Noctua NH-C12P

Testing

Test Rig

Methodology

To test CPU coolers we boot the PC up with a freshly installed copy of Windows XP and measure temperatures under idle and load states. The onboard temperature sensor is disregarded and instead the CPU’s own diode is used.

For idle testing, we simply let the rig sit doing absolutely nothing for 30 minutes and take the most representative temperature of the last 10 minutes. The same is used for the load testing, but instead of letting the PC do nothing; we load both cores to 100%.

All testing was carried out with the 3pin motherboard connector being used.

The thermal paste used on all the coolers was Tuniq’s TX-2.

All of the testing was carried out with the side panels on and with two front 92mm fans and one rear 120mm fan attached. Ambient temperatures were at 20 degrees C. The processor was loaded using two processes of CPU Burn-In.

Speedfan was used to take all temperatures.

For comparison purposes, the Xigmatek S1283 Red Scorpion cooler was also tested.

Coolers