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In the Forums... |
In operation
Amanda doesn't fail to impress is how we can sum up her operation in a nutshell but let us dive into the details. First and foremost it's quiet with both fans spinning at a mere 1500rpm producing about 20db of noise. These low figures mean other components such as the power supply, hard drive(s), graphics card(s) and even a high end north bridge cooler are louder than Amanda. Secondly the heatsink never feels warm which goes to confirm just how well it dissipates heat from the peltier unit. Thirdly as what most of you are just waiting to hear, CPU temperatures are simply said, excellent. Using an Intel Pentium Extreme Edition 965, the CPU idled at 31C while the load temperature never exceeded 41C and in most cases stayed at 37/38C on average. The only means of achieving anywhere near such temperatures using a traditional CPU cooler is with multiple 120mm fast fans using air directly imported from Alaska. The somewhat amusing part in all this is that due to Amanda's performance, nearly always the CPU temperature is considerably below the motherboard temperature. Titan's latest high end cooler is thus one which brushes off air coolers with ease and has potential at beating not one water cooling setup. Since many of you will probably be weighing the pros and cons of choosing a cooler such as Amanda over a water cooling setup, let's take a few moments to weigh the facts. First and foremost is price, a high-end water cooling setup will set you back about ~$300. Amanda's RRP is $100 hence it's a much more tolerable expense to swallow and hide from your wife, something some of you guys will be relieved about no doubt. Secondly comes installation and here we may turn the coin either way since some water cooling setups are quicker to install than others, and while Amanda also demands her own care and attention, she can be installed in the same or less time. In terms of performance one must also consider the processor used as we can’t be comparing apples to oranges here. We've used Intel's top end Pentium Extreme 965 to act as the Bunsen burner in our test bed to give Amanda some work to do. These CPU's aren't cool to run and with how important the roles of pump throughput, water block performance, radiator size and cooling ability, and last but not least tube breadth are the results will vary considerably. To get concrete results we would have to evaluate thirty or so water cooling solutions currently on offer. In all honesty however we can cut to the chase Hollywood style and proclaim that using a high-end water cooling solution, one would be lucky scoring in the mid 30's under load, such would require a hefty setup with more thrust a standard pump can only dream of not to mention thicker tubing. If you let water stay within the water block too long (i.e. flow through it too slowly), it will heavily impact the cooling potential. The performance comparison thus yields interesting news, could it be that Amanda is better than up to 90% of water cooling setups out there? Of course one could perfectly argue that it's possible to add a peltier unit to a water cooling setup but this would then be classified as custom made and fall into a whole different genre of its own. So what else is there that can sway the decision between Amanda here and a water cooling setup there? Fourth on the list is maintenance. Once Amanda is all installed she's quite frankly willing to start work, and should you forget about her she'll just carry on working while you enjoy her quality of service. Water cooling setups are on the whole quite similar in this respect except that every now and then one should check the water level and if need be, fill it up. Equally a pump or peltier unit can fail hence while Amanda doesn't win any outright medals for durability, a 2 year warranty is included for that peace of mind. The fifth aspect is one that not all really contemplate about but nevertheless remains meaningful to mention, namely running costs. A peltier is all very nice though carries one visible drawback, power consumption. Amanda herself is not overly bad here but yet she will eat more than the 5-10W a typical 120mm fan does. Just how not bad are we talking here? Her maximum power draw is 5Amps at 12V which in plain English means about 60W. This value is reached when the CPU gets hot, at idle Amanda has a lesser appetite and does with either 2.5 or 0Amps depending on the circumstances. All this control is done automatically by the PCI card and more specifically, the small DIP (Dual In-Line Package) housed microprocessor. The three LED's on the PCI card's back plate indicate Amanda's operation. An orange LED signifies Amanda's peltier unit is operational, a red LED lights up if the CPU temperature is either below 15C or above 70C. Finally a green LED means Amanda is receiving power. With Amanda now in the test bed system for over three weeks and having performed in excess of 300 hours service, what is best about this cooler? Regardless how many hours Amanda stays running or however many CPU intensive application one's throws at her (although not literally) the temperatures never fail to impress. Since a Pentium Extreme Edition 965 is one of the hottest CPU's out there it begs to ask just how well Amanda would do with say a Core 2 Duo? Could it be a marriage made in heaven? Quite possibly however for this both man and dog need to wait a little longer as such processors are only experiencing birth in a retail sense. To keep with the good spirit however of proving how this cooler scales we've performed tests at 4.26GHz (16x266) using default CPU voltage. During use, temperature is not the only aspect we consider best about Amanda, the other has to be her quiet operation. Gone are the loud whining fans and in finally comes peace not to forget the tranquility of hearing oneself think or even burp after having had too much Cola while playing Call of Duty 2 for example. Thanks to pairing the peltier with a control unit and alignment with the heat dissipation of the heatsink itself, Amanda is safe to use free from causing condensation. The latter is something to be very wary about if building a custom CPU cooler using a peltier, Amanda meanwhile removes any such burden from the consumer. These three traits are perhaps the essence of what makes this cooler impressive. Finding new ways to rightfully criticize Amanda is somewhat like looking for a needle in a haystack or perhaps a good wife to both love and adore. But yes, there is a so called "but" we must squeeze in somewhere. Since the heatsink part of Amanda remains cooled by fans, these will always perform at a level corresponding to the quality of air around them. In plain English it's a matter of making sure this air is cooler rather than hotter. In practice, this means that should for example your case get hot inside due to poor air circulation, then the CPU temperatures Amanda maintains will shoot up by around 10-12C from our tests. The end result is that in a worst case scenario using a very heat inclined CPU such as Intel's Netburst Extreme Edition, the CPU temperature will hover around 50-53C under load. An absolute best air cooler can deliver such performance BUT only with fresh cool air around it. In essence, for Amanda to show off her best figures do keep her as cool as possible.
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