Scythe Andy Samurai Master vs. Thermaltake MaxOrb
by Wesley Fink on June 4, 2007 5:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Cases/Cooling/PSUs
CPU Cooling Test Configuration
The standard test bed for cooling tests uses an EVGA NVIDIA 680i SLI motherboard. This is primarily based on the consistent test results on this board and the excellent NVIDIA Monitor temperature measurement utility, which is part of the nTune program.
NVIDIA Monitor has a drop-down pane for temperature measurement which reports CPU, System, and GPU results. Reviews at this point will concentrate primarily on CPU temperature. In addition to the real-time temperature measurement, NVIDIA Monitor also has a logging feature which can record temperature to a file in standard increments (we selected every 4 seconds). This allows recording of temperatures during testing and play back, for example, of stress test results that can then be examined when the stress tests are completed. There is also the handy reference of speeds and voltages in the top pane to confirm the test setup.
NVIDIA Monitor was compared to test results from the Intel TAT (Thermal Analysis Tool). Intel TAT CPU portions do function properly on the EVGA 680i motherboard, but the chipset-specific features do not operate as they should. Idle temperatures in TAT were in line with measured idle temps with NVIDIA Monitor. The CPU stress testing with TAT pushing both cores showed TAT stress temps at 80% CPU usage roughly corresponded to temps reported in our real-world gaming benchmark.
Other components in the cooling test bed are generally the same as those used in our motherboard and memory test bed:
All cooling tests are run with the components mounted in a standard mid-tower case. The idle and stress temperature tests are run with the case closed and standing as it would in most home setups. We do not use auxiliary fans in the test cooling case, except for the Northbridge fan attached to the 680i for overclocking.
Scythe and Thermaltake provided a generic white cooling compound, so we skipped this and tested with our standard premium silver-colored thermal compound. In our experience the thermal compound used makes little to no difference in cooling test results. This is particularly true now that processors ship with a large manufacturer-installed heatspreader. Our only control on thermal compound is that we use the manufacturer-supplied product if they supply a premium product or a standard high-quality thermal paste if a premium brand is not supplied.
We first tested the stock Intel cooler at standard X6800 speed, measuring the CPU temperature at idle and while the CPU was being stressed. We stressed the CPU by running continuous loops of the Far Cry River demo. The same tests were repeated at the highest stable overclock we could achieve with the stock cooler. Stable in this case meant the ability to handle our Far Cry looping for at least 30 minutes.
The same benchmarks were then run on the cooler under test at stock, highest stock cooler OC speed (3.73GHz), and the highest OC that could be achieved in the same setup with the cooler being tested. This allows measurement of the cooling efficiency of the test unit compared to stock and the improvement in overclocking capabilities, if any, from using the test cooler.
Noise Levels
In addition to cooling efficiency and overclocking abilities, users shopping for CPU cooling solutions may also be interested in the noise levels of the cooling devices they are considering. Noise levels are measured with the case open on its side and are measured using a C.E.M. DT-8850 Sound Level meter. This meter allows accurate sound level measurements from 35b dB to 130 dB with a resolution of 0.1 dB and an accuracy of 1.5 dB. This is sufficient for our needs in these tests, as measurement starts at the level of a relatively quiet room. Our own test room, with all computers and fans turned off, has a noise level of 36.4 dB.
Our procedures for measuring cooling system noise are described on the page reporting measured noise results comparing the stock Intel cooler and recently tested CPU coolers to the Thermaltake MaxOrb and Scythe Andy Samurai Master coolers.
The standard test bed for cooling tests uses an EVGA NVIDIA 680i SLI motherboard. This is primarily based on the consistent test results on this board and the excellent NVIDIA Monitor temperature measurement utility, which is part of the nTune program.
NVIDIA Monitor has a drop-down pane for temperature measurement which reports CPU, System, and GPU results. Reviews at this point will concentrate primarily on CPU temperature. In addition to the real-time temperature measurement, NVIDIA Monitor also has a logging feature which can record temperature to a file in standard increments (we selected every 4 seconds). This allows recording of temperatures during testing and play back, for example, of stress test results that can then be examined when the stress tests are completed. There is also the handy reference of speeds and voltages in the top pane to confirm the test setup.
NVIDIA Monitor was compared to test results from the Intel TAT (Thermal Analysis Tool). Intel TAT CPU portions do function properly on the EVGA 680i motherboard, but the chipset-specific features do not operate as they should. Idle temperatures in TAT were in line with measured idle temps with NVIDIA Monitor. The CPU stress testing with TAT pushing both cores showed TAT stress temps at 80% CPU usage roughly corresponded to temps reported in our real-world gaming benchmark.
