We tested the Frio Extreme CPU Cooler using the following system components:
Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD5 Motherboard
I7 920 D0 Stepping CPU
Corsair Dominator 3X2gb Memory
OCZ ModX Stream 600 Watt PSU
In a controlled environment at 72° F (22° C), each reference CPU cooler was run for 20 minutes at idle and 20 minutes at full load, at which time the temperatures were recorded. The recorded temperature is average reading of all cores. I used LinX stress testing software using the AVX version. I always use IC Diamond thermal compound for all CPU cooler testing.
There is no sense testing this, or any cooler for that matter, at stock speeds. If stock speeds are your intention, then use the cooler that came with your CPU and call it good. With that in mind we applied a solid 1Ghz overclock to the i7 920 using 1.210v to the processor.
Here are the 3.6Ghz Idle and load results:
As you can see by the results, the Frio Extreme out performed the other Frio coolers, as well as everything else in the comparison. No doubt there is a lot of overclocking headroom still left, and the Frio Extreme should get you as far as possible with air cooling.
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