But, What About the Cooling?
We have spent the bigger part of this past week and weekend running this system through various settings and stress tests to see just how efficient the cooling aspect of the NV120 is. If you recall in a recent review of the Wind Tunnel we’re using, the same Intel E6700 was being heated to nearly 70C during stress tests. We much prefer to keep our processor down around or below the 60C mark.
Here’s how we tested:
Prime95 XP to push the CPU into 100% Load
PC Wizard 2008 to keep track of temperatures
Compared Temperatures at various times and under different loads, including idle.
Overclocked the CPU from default 2.66 GHz to 3.15 GHz to measure effective cooling.
Clock Speed |
Time Interval (Minutes) |
Fan Speed |
Cpu Load |
Processor Temp (C) |
Core 1 |
Core 2 |
| 2.66ghz |
Initial Boot |
Low |
~5% |
38 |
42 |
41 |
| 2.66ghz |
15 |
Low |
100% |
45 |
55 |
54 |
| 2.66ghz |
20 |
High |
100% |
44 |
56 |
55 |
| 2.66ghz |
35 |
High |
100% |
42 |
53 |
53 |
| 3.15 GHz |
10 |
Low |
100% |
44 |
57 |
55 |
| 3.15 GHz |
20 |
High |
100% |
45 |
56 |
53 |
| 3.15 GHz |
60 |
High |
100% |
45 |
57 |
54 |
How Quiet is it?
Before we proceed to our final thoughts and conclusion, we have to also consider the noise level produced by the NV120. As I’m very sensitive to vibrations, I can tell you that with the NV120 fan on HIGH, there’s absolutely no vibration being produced. This is without doubt due to the excellent build quality of the cooler as well as use of a 120MM fan. With my PC sitting on the top of my desk within arm’s reach, I wouldn’t even know it’s on except for the LEDs all lit up.
