Test System & Benchmarks

A few notes about the test system and benchmarking methodology.

First of all, note that all coolers were benchmarked using Arctic Silver 3 instead of the various thermal pastes or tapes they came with. This was to ensure that all results were obtained from tests conducted on a level playing field.

Temperatures were recorded as reported from the video card's temperature sensor. This was the only way to achieve a "control"; I would have preferred to use an IR thermometer, but the coolers were so vastly different in their configurations that there was no place from which to get a consistent reading across all the products, other than the on-die sensor.

Load temperatures were recorded after 10 minutes of stress testing using the free AtiTool utility version 0.25 beta 14. I have not yet found a game that will raise temperatures more than AtiTool's "scan for artifacts" test, so actual in-game temperatures will likely never hit the levels we see in these tests.

As for sound tests, a microphone was used to record the sound level of the system with no active cooler, and then with the different coolers at their different power levels.

And now, without further delay, let's view the temperature results.