Other components in the cooling test bed are generally the same as those used in our motherboard and memory test bed:
| Cooling Performance Test Configuration | |
| Processor | Intel Core 2 Duo X6800 (x2, 2.93GHz, 4MB Unified Cache) |
| RAM | 2x1GB Corsair Dominator PC2-8888 (DDR2-1111) |
| Hard Drive(s) | Hitachi 250GB SATA2 enabled (16MB Buffer) |
| Video Card | 1 x EVGA 7900GTX - All Standard Tests |
| Platform Drivers | NVIDIA 9.53 |
| NVIDIA nTune | 5.05.22.00 (1/16/2007) |
| Video Drivers | NVIDIA 93.71 |
| CPU Cooling | Thermaltake MaxOrb Scythe Andy Samurai Master Cooler Master GeminII Noctua NH-U12F ASUS Silent Square Pro Scythe Ninja Plus Rev. B OCZ Vindicator Thermalright Ultra 120 Extreme Thermalright Ultra 120 Scythe Infinity Zalman CNS9700 Zalman CNS9500 Cooler Master Hyper 6+ Vigor Monsoon II Lite Thermalright MST-9775 Scythe Katana Tuniq Tower 120 Intel Stock HSF for X6800 |
| Power Supply | OCZ PowerStream 520W |
| Motherboards | EVGA nForce 680i SLI (NVIDIA 680i) |
| Operating System | Windows XP Professional SP2 |
| BIOS | Award P26 (1/12/2007) |
All cooling tests are run with the components mounted in a standard mid-tower case. The idle and stress temperature tests are run with the case closed and standing as it would in most home setups. We do not use auxiliary fans in the test cooling case, except for the Northbridge fan attached to the 680i for overclocking.
Scythe and Thermaltake provided a generic white cooling compound, so we skipped this and tested with our standard premium silver-colored thermal compound. In our experience the thermal compound used makes little to no difference in cooling test results. This is particularly true now that processors ship with a large manufacturer-installed heatspreader. Our only control on thermal compound is that we use the manufacturer-supplied product if they supply a premium product or a standard high-quality thermal paste if a premium brand is not supplied.
We first tested the stock Intel cooler at standard X6800 speed, measuring the CPU temperature at idle and while the CPU was being stressed. We stressed the CPU by running continuous loops of the Far Cry River demo. The same tests were repeated at the highest stable overclock we could achieve with the stock cooler. Stable in this case meant the ability to handle our Far Cry looping for at least 30 minutes.
The same benchmarks were then run on the cooler under test at stock, highest stock cooler OC speed (3.73GHz), and the highest OC that could be achieved in the same setup with the cooler being tested. This allows measurement of the cooling efficiency of the test unit compared to stock and the improvement in overclocking capabilities, if any, from using the test cooler.
Noise Levels
In addition to cooling efficiency and overclocking abilities, users shopping for CPU cooling solutions may also be interested in the noise levels of the cooling devices they are considering. Noise levels are measured with the case open on its side and are measured using a C.E.M. DT-8850 Sound Level meter. This meter allows accurate sound level measurements from 35b dB to 130 dB with a resolution of 0.1 dB and an accuracy of 1.5 dB. This is sufficient for our needs in these tests, as measurement starts at the level of a relatively quiet room. Our own test room, with all computers and fans turned off, has a noise level of 36.4 dB.
Our procedures for measuring cooling system noise are described on the page reporting measured noise results comparing the stock Intel cooler and recently tested CPU coolers to the Thermaltake MaxOrb and Scythe Andy Samurai Master coolers.
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Wesley Fink - Tuesday, June 5, 2007 - link
We now use a standard quality silver-colored paste in all our reviews. But in our experience and testing the thermal paste makes absolutely no difference in performance. The paste fills gaps and needs to remain fluid and not dry out.A famous review from several years ago showed toothpaste and Kraft Vegimite equal or superior to AS3 - at least until they dried out. The point was use a decent paste but don't obsess on it - as it really makes no difference. This is particularly true now that all the current CPUs use heatspreader covers and you no longer are mounting on a tiny die as you were on AMD Socket A.
rjm55 - Tuesday, June 5, 2007 - link
The review Wesley is talking about was at the Australian site Dan's Data at http://www.dansdata.com/goop.htm">http://www.dansdata.com/goop.htmChunga29 - Monday, June 4, 2007 - link
Whoa! Two articles today? Heh. I was just finishing the 2900 fiasco article and suddenly this shows up. [Big grin!]Only problem with the Hexus article is that overclocking isn't even a factor. I'm a bit confused as to their results, as they have the Zalman 9700 performing in the top of the tested HSFs, trailing the Tuniq by 1C. The AT results show Tuniq leading by 2C at load, but even more interesting is that the AT results are about 10C cooler on every HSF (at least where they overlap).
