Because of the motherboard size limitation on this case, our standard ATX test kit is unsuitable, so we've had to use one of our small form factor test systems. We have two near-identical but physically different systems with which to perform thermal tests. The key difference is the height and design of the CPU cooler; one system uses a low-profile, downdraft cooler while the other uses a tower cooler, albeit a rather short one, with a standard front-to-back airflow. Normally we'd test the system with the variantion that makes most sense but for this case We've decided to test them all.
The tower configuration consists of:
We disable the motherboard's onboard CPU fan control and all CPU power management features. The CPU fan is fixed at 7V with an adaptor while the graphics card fan is locked at 70 percent speed using MSI Afterburner. The system is loaded using Prime95 25.11 and Unigine's Heaven 4.0 benchmark. We use CoreTemp and GPU-Z to monitor the temperatures, taking the maximum values after 15 minutes - enough time for the readings to plateau.
The low profile test system consists of:
The CPU fan is fixed at full speed while the graphics card fan is locked at 70 percent speed, and the system is loaded using Prime95 26.6 and Unigine's Heaven 4.0 benchmark. We use HWMonitor and GPU-Z to monitor the temperatures, taking the maximum values after 15 minutes - enough time for the readings to plateau.
October 14 2021 | 15:04
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