Testing
The test rig consists of the following parts:
Processor: Intel Core i5 2500K
Motherboard: ASUS P8P67 EVO
Video Card: SPARKLE Calibre Series X480 GeForce GTX 480
Memory: Corsair Vengence 8 GB @ 1600mhz
Power Supply: High Power Astro PT 700w
Storage: 250 GB SATA II Drive
Cooling: Reveen Arciel 12
Case: Antec 900
Testing was done using Intel Burn Test (IBT) with the AVX instruction set. The reason to use this instead of Prime95 with this setup is that it pushes our i5 2500K a whole lot harder giving us a better sense of load temps. Most of the testing was done at the high memory setting for a single pass. While this in no way would qualify the chip as stable when overclocking, it gives us a realistic idea of what temps it will be hitting.
First though I did some testing with the stock Intel cooler, at the stock motherboard settings, in the test rig with results as follows:
Ambient temps: 18.89C/66F
Idle temps: 27.25C/81.05F core average
IBT temps: 69.25C/156.65F core average
Next up was to run the Arcziel 12 through the same test with the same settings:
Ambient temps: 22.22C/72F
Idle temps: 35.75C/96.35F core average
IBT temps: 52.25C/126.05 core average
Looking at the stock cooler temps the first thing you notice is that these don’t seem to be that great at first. Consider though that the ambient temperature on the day we tested was 6 degrees F higher. This will easily cause the results to be higher. It makes it that much more impressive that we were 17 degrees cooler when running IBT on the Arcziel 12!
So it’s obvious that we aren’t dealing with the Iron Man suit of coolers here, but why not see what kind of overclock we can put on with it anyway?
Max Overclock:
Ambient temps: 22.22C/72F
Max overclock: 4.5 ghz/1.424V vCore
IBT temps: 74.25C/165.65F core average
The one thing that is very important to note here is that changing the amount of memory you are running will affect the duration of IBT and thus possibly your temps and stability. So I set the test at the Maximum Memory setting to see what it would do with the following results:
Ambient temps: 22.22C/72F
Max overclock: 4.5 ghz/1.416V vCore
IBT temps: 75C/167F core average
So as you can see not much of a difference. Still a decent overclock on a 2500K that should prove to make your computer somewhat faster all around.
Now let’s talk about noise. This isn’t something that generally I worry too much about, so it means something when I am complaining about it. Pushing this cooler to these voltages resulted in fan speeds in excess of 2000 rpm. The design of the cooler itself instantly breaks that wind up causing a horrible wooshing sound to emanate from our test rig. Quite honestly it is too loud and quite annoying.