Temperature testing: IDLE

After the installation issue's I had, I went on testing the Auras Fridge on our Leadtek 8800GT. This card already comes with a pre-installed after cooling market product, i.e. the Zalman VF830. Light load is simulated by letting the PC stand for approx. 1h in 'IDLE' mode, here are my test results:



The JES988 performed pretty well with light load. Even without a fan attached on the heatsink I saw idle temps around 50°C. Adding a powerful 120mm fan decreased the GPU temperature by nearly 10°C which is excellent since the heat load is not that high at this stage. Downside of such a high performance 120mm fan is that while browsing the net your pc produces a noticeable amount of noise, you may feel more comfortable with low noise fans. Onto game performance and heavy duty comparisons.

Temperature testing: LOAD

3D Mark in loop for approx 1h should is a repeatable way of loading the 3D graphics card, image quality cranked up should put even more load on the video card, here is what I found out:



At high load the Auras offered acceptable temperature levels while 3D card remained stable at all time; on par with the standard 8800GT cooler but 100% noiseless! The Antec 900 series case is known for its cooling abilities though and so I disconnected all the case fans in order to see how much influence they have on the performance of the heatsink.

Well, as you can judge from my results, the case fans did improve the GPU temperature a bit, but the difference is minimal in this setup. The power supply which is located at the bottom of the case does add some extra airflow through the heatsink though, but all in all you can say the Fridge did a pretty good job in passively cooling the video card. Funny side story, turning of the case ventilation did make the system crash but I found out that it was in fact the CPU which became unstable due to the higher CPU temps.

Throwing in the 120mm fan, the Auras becomes a very attractive product for the overclockers among us. Compared to the standard NVIDIA heatsink we see a temperature drop of 28°C! This makes the Auras Fridge come out as best, 16°C better then the compact Zalman VF830. Turning up the fan speed makes the Auras perform better, but with a difference of only 1°C you rather want to go for the slower 120mm fan which offers much lower noise levels. As this heatsink is designed for passive cooling even the slightest breeze is enough to get good results.