Performance

To find out how well the Triton 75 cooler performs we first tested our existing Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro using MX-2 Paste. The results of the system at idle and load were recorded and then the cooler was changed. There are two combinations of Asus results. The first uses the same fan as that found on the Freezer 7 Pro (2500RPM, 9.2cm fan); the second uses a 2000rpm 12cm fan.

Idle temperatures were taken on the desktop after the system had been inactive for 10 minutes. The load test results were taken after repeated runs of the multithread 2 test in PCMark05. This test stresses all cores on our CPU and results in 100% processor usage.

As noted on the test system page we are using Intel’s Q6850 CPU which has four cores running at 3.0GHz. Default voltage was used.

The results taken from the Triton 75 came as quite a surprise to us, there is no doubting that the Freezer 7 Pro is a great cooler and to see the Asus product outperforming it when using the same fan was extremely impressive. This performance was repeated at load and only got better when we installed a larger 12cm fan onto the heatsink. This is an option that Arctic Cooling users would not have and clearly shows the versatility of the Triton.

In addition to this great performance from the Triton it is possible that changing to a more advanced thermal compound than that bundled with the heatsink may improve performance further.

Before we look at the overclocking results we wanted to note one final aspect and that is the cooling potential without a fan. It may be possible on low specification CPU’s to use this product without a fan but on high end parts we strongly suggest that a fan is always used. With our test system and no fan the Processor temperature reached levels at which the system automatically throttled the CPU’s performance to prevent damage.