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No Power Limits Thermal Results
Without power limits enforced on Intel’s i7-13700K, the CPU will hit its peak temperature and thermally throttle with even the strongest of air coolers. I’ve generally measured the CPU package power to determine the maximum wattage cooled to best compare these coolers’ performance.
Since the Mini has less heatsink area and only six heatpipes, it unsurprisingly doesn’t perform as well as the original model does in a maximum-intensity load. The mini has a cooling deficit of 15W, and it runs louder, with a recording of 46.9 dBA measured compared to the 45.6 dBA of the original model.
Thermal Results With Noise Normalized to 38.2 dBA
Finding the right balance between fan noise levels and cooling performance is important. While running fans at full speed can improve cooling capacity to some extent, the benefits are limited and many users prefer a quiet system. With this noise-normalized test, I’ve set noise levels to 38.2 dba. This level of noise is a low volume level, but slightly audible to most people.
In this noise-limited test, the Mini shows a small improvement compared to its predecessor. At only 2W of increased cooling power, it’s not the sort of difference you’d notice in generally use, but it is worth noting this improvement nonetheless. What strikes me as both impressive and annoying is that its performance when normalized to 38.2 dBA is only a single watt behind the Mini’s performance when the fans run at 46.9 dBA.
This is impressive when you consider that the Mini doesn’t lose any real performance from lowering the noise levels, but annoying when you consider that this means the fans are much louder than they need to be out of the box, forcing you to set a custom fan curve.
175W Cinebench Results
Most coolers on the market can keep Intel’s i7-13700K under its peak temperature if the power consumption is limited. So for this test, we’ll be looking at the CPU’s actual temperature.
With an average result of 76C over ambient, the results of the Mini are quite frankly disappointing. This is 6C behind its predecessor, and it runs 1.3 dBA louder, with a measurement of 46.9 dBA.
125W Cinebench Results
For the last test, we’re looking at a lower wattage benchmark (for an Intel CPU, that is). The lowest power limit I test with Raptor Lake CPUs is 125W, which is a high enough limit to allow the CPU to maintain its base clock speeds even in the most intensive tests. Most coolers should be capable of keeping the CPU below TJ Max (the max temperature before throttling) – even low-end coolers like the Intel stock cooler.
Really, thermals do not matter in this scenario. Noise levels, rather than CPU temperature, are the most important factor here. That said, the Mini ran 5C cooler than its predecessor here – a rather notable improvement! More significantly, however, is that it ran much quieter than its predecessor – running at only 40.3 dBA, which is 5.3 dBA lower than the original model!To my ears, this feels less than half as loud - but each person’s sensitivity will vary.
Conclusion
With the JF13K Diamond Mini, Jiushark has taken two steps forward and two steps backward. The installation process is much easier and simpler, an improvement I genuinely appreciate. In low-wattage workloads, the mini runs cooler and quieter than its predecessor and has slightly better noise-normalized performance. However, in more intense workloads it doesn’t cool as well and runs louder.
While I really wanted to like the JF13K Diamond Mini, this isn’t the successor I was hoping for, and it’s still too wide to be used in many SFF systems like Silverstone’s SUGO 14. If the mini had been just a bit less wide, it would have been perfect for more restrictive SFF cases. I hope Jiushark continues to develop this interesting and unique form factor with improved models in the future.
