IBUYPOWER Gamer Paladin F860-a

Power

We measure power consumption using a Kill-A-Watt device at the wall outlet. Idle indicates a measurement taken in Windows with no applications running. Max indicates the maximum power draw with the system fully loaded (running eight instances of Prime95 plus 3DMark Vantage simultaneously). We've also indicated power draw with just the CPU loaded.

Results here are good, and remember that these numbers are measured at the outlet, so power supply efficiency comes into play. The 800W power supply is clearly overkill in this system, but we will not fault this too much as it allows for expansion with headroom to spare.

Noise

We measured noise with a sound level meter, at distances of 24" and 48". For reference, ambient noise was approximately 37.5 dB(A).

Results here are very good, aided by the incredibly quiet 230mm fans in the Cooler Master case. The CPU cooler is the primary source of noise, closely followed by the video card. A water cooling solution would make this system almost silent while maintaining high airflow. We did experience intermittent noise coming from the backplate of the motherboard, however. It sounded like a zip tied cable routed behind the side panel that would rattle against the motherboard tray. This was annoying and significantly added to the noise when present (about 2.5 dB(A) increase at 2 feet).

Temperature

We utilized CoreTemp 0.99.4 to measure CPU temperatures, which has incorporated the latest TjMax values for Intel processors. We loaded each core with Prime95 and ran 3DMark Vantage in the background.

The stock Intel HSF has never been renowned for its performance with the Core i7 processor line, but it's aided immensely by the airflow of the Cooler Master 932 case. As a result, it manages to stay reasonably cool at 2.93 GHz, but there isn't much margin here to overclock. We recommend a different cooling solution, particularly with the combination of this case, to allow for better temperatures and overclocking headroom.