Intel DBX-B CPU Cooler Review
How We Tested
Contents
In order to test Intel DBX-B cooler we used the following methodology.
We used a Core i7-980X six-core CPU, that comes with this cooler as a companion. We overclocked it to 4.2 GHz, with 1.4 V core voltage.
We took noise and temperature measurements with the CPU idle and under full load. In order to achieve 100% full load on all 12 virtual cores (threads) we ran Prime95 (version 25.11, which uses all CPU cores) on the "In-place Large FFTs" option.
Temperature measurements were taken with the core temperature reading (given by the CPU thermal sensor) from the program SpeedFan. For this measurement we used an arithmetic average of the 12 core temperature readings.
The sound pressure level (SPL) was measured with a digital noise meter, with its sensor placed 4" (10 cm) from the fan. We turned off the video board cooler so it wouldn’t interfere with the results, but this measurement is only for comparative purposes, because a precise SPL measurement needs to be made inside an acoustically insulated room with no other noise sources, which is not the case here.
Hardware Configuration
- Processor: Intel Core i7-980X
- Motherboard: ASUS Rampage III Extreme
- Memory: 12 GB Kingston Hyper X KHX2000C8D3T1K3/6GX (DDR3-2000/PC3-16000), configured at 1600 MHz
- Hard drive: 1 TB Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 (ST31000528AS, SATA-300, 7.200 rpm, 32 MB buffer)
- Video card: ASUS GeForce GTX 285
- Video resolution: 1680×1050
- Video monitor: Samsung Syncmaster 2232BW Plus
- Power supply required: Seventeam ST-550P-AM
- Case: Thermaltake V3 Black Edition
Software Configuration
- Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit
Software Used
Error margin
We adopted a 3 °C error margin, i.e., temperature differences below 3 °C are considered irrelevant.