Thermalright Macho Rev.A review

November 16, 2012 | 07:55

Tags: #air-cooling #cpu-cooler

Companies: #thermalright

Testing and Results

We measure the CPU temperature of our test rigs when the CPU is idle (Windows desktop) and under load (by running the smallfft test in Prime95). We use the freeware application CoreTemp to measure the temperature of the Intel CPUs, which reads the data from the DTS (digital thermal sensor) embedded in the core of every modern CPU. The DTS gives a far more accurate reading than any third-party temperature sensor, because its readings are not affected by sloppy BIOS programming or a poorly calibrated external health monitoring chip on the motherboard.

Because we don't have a temperature control chamber, it's more accurate to measure and quote the delta T (difference) between the ambient and CPU temperature. This means HSFs (heatsinks and fans) that were tested on different days, when the ambient temperature may have varied, can be fairly compared to one another. You'll find the temperature results for the reference HSFs in the graphs. We normally compare the results of each cooler to the reference cooler.

However for the Socket AM3+ and LGA2011 systems, we didn't have the reference coolers for these at time of testing, so the cooling scores are compared against other coolers rather than how much better the cooler was than the reference cooler.

LGA2011 test system:
  • Core i7-3960X Extreme Edition overclocked to 4.3GHz using a vcore of 1.285V
LGA1155 test system:
  • Core i7-2600K overclocked to 4.1GHz using a vcore of 1.325V
Each test rig is built inside a SilverStone PS03 midi-tower case and includes an Nvidia GeForce 9600 GT graphics card. The temperatures shown are the delta T between ambient and CPU temperature.

Intel LGA1155 CPU delta T

Arranged by 100 per cent CPU load delta T value

  • Antec Kühler H2O 920 (Extreme Profile)
  • Corsair H80 full speed
  • Corsair H100 full speed
  • Thermaltake Water 2.0 Pro
  • Corsair H100 medium speed
  • Thermaltake Water 2.0 Performer
  • Corsair H80 medium speed
  • Arctic Freezer i30
  • Be Quiet! Dark Rock Pro 2
  • Phanteks PH-TC14PE full speed
  • Corsair H100 low speed
  • Thermalright Macho Rev.A
  • Be Quiet Dark Rock Pro
  • Zalman CNPS14X
  • Corsair H80 low speed
  • Phanteks PH-TC14PE low speed
  • Be Quiet! Dark Rock Advanced
  • Gelid Tranquillo Rev2
  • Gelid GX-7
  • Thermolab Trinity high speed
  • Antec Kühler H2O 920 (Silent Profile)
  • Thermolab Trinity low speed
  • Intel Reference Cooler
    • 4
    • 36
    • 4
    • 36
    • 4
    • 36
    • 4
    • 36
    • 4
    • 37
    • 4
    • 38
    • 5
    • 38
    • 3
    • 39
    • 4
    • 39
    • 5
    • 39
    • 5
    • 40
    • 5
    • 40
    • 6
    • 40
    • 5
    • 41
    • 6
    • 41
    • 7
    • 41
    • 7
    • 43
    • 6
    • 44
    • 6
    • 44
    • 6
    • 46
    • 6
    • 48
    • 8
    • 49
    • 10
    • 73
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
Delta T (°C) (lower is better)
  • idle
  • Load

Intel LGA2011 CPU delta T

Arranged by 100 per cent CPU load delta T value

  • Corsair H100 full speed
  • Thermaltake Water 2.0 Pro
  • Corsair H100 medium speed
  • Corsair H80 full speed
  • Corsair H100 low speed
  • Corsair H80 medium speed
  • Thermaltake Frio Advanced
  • Phanteks PH-TC14PE full speed
  • Intel Thermal Solution RTS2011LC
  • Be Quiet! Dark Rock Pro 2
  • Phanteks PH-TC14PE full speed
  • Corsair H80 low speed
  • Arctic Freezer i30
  • Thermaltake Water 2.0 Performer
  • Zalman CNPS14X
  • Thermalright Macho Rev.A
  • Be Quiet Dark Rock Pro (with LGA2011 mount kit)
    • 12
    • 46
    • 14
    • 46
    • 12
    • 47
    • 14
    • 51
    • 13
    • 52
    • 14
    • 52
    • 14
    • 53
    • 14
    • 55
    • 14
    • 57
    • 15
    • 57
    • 16
    • 57
    • 14
    • 59
    • 14
    • 59
    • 12
    • 61
    • 12
    • 61
    • 13
    • 62
    • 16
    • 62
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
Delta T (°C) (lower is better)
  • idle
  • Load

Head over the page to see the performance analysis and scores
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