The testbench was composed from the following hardware:

CPU: Intel I5 Retail @ 3.2GHz & 4.0GHz

Motherboard: ASUS P7P55D-EVO Preliminary

RAM: G.Skill Ripjaws F3-12800CL8D-4GBRM

Video: Sparkle Calibre X460 1GB GDDR5

Power Supply: Cooler Master Real Power Pro 850W non-modular

HDD: Hitachi 5K250 2.5'' HDD

Case: Cooler Master ATCS 840

 

The Kuhler 920 CPU cooler comes with the ChillControl V (from Asetek but re-skinned for Antec) application; I have found that installing the latest version first from the Antec website is not a wise choice: I ended up with a device that could not start up (in Device Manager). To solve the problem, I have uninstalled the software completely, and installed the version that came on the CD; the device was detected correctly and the application was working fine; after that I have updated to the latest version by running the downloaded application from the website:

In the Dashboard screen, we can find information about the liquid temperature, sound level produced by the fans, fan speed and pump speed; on the top, we can find a small switch for selecting Extreme cooling mode, Silent or Custom. When Extreme is selected, the fans run at maximum speed for maximum overclocking capability, Silent is a factory preset mode designed to spin fans based on liquid temperature to minimize system noise while keeping liquid temperatures low; Custom is a fully user-customizable fan control curve:

In the Graphs screen, we can find some live drawn graphs showing the liquid temperature, along with the fan speed:

The Fan Control screen lets us customize the fan speeds by modifying the “Fan Ramp Start Temp” and “Full Fan Speed Temp”; here we can also enable some notifications:

Finally, in the Settings screen, we can choose to display the temperatures in Fahrenheit, start the program minimized, run on Windows Start-up or customize the LED light; in case we do not want to use the LED light, we can disable it completely. The application does also come with one more skin:

Temperature tests

During testing, the room temperature was kept at a steady 25 degrees Celsius.

The testing procedure was the following:

- the system was left in IDLE for 30 minutes after the system booted up

- OCCT 3.1.0 was started with the following settings:

CPU:OCCT

Test Type: Custom -> 30 minutes

Test Mode: Small Data Set

Priority: Normal

After the test was complete, the system was left again alone for 30 minutes, for the temperatures to stabilize.

All the tests were performed inside a closed case, the Cooler Master ATCS 840 with all stock fans installed.

3.2GHz

4.0GHz

Extra noise tests

For measuring the noise the Kühler 920 produces in operation at different fan speeds, the left side of the case was removed and the sound meter was placed 1m away from the system. For modifying the fan speed, ChillControl V was used.