Test setup

Madshrimps' Ph-II LN2 Test Setup
CPU	AMD Phenom II X4 940
Cooling	Dragon F1 EE
Mainboard	DFI Lanparty DK 790GX-M2RS
Memory	2 * 1GB G.Skill PC8500
Other	Sapphire HD 4870X2 Antec 1000W PSU Western Digital 320Gb SATA HDD Windows XP SP3 OCZ Freeze thermal paste

Methodology: Cooling competitors

We'll be comparing this container to two other own-made cooling units by two Belgian overclockers, Troman and Jort.



The first container is made by Troman, who was inspired by the first Dragon Evo container of K|ngp|n. The base design consists of a series of steppers and a central cylinder, both to increase the surface area. The more surface area, the more room the cooling substance has to cool down the container and thus the processor. The container is a solid copper design, which means cut from one piece.



This container is a very old one, made by Jort many years ago. It was one of the first extreme cooling containers in Belgium and served me quite well when I was playing with the Athlon64 as you can see in this Athlon64 3000+ overclocking article. The base design is very simple: just a place of copper with a few holes in it to increase the surface area. As you can see, this is not a solid container, but a brazed one, a type which I already introduced on the first page.

NOTE: We decided to withdraw the “Jort” container from the tests due to mounting problems. To show you what old-skool containers look like, we'll keep the pictures up, though.

Methodology: Temperature

Finding a decent methodology to test these containers was in fact the biggest challenge of this review. Not only do we have to measure temperatures, but we need to find a repeatable test procedure, which means that the obtained results should be independent of the reviewer and the results must be significant enough to draw conclusions from.

First of all, we chose the Phenom II platform because the lack of any form of coldbug, which makes it much easier to work with in subzero environments. The DFI 790GX motherboard has already proven that it's capable of providing the necessary juice for high-demanding Phenom II quad cores. The insulation was kept the same over the different test sessions.

We will explain the precise test methodology on each page containing test results.