Thermal Performance

Test System

Test Methodology

A Xylem D5 pump, Aquaero 6 XT controller, and an EK-Quantum Surface X360M radiator with Phanteks T30-120 fans help complete the loop. The GPU is not placed in the loop to make the only source of heat the CPU, thus limiting testing to the CPU block itself. Average flow rate is set to 1 GPM and calibrated in-line temperature sensors are used to measure the coolant's temperature. Everything required is placed inside an environmental chamber with the ambient temperature set to 25 °C. Thermal paste cure time is taken into account, and three separate mounts/runs are done for statistical accuracy, and to remove chances of any mounting-related anomalies. For each run, a custom Prime95 test with small FFTs and AVX2 load is used, looping for 30 minutes, and CPU core temperatures are measured using AIDA64 with the average core temperature recorded at the end of each run. A delta T of CPU core and loop temperature is thus calculated for each run, with an average delta T that is then obtained across all three runs. This way, the cooling solution is taken out of the picture.

Test Results

Note that metal top blocks tend to perform slightly better than the non-metal top blocks—such as this Phanteks Glacier C370I—in my environmental chamber with active ventilation, owing to more uniform and efficient heat distribution. There are some blocks here which are socket-specific, and others such as this one under review offer intermediate levels of compatibility in that the Glacier C370I is not socket-specific but Intel platform-specific at least. Add to this the same cooling engine that doesn't feel much different from those tested a few generations ago and it wasn't a surprise to see this lagging behind slightly. That said, the differences are not going to be changing things much practically, especially with some blocks within error margins of others.