting in an eventual system crash as temperatures exceeded the 79°C level.

At 4.12 GHz, the Ninja Plus Rev. B is already reaching this processor's maximum stable temperature, while the TEC coolers have a little more room to play.

At 4.33 GHz, the TEC coolers reach their limits, and the Ninja Plus Rev. B is past its capabilities. Even though the Titan Amanda uses two fans while the Monsoon II Lite and Ultra ChillTec each have only one, the single fan of the later two coolers seems to be more effective. Even so, any further increase in core voltage pushed heat levels beyond the capabilities of all three TEC coolers.