Benchmarks
First, let's have a look at what happens with these different cooling systems when the CPU is at idle:
See how the Freezone and Eliminator are able to lower the CPU temperature below the ambient? This highlights the main difference between standard water cooling that uses a radiator to dissipate heat, as opposed to CoolIT's Freezone and Eliminator which actively convert electricity into cooling power.
The Eliminator and Freezone are fairly loud at the full setting. Then again, the Exos-2 water cooling system is also quite loud when set to high.
At the medium setting the Eliminator is still audible, but not nearly as distracting, and it still does a good job of removing heat. As mentioned, the Freezone's temperature control is an adjustable dial so it can be set to whatever noise/performance balance the user desires.
At the low setting the Eliminator and Freezone are fairly quiet, but not nearly as quiet as Koolance's Exos-2 - which gets a better much better result. At the low setting, CoolIT's coolers perform about as well as the stock cooler.\
The Freezone takes a while to shift between low and high temperature settings. At first I thought the control was broken and had no effect, but I soon realized that it simply took a minute or so for any changes in the setting to reflect fan speed and noise generated. The Eliminator's audible feedback was much quicker.
Low idle temperatures are great to see, but the real money is made under load. How do these solutions perform under stress?
Interesting. The Freezone - which was the most effective solution at idle - is now a close second to Koolance's Exos-2 water cooling system. This is probably because the Exos-2 can push a great deal of water through the CPU water block and radiator while the Freezone's pump and coolant passages are relatively small. Nevertheless, the Freezone's 40 degree maximum temperature is 22 degrees below that of the stock cooler, a very impressive result.
The Eliminator at the high setting comes in third, 5 degrees hotter than the Freezone and 8 degrees hotter than the Exos-2. It is 17 degrees below the stock cooler, so this result is nothing to sniff at either.
The Eliminator at the Medium setting is only 3 degrees hotter than the high setting, which shows that it's a good balance between performance and noise. However, the Exos-2 is only one degree hotter at its low setting, and it is a great deal quieter than the Eliminator.
Once again, both the Eliminator and Freezone on the low setting will equal the performance of the stock air cooler that came with the e4300 CPU. The lesson here is that if you plan on setting these coolers to low, there's not much of a reason to buy them instead of the stock cooler. They might be a bit quieter than the stock cooler, but not much if at all. The Freezone and Eliminator work best when set to medium or high.