Oh... WAIT! The Hexus reviews are using a Pentium D Extrene 840!? What in the hell is up with that? Why don't we do some testing with the original Athlon FX-51 while we're at it? While most people won't purchase a $1000 CPU like the X6800, at least Core 2 Duo is very popular and many are OC'ing E6600 chips to similar levels (and beyond). Perhaps the VX is the best HSF when it comes to cooling Pentium D setups... but that's about as far as I'd take the Hexus roundup.
Honestly, I'd like only a few things from AnandTech cooling reviews:
1) Testing on AM2 as well as 775.
2) Temps of various components.
3) More HSFs! Heh. A roundup would be great.
Two HSFs in one ariticle is a start, but how about four or five similar HSFs at a time? Half the material is just filler (copy paste from previous articles), so other than the spec sheets, intro, conclusion, and charts there's not much going on here. Am I the only one that skims (at best) the middle pages?
DrMrLordX - Tuesday, June 5, 2007 - link
Hexus used a Pentium 840D because it's a stupidly hot processor that's cheap. Pentium Ds can easily put out as much heat as Kentsfields.Chunga29 - Tuesday, June 5, 2007 - link
I understand that. The problem is that performance with a Pentium Extreme 840 doesn't really tell you anything about how the cooler will perform with other processors. For what it's worth, a heavily overclocked Core 2 Duo X6800 (or better yet a QX6700) is also a stupidly hot processor. I'd wager that the output of QX6700 easily exceeds the 840EE.Testing with outdated equipment is meaningless, regardless of how hot the old parts get. That's why it would be ideal to see current AM2 performance as well. I remember a LOT of reviews hailing the Zalman 9500 as the greatest cooler ever, and while it appears to do great on AM2 it's pretty average on an overclocked C2D. I hope you can see that the same could easily be true of comparing performance with 840EE to current C2D and AM2 chips.
DrMrLordX - Wednesday, June 6, 2007 - link
Actually, uh, your point isn't really valid. A heavily OCed Smithfield can easily pump out heat like a heavily OCed Kentsfield. Heat is heat as long as its distributed properly by the IHS and properly-applied TIM.The age of the equipment in question is irrelevant unless a particular HSF has a mounting mechanism that is somehow better-suited to one socket or another, not that that's an issue when dealing with Smithfields and Kentsfields (both s775 processors).
Using a Smithfield to test the limit of modern HSFs is entirely appropriate, given its massive heat output that can still rival that of Kentsfields and its socket which is identical to the socket-type used with Conroe and Kentsfield processors.
Stele - Monday, June 4, 2007 - link
I second that, though especially no.(2). That would help decide between a traditional downdraught HSF blowing air onto the motherboard vs. the tower ones.
It might be useful to have a proper cross flow of air through the case too, e.g. one 120mm fan each for intake and exhaust. This would not only be more reflective of regular casing setups but would also ensure a level playing field - otherwise the tower ones may potentially have a greater advantage over the downdraught ones (since they can exhaust hot air out of the case through the case rear) than real-life setups may show.
How about including the Enzotech Ultra-X in a future review? Seems to be quite a good performer by all accounts! :P
Wesley Fink - Monday, June 4, 2007 - link
The MaxOrb is reputed to be at least the equal of the Big Typhoon VX in performance and it is a more recent design.We have an Enzotech Ultra-X in for testing. You will see it in a future review.
We had planned a big spread on board component temperatures, but when the down-facing fans didn't even come close to the heatpipe towers in cooling efficiency or overclcoking it became a moot point. IF the down fans really cooled better they would cool more efficiently and/or allow a higher overclock. Neither is the case in our tests. We run our top OC speed with a pretty hefty chipset voltage increase, and if the dowh-facers cooled components better we would get a better overclock, or at least an equal OC. Instead OC is average at best with all 3 expensive down-face designs.
DrMrLordX - Tuesday, June 5, 2007 - link
Reputed by who? Would it really kill you guys to review the Big Typhoon VX, or an older Big Typhoon with an FM-121?The Big Typhoon has had at least one other good showing here:
http://forum.abit-usa.com/showthread.php?t=103462">http://forum.abit-usa.com/showthread.php?t=103462
It beat the Tuniq Tower 120 pretty solidly there as well once it had a decent fan in it. Note that at least one of the fans that allowed the Big Typhoon to defeat the Tuniq Tower 120 has approxmiately the same cfm rating as the fan included with the Big Typhoon VX.
Chunga29 - Monday, June 4, 2007 - link
Addendum: it might be interesting (although it's too late now) to test with an E6600 instead of the X6800... maybe switch to a Q6600 in the future? When AM2 gets quad core (if it gets quad core?), I'd like to see head-to-head comparisons of HSfs on both platforms. Maybe retest the current leaders for reference (Ultra-120/eXtreme, Tuniq, Hyper6+, and a couple others?)