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Introduction

Today we bring you a round up of a few of the recently reviewed coolers. From inexpensive to high end, light to heavy, short to tall, all are compared to Intel’s stock cooler. In the process of updating the LR test bench we had to re-benchmark all the coolers, so why not do a round up with the collected data? So, today we will show you how the LR stable of coolers stack up to one another.

After-market coolers (left to right) that we will be looking at today are the Noctua NH-U12P, Zalman CNPS9700 LED, ZEROtherm NV-120 Nirvana, and Spire Verticool III, and at the bottom the stock Intel cooler.

First, let’s have a quick overview of the stats of each cooler.

Test Setup and Procedure

To test all the coolers, they were run on our Intel Core 2 Duo test platform which was then run at default and overclocked settings. As a baseline, all coolers will be compared to the stock Intel cooler. All of the temperatures were obtained by using Core Temp 0.95 after sitting at idle for 30 minutes and then again under 100% load for 30 minutes. To obtain 100% load, I ran four instances of Super Pi 32m calculation with the affinity of each set to a different core. I used two profiles to test each of the coolers and they are listed below. The room temperature was kept at a constant 72 degrees Fahrenheit (22 degrees C) for all benchmarking. All of the coolers were tested with Arctic Silver Lumiere as the thermal interface material.

The rest of the system is as follows

• Motherboard: Intel 975XBX2
• CPU: Intel Q6600
• Ram: Kingston Hyper-X DDR2 KHX9600D2/1G
• Hard Drive: Western Digital 250gb
• SATA Case: Ultra M998
• Power Supply: PC Power and Cooling Silencer 750 Quad Crossfire Edition

Profile 1: The Normal User (No Overclocking)

• CPU Multiplier: 9x
• CPU voltage: 1.2000V
• FSB Voltage: 1.20V
• FSB: 1066MHz
• Memory Voltage: 2.20V
• Final CPU Frequency: 2.4GHz

Profile 2: The Average Enthusiast (Mild Overclocking)

• CPU Multiplier: 9x
• CPU voltage: 1.435V
• FSB Voltage: 1.30V
• FSB: 1336MHz
• Memory Voltage: 2.24V
• Final CPU Frequency: 3.0GHz

The Results

First, we will look at the stock Q6600 temps. At idle the ZEROtherm NV-120 takes the lead at approximately 14 degrees cooler than stock. In second place is the Noctua NH-U12P, and in a close third place is surprisingly my old Zalman CNPS9700LED.

Under full load, however, the Noctua NH-U12P is the winner -- only beating the NV-120 by a very narrow margin. Still, both coolers come in a whopping 20 degrees cooler than stock!

Results continued

With the Q6600 overclocked at 3.0 GHz and idling we have the Noctua cooler in front, with the ZEROtherm in second, and and the Zalman in third. All are doing very well at almost 20 degrees cooler than the stock Intel cooler.

With the system under load we have more of the same. In the lead is Noctua, followed by ZEROtherm and Zalman. I was suprised to see the stock cooling holding up to the overclocked Q6600; I fully expected the temps to be in the low 80's. Even though I still do not consider low 70's to be a healthy temperature for long-term use.

Conclusion

With the numbers in we know where all the coolers fall temperature-wise. If we go by that alone the winner is the NH-U12P from Noctua, but we have a few other things to consider, such as looks, price, and availability. Yeah, the cooler is great, but only a few retailers are carrying it. On top of that, the cooler runs about $60. Then, there is the not-so-easy-on-the-eyes fan; it’s beautifully silent, but the color is horrid. It’s not so bad for those who do not have a side window, but the hue is atrocious for those who do. For these reasons the NH-U12P is in second place.

I picked the ZEROtherm NV-120 as the over-all winner in our little gatheing of coolers today. Its look is easy on the eyes, the finish combined with the LED fan makes it almost art. Those who have a window will be proud to show it off, and those who don’t will want a window so they can. Then there is the price, at around $45 it's $15 cheaper than the NH-U12P, and then the icing on the cake (so to speak): there’s a very good chance that your favorite online retailer carries it.

In close third is the Zalman CNPS9700 LED. Back when I first purchased this cooler it was my first high end air cooler and set me back $65. Now you can find it for around $50. Now if you don’t like the all copper look and prefer a finish like the Nirvana, have no fear. The 9700LED has a brother: the 9700NT LED sports a gun metal finish like the Nirvana and a green LED fan. I also highly recommend this cooler to those running small cases. I run this cooler on a regular basis in a Cooler Master Centurion 541 mATX case. There is no way that either of the ZEROtherm or Noctua coolers would fit due to their height.

So if you are not quite ready to make the jump to water cooling, but still need to cool down that new dual or quad core, I think you would be happy with any of the coolers we have looked at here today.