This isn't your usual review of coolers, we haven't tested them on a bench in the open air, no, no. We have gone the whole hog, with each cooler being fitted into the same case and using the same hardware.
In the case of the CPU, we haven't stuck to the norm here either. Instead of testing the 775 coolers on a Core 2 Duo, we wanted to push them to their limits and see how good they really are when put under intense loads.
So we have stuck with a super-hot, old-school Intel chip - the Extreme Edition 840 3.2GHz Smithfield being our CPU of choice.
The only thing that is different to our usual testing kit is the chassis. Obviously we had to pick one that would provide a consistent environment but it wasn't an easy choice to make.
In the end, we went with the Antec 900 Gamers Edition chassis, which we'd already reviewed and knew had the fans and the design to offer impressive thermal performance.
Here is the full specification of our test rig for this group review:
LGA 775
Cooler Mega Test - Bench Testing Specification
2GiB (2 x 1GiB) OCZ DDR2
PC4200 Value Pro Dual-Channel
Graphics
Card:
ASUSTek GeForce 6800 256MiB
PCIe
Power Supply:
Corsair HX620W
Hard Drive:
Maxtor 250GB
SATA2
Optical
Drive:
Pioneer 110 DVD Re-Writer
In regards to thermal paste, we decided that it was best to stick with the compounds that ship with the coolers themselves. This let us evaluate the packages as a whole and gives an accurate reflection of cost - not moving the goal-posts by adding on expensive thermal paste just for the sake of it.
The only exception was with our Intel stock cooler. This was run using the new Akasa Pro-Grade 460 compound as it was impossible to find any standard Intel-supplied paste.
Another element of this review is seeing just how long it takes to fit each cooler in place. In every case, things were done in the same way - from all components being laid out, to the cooler being secured to the motherboard and the fan attached to the fan header (where applicable).
