Cooling Performance

We've had a bit of bad luck with our new ATX test system, in that the motherboard stopped working. We've updated it with a new one, as below, but it made the few results we had obtained so far unusable, forcing us to start over again. As such, we've only had time to test the new gear on an open bench and one other case, but this will be our new test platform going forward.

For cases capable of housing ATX or larger motherboards, we use our standard ATX case test kit, which includes:

• CPU: Intel Core i5-4690K at 4.3GHz (43 x 100MHz, 1.20V)
  
• Graphics card: Nvidia GeForce GTX 980 3GB
  
• Motherboard: Asus Maximus VI Formula
  
• RAM: 4GB G.Skill RipjawsX DDR3 1,600MHz
  
• SSD: OCZ Arc 100 240GB
  
• PSU: Fractal Design Integra M
  
• CPU cooler: Gelid Rev. 3 Tranquillo
  
• CPU cooler fan: Be Quiet! SilentWings 2 120mm

We disable the motherboard's onboard CPU fan control and all CPU power management features. The CPU fan is fixed at 7V with an adaptor while the graphics card fan is locked at 70 percent speed using MSI Afterburner. The system is loaded using Prime95 25.11 and Unigine's Heaven 4.0 benchmark. We use Core Temp and GPU-Z to monitor the temperatures, taking the maximum values after 15 minutes - enough time for the readings to plateau.