Performance

Engineers that design coolers have to be able to make a cooler that's not overly big or heavy, yet have the capability to deal with large amounts of heat. This is harder than it sounds, and many new methods have been tried. Different materials, different shapes and sizes, more powerful fans, and other technologies such as heatpipes are some of the ways to improve a cooler's performance. One thing with CPUs at least, is that they are becoming more energy efficient and cooler running - unlike GPUs.

For the test setup, Prime95 was used to load the CPU, and Windows at the Desktop was used to get the idle temperature. Different clocks/voltage were used to increase the total heat output. The amount of heat output of a processor is measured in watts. All CPUs/GPUs have what's known as a TDP or Thermal Design Point which is given by the manufacturer (different manufacturers measure TDP in different ways). This TDP rating gives a bases of how much heat is being dissipated off of a CPU when it's at its default state (not overclocked). However to get the heat output of an overclocked CPU, a formula is needed. To calculate this, the formula " TDP * (OC MHz / Stock MHz) * (OC vCore / Stock vCore )² " was used.




The cooler was mounted, then removed immediately after and the contact area was inspected. The cooler was quite difficult to get off, and there was a good contact.

Now let's look at some numbers to see how this cooler stacks up.


The cooler is performing quite well at these heat loads. The stock Opteron cooler is a very well made cooler, and can compete with a ThermalRight XP-90. The 055 cooler does outperform the Opteron cooler, and it is close to the Thermaltake water cooler's performance.


At 158 Watts, the air coolers start to get overwhelmed with heat. On the specification sheet for the Xigmatek 055, the cooler is rated for 130 Watts max. So all in all, it's not doing too bad here.