I dunno...I've seen lots of reviews that record idle temps as well as load temps so it's nothing unusual to me.
I think that they should've run the tests longer too but in my system my cpu will reach it's maximum operational temp in about 10 minutes of heavy CPU usage, but that's after it's been idling long enough to get the water warmed up which is usually about an hour of just idling.
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Geeky1University of the Pacific (Stockton, CA, USA)
edited January 2004
Mackanz has a point, madmat. ANY heatsink test that uses an actual CPU as a heat load is invalid, except for comparing different coolers on that EXACT configuration.
If you don't have REALLY GOOD ventilation in the room where the system is located, i can almost bet an arm that if you run the system full load for a week, you'll see a lot higher temps. My system gets to 5c after an hour of Folding, but after 3 days, it's at 9c. Then again, the ventilation is close to none in this room. I saw the same thing with watercooling as well.
As for the idle temps, if i disable the sound on my NF7, i'll get as much as 10c lower idle temps (no joke). Off course it's a bug from Abit's side but it tells a lot how useless it is. But to what use? Idle temps is overrated and useless.
A good ventilated room is the most important of all for a cool pc. Aircooling or phase, doesn't matter.
My system gets up to 42C and stays there.
The system is out in the open, the room is at 73F at most times and my coolant is at 36C at most times running at full load.
Geeky, I understand what you're saying and those guys ran the coolers on the same mobo/CPU for both the AMD and Intel tests so the comparative results are pretty valid.
If they were to test 3 coolers on 3 mobo's with three different versions of the same CPU the results would not have much validity...I agree, but they swapped the coolers onto the same board at the same speeds at the same voltages for both platforms, so aside from inconsistencies in application of thermal compound, which is hard to control, the results will show how much heat that the sinks are able to dissipate versus one another.
Nothing's perfect, I've seen plenty of hsf reviews on frostytech using their die simulator which gives a consistent load across the board but it's limited in that it offers a pair of loads that are either lower than what most users will encounter or higher.
I wish that they'd add a third setting (they currently use 50W and 100W) of 75W as that's really much closer to the amount of heat shed by most systems in use today.
There's one thing to consider Mack, idle temps can come in handy as a basis of judging what the minimum amount of fan noise your system is going to produce if you regularly leave your PC running 24/7 with it under no load for long periods of time with a certain air cooling system.
I'd feel better buying a HSF that is not going to cook my cpu when I turn the fan down because I'm trying to sleep and I had to leave my PC running because I'm running windows update over my slow as snails 56K ISP.
If I see that HSF-A will do say, 38C at idle and make 20db and do 48C at load making 52db and HSF-B will do 40C at idle making 20db and 48C at load making 50db I'd feel better knowing that I'd be getting a little better cooling during times of low db output than a 2db decrease under full load as 2db is pretty much inaudible.
That's where I see that idle temps can be relevent.
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Geeky1University of the Pacific (Stockton, CA, USA)
edited January 2004
Regarding frostytech's platform... the load they use is a non-issue. They give you the load in watts, and the rise above ambient. That's all you need to know.
Thermal resistance = Rise above ambient / input power
You can calculate the thermal resistance for the heatsinks from their data, and from there, get a very good idea of how it'll perform on your system.
Yeah I know what you're saying, the C/W of the sink but since I don't know the math to calculate what temps I'm going to be looking at it's just a nice rule of thumb to remember that the smaller the C/W reported then the more efficient the sink.
I still look at the numbers generated on frosty's site and say, "whoa, look at that temp, that's pretty high!" before stopping to look at the actual C/W of the sink.
That's why I was saying that a 75W test would be nice because the guys that read those reviews and don't understand about the coefficient of wattage will just look at those numbers thinking that 50W represents a light load and 100W represents a full load and end up being confused by the numbers seeming artificially high.
I'm sure you understand what I'm saying.
GnomeWizardd
Member 4 LifeAkron, PA Icrontian
Comments
A64, P4 and XP's.
This is not a test, it's just commercial.
I think that they should've run the tests longer too but in my system my cpu will reach it's maximum operational temp in about 10 minutes of heavy CPU usage, but that's after it's been idling long enough to get the water warmed up which is usually about an hour of just idling.
If you don't have REALLY GOOD ventilation in the room where the system is located, i can almost bet an arm that if you run the system full load for a week, you'll see a lot higher temps. My system gets to 5c after an hour of Folding, but after 3 days, it's at 9c. Then again, the ventilation is close to none in this room. I saw the same thing with watercooling as well.
As for the idle temps, if i disable the sound on my NF7, i'll get as much as 10c lower idle temps (no joke). Off course it's a bug from Abit's side but it tells a lot how useless it is. But to what use? Idle temps is overrated and useless.
A good ventilated room is the most important of all for a cool pc. Aircooling or phase, doesn't matter.
The system is out in the open, the room is at 73F at most times and my coolant is at 36C at most times running at full load.
Geeky, I understand what you're saying and those guys ran the coolers on the same mobo/CPU for both the AMD and Intel tests so the comparative results are pretty valid.
If they were to test 3 coolers on 3 mobo's with three different versions of the same CPU the results would not have much validity...I agree, but they swapped the coolers onto the same board at the same speeds at the same voltages for both platforms, so aside from inconsistencies in application of thermal compound, which is hard to control, the results will show how much heat that the sinks are able to dissipate versus one another.
Nothing's perfect, I've seen plenty of hsf reviews on frostytech using their die simulator which gives a consistent load across the board but it's limited in that it offers a pair of loads that are either lower than what most users will encounter or higher.
I wish that they'd add a third setting (they currently use 50W and 100W) of 75W as that's really much closer to the amount of heat shed by most systems in use today.
There's one thing to consider Mack, idle temps can come in handy as a basis of judging what the minimum amount of fan noise your system is going to produce if you regularly leave your PC running 24/7 with it under no load for long periods of time with a certain air cooling system.
I'd feel better buying a HSF that is not going to cook my cpu when I turn the fan down because I'm trying to sleep and I had to leave my PC running because I'm running windows update over my slow as snails 56K ISP.
If I see that HSF-A will do say, 38C at idle and make 20db and do 48C at load making 52db and HSF-B will do 40C at idle making 20db and 48C at load making 50db I'd feel better knowing that I'd be getting a little better cooling during times of low db output than a 2db decrease under full load as 2db is pretty much inaudible.
That's where I see that idle temps can be relevent.
Thermal resistance = Rise above ambient / input power
You can calculate the thermal resistance for the heatsinks from their data, and from there, get a very good idea of how it'll perform on your system.
I still look at the numbers generated on frosty's site and say, "whoa, look at that temp, that's pretty high!" before stopping to look at the actual C/W of the sink.
That's why I was saying that a 75W test would be nice because the guys that read those reviews and don't understand about the coefficient of wattage will just look at those numbers thinking that 50W represents a light load and 100W represents a full load and end up being confused by the numbers seeming artificially high.
I'm sure you understand what I'm saying.