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Testing and benchmarking
Now that the system is hooked up and actually working as a cooling solution let's run some performance tests. Initial thoughts: very exciting. We set our room temperature towards roughly 19 Degrees C for an objective comparison.
As you can see the Reserator 2 is performing pretty well with regards to cooling our Pentium 4 3.2 GHz Extreme Edition processor. We even have some good overclocking potential to play around with.
Red = CPU, Green = GPU.
CPU = P4 3.2GHz EE, GPU = 7900GT 512MB
Right after system boot up the water obviously is cool at room-temperature. In red you can see the Processor in green the GPU core temperature.
So in idle the CPU ran at 31 Degrees C in idle after startup. Obviously water will get a little warmer after time yet not much. Follow the red line the temperature increase shows the CPU at 100% utilization for toughly ten minutes. After bringing it back to idle you'll notice the temp will swiftly return towards 35 Degrees C, which is the nominal temperature the Zalman unit at these conditions will cool down to. So at 20 Degrees room temperature we have a delta of 35 Degrees C in idle and roughly 44 degrees with 100% load. That's really impressive for a cooling solution you can't hear don't you think ?
Please do bear in mind though that this form of cooling is extremely susceptible to ambient room temperature. If it's a hot summer at 30 Degrees C add 10 Degrees to your CPU temperature as well, but even then it's really really good !
The GPU was easily cooled and the fracker will not get warm whatever I try. It follows the water temperature and will remain at that temperature. During the load test you see above one of the things included is a run of 3DMark05 to stress this GPU 100%. As you can observe, the temperature starts at 25 Degrees C and slowly builds to 35 Degrees C where it'll stay. Perhaps after extensive and long term usage this temperature will build towards 40 Degrees C. But 35-36 Degrees C was the maximum temperature we were able to get from the GPU even after watching a full HD over the GPU decoded movie. Remember this is a 7900GT 512MB.
That's just amazing. But again, you will be bound and dependable to room temperature. The Reserator 2 can absorb and dissipate much more heat then the previous model that's for sure.
Sound I could measure all I want with our DBa meter but there's no point to it. We do not even hear a small buzz from the pump. You literally need to place your ear on the reservoir to hear a teeny tiny buzz from it, which by the way I did and it looked totally goofy.
Absolutely silent!
