Performance

Up first is the block. Straight after mounting, the block was demounted and contact was checked. There was a very strong suction force, and even after twisting, the block would not come off easily. The thermal paste was spread out evenly over the CPU and the bottom of the block.

As I fired up the PC, I noticed a clicking sound. After searching around for a while, I found out that the culprit was the flow indicator – as it spins around, it produces a sound similar to that of a clicking pen, only slightly quieter. In a room where there is complete silence, this can be heard quite clearly. It is quite possible that our flow indicator was a bad sample.

I decided to test temperatures on my Opteron 144. I obtained two sets of readings: one from the integrated diode, read through Everest, and another through my Fluke 54 II Thermometer, with the thermocouple attached to the edge of the HIS.

Idle temperatures were measured after 1 hour of the PC idling at desktop. Load temperatures were measured after 2 hours of CPUBurn K7. I decided for these long times as I was interested in seeing how the Orchestra would cope with sustained heat from the CPU - as the Orchestra has no fans to aid it in dissipating heat, I expected that the unit would get hotter and hotter until the coolant eventually boiled.

The TDP of an AMD Opteron 144 (1800MHz, 1.39V) is 67 W. At 2502 MHz, 1.55V, the TDP is 115, at 2700MHz, 1.55V, the TDP is 125W.

The Alphacool kit used during testing was made up of the following:

• Pump: Eheim HPPS+ in Power mode
• Alphacool Nexxos XP Bold
• Black ICE Xtreme II with 2 Sunon 7W fans
• AGB-O-Matic plug-on reservoir

Some impressive results from the Orchestra indeed! Essentially, the temperature keeps on increasing, even at the highest setting it is however still far away from the boiling point of water after 2 hours. It also needs to be mentioned that running CPUBurnK7 puts out more heat than any other program known to me (yes, even more than Prime95). It is therefore likely that during gaming, or other normal usage of your computer, final temperatures would be lower. At the end of the test, the Orchestra was slightly warm to the touch.

Our testing methodology is constantly being improved - as you can see, there is a large temperature difference between the temperature value obtained from the thermocouple and the Everest-read temperature. This is partly due to there being a gradient on the IHS of the CPU. Also, I have yet to calibrate the temperature sensor on my DFI NF4 Expert, which is notoriously known for reporting lower-than-actual temperatures. In the worst case scenario, we can say that the Expert was reporting temperatures 10 C lower than actual, which would mean that at the end of our 2 hour test, the core of the CPU was sizzling away at 60 C.

The story of our first sample

All testing was done on our first sample. Just as I was finishing up, I decided to drain the system. I left the system uncapped, turned the radiator up-side down, and let the water flow out. After looking down the fill hole, what I feared had come true: believe it or not, the radiator was corroded.



There are several possible causes of this, ranging from not enough anodisation on the aluminum, to a bad mixture of coolant. To be fair, the amount of copper deposited on the aluminum was minimal, with your finger you could feel that it had no depth.

I emailed Thermaltake about this issue, they got back to me very quickly. A few weeks later, I received a brand-new Thermaltake Orchestra to conduct another set of testing on.

Upon opening the package, I could already see details that had changed. First, I could tell that the previously paper o-rings had been replaced by rubber ones. A great step up, a great start to a upgraded product. The next surprise came when I unscrewed the cap to fill the system. This time, the inside was much more shiny than on our previous Orchestra. Undoubtedly, Thermaltake managed to do something - perhaps increase the level of anodisation - I just hoped that it would work.

What I did next was I started to fill up the system. Again, I used all four bottles of coolant. I fired the system up, with the pump connected to an external PSU. At first sight, all was good. Upon closer inspection, and re-reading my complaints about the original sample, I was pleased to already find one improvement: the clicking of the flow meter was gone, and the propeller spun much faster. This draws me to believe that our previous flow meter was not working properly.

The system was run over a period of a few days, to determine if the corrosion would come back or not. I have good, as well as bad, news. The bad news: the copper returned, and started to cover the radiator. The good news: it did not cover the whole radiator, as before, but only certain sections. Again, there was very little depth to the amount of copper deposited.



So is the corrosion a problem and something to be worried about? While the corrosion was unmistakably there, I am confident that this should not prevent potential customers from buying the unit. Once the copper builds up, it is likely to stop being deposited (as copper and copper causes no corrosion), and so no material will be weakened. The amount of copper should not disrupt safe operation of the unit, I do not see the block leaking any time soon, at the current rate of deposition, due to it being "eaten" away.

I am very pleased to see that Thermaltake has managed to improve its Orchestra though, and not just send us another of the same units, and wait what happens. The company has shown that they are willing to take steps to make their products perform better and last longer.