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: OCZ Vertex 2 120 GB Running Windows 8 64bit
Cooling: Corsair H100i
Case: Nanoxia Deep Silence 1
Testing was done using Intel Burn Test (IBT) with the AVX instruction set. The reason I 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 admittedly 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.
Here are the stock cooler results:
Ambient temps: 22.22C/71.99F
Idle temps: 31.25C/88.25F core average
IBT temps: 78.5C/173.3F core average
Now with the H100i installed, and fans set to performance mode using Corsiar Link, we ran it through the same tests.
Ambient temps: 22.78C/73F
Idle temps: 37.25C/99.05F core average or 26.05F DeltaT
IBT temps: 49.25C/120.65F core average or 47.65F DeltaT
Looking at those results, we were starting to scratch our heads wondering what was going on. At stock clocks the H100i isn’t faring much better than the H80i. So we pressed on the find out what would happen with an overclocked CPU, and here is what we found:
Ambient temps: 22.78C/73F
Max overclock: 4.9 ghz/1.456V vCore
IBT temps: 81.75C/179.15F core average with one core hitting 88C! DeltaT=106.15F
We achieved a .1ghz higher overclock than the H80i. But it was at higher temperatures and the H100i was not able to get to 5.0ghz. Adjusting for ambient temperatures and taking approximately 6C off the average and max temps still puts it right in the same range as the H80i at a .1ghz lower clock.
