Date: July 3rd, 2007
Article by: Joe Anderson (Hardware Reviewer)
Edited by: Nathan Glentworth (Owner / Head Editor)
Product was submitted by: Cooler Master
<--SHOP FOR A COOLER MASTER GEMINII CPU/MOTHERBOARD COOLER HERE
PRODUCT INSTALLATION AND TESTING (cont'd)
I chose these Yate Loons because they were the only matched pair of 120mm fans I had at the time. They are fairly quiet while moving a respectable amount of air (1350 RPM, 47 CFM, 28 dBA.) They also have blue LEDs mounted in the clear plastic frame for a bit of visual interest. At any rate, it's a simple matter to attach the fans to the rails.
Two screws on each side attach the fan/rail assembly to the cooler frame.
The above photos show the left and right travel limits of the fans, but they can be secured at any point in between these two extremes depending on clearance issues and desired airflow. Make up the desired power connections and the GeminII is ready to rock! Let's see how it performs.
For this review, I'll be using the following components in the bare test frame pictured above. This will eliminate any variables introduced from a particular enclosure.
-
DFI P965-S Dark Motherboard
-
Intel E4300 Allendale C2D Processor
-
Buffalo Firestix 2 X 1 GB Ram (FSX800D2C-K2G)
-
Cooler Master Real Power Pro 750W PSU
-
Western Digital Raptor 36 GB HDD
-
EVGA 7900GS KO Graphics Card
-
LG DVD-RW ODD
The following parameters were used throughout testing:
• Arctic Silver 5 TIM used on all coolers.
• Ambient temperature kept at a constant 21C.
• Idle temperatures were recorded after one hour of zero load after booting to the desktop.
• Load temperatures were recorded after one hour of maximum CPU heat testing using Stress Prime 2004 Orthos.
• Core temperatures were logged with Core Temp (v. 0.95.)
• Fan speeds were recorded using Smart Guardian.
• Idle and load temperatures were recorded at stock CPU speed (1.8 Ghz.) and at a 33% overclock (2.4 Ghz.). Vcore was raised by 0.1V during the overclocking runs.
• The computer was shut down for a minimum of one hour between tests.
Well, the GeminII performed pretty well, beating the stock unit by a wide margin and even outperforming the venerable Big Typhoon by a few degrees. Frankly, though, I expected better performance. What the GeminII did well, however, was cool the surrounding components. Noise levels will depend on fan choice, of course, and there will be two of them. Choose carefully. These Yate Loons were audible, but not what I'd call loud. I'd expect cooling to improve with higher-performance fans, but noise levels will likely increase.
Actually, I was pleasantly surprised by the passive performance of the GeminII. At stock voltage anyway. It performed as well as the retail Intel cooler and with no noise. Increasing the Vcore by 0.1V resulted in, in my opinion, unacceptable load temps. Your mosfets and northbridge temperatures will surely suffer, depending on their cooling solutions and your case airflow.
