Testing:
The two Cooler Master coolers were installed in a system with the following key components for this review:
» Intel Core 2 Duo E6850 Dual Core processor
» ASUS P5KC P35 ATX motherboard
» Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD7500AAKS 750GB hard drive
» Crucial Ballistix 2GB PC3-12800 DDR3 dual channel memory
» Tuniq Miniplant 950W power supply
The thermal performance was tested by comparing the idle and load temperatures as monitored using HWMonitor 1.08. The idle condition was established by letting the system sit at the Window's desktop with only HWMonitor running for a period of 30 minutes. After a baseline temperature was recorded, the load condition was established by running OCCT 1.1.1b (set to stress only the CPU) and 3DMark06 for a period of 30 minutes. The min/max logging feature of HWMonitor was used to identify the maximum temperature on each processing core after load testing was complete.
For comparison purposes, the Cooler Master coolers were tested head-to-head with the OCZ Technology Vendetta and the Noctua NH-U12P. As mentioned earlier in the review, I wanted to provide a point of reference for the size of the coolers, especially the Z600. The image below shows the Sphere, the Noctua NH-U12P, and the Z600 all side by side. The Sphere looks puny next to both, and the Z600 is honestly 2x-3x the volume of the NH-U12P. During the review of the NH-U12P I grumbled about its size, but I take back everything I said! Sorry 'little' fella!
The chart below details all of the thermal results recorded with an ambient temperature of 23C, as well as providing rough noise level values to each cooler.
The first thing that jumps out at me is that passively cooling an E6850 is not a good idea... in case you couldn't have guessed that already! Cooler Master is probably counting on their passively cooled beast to have the benefit of air flow from case fans or a PSU fan, but I tried it out in a truly passive environment on an open test bed. There was no case to trap heat, but there were no fans to force cool air through all the fins. The silence was nice, but if you are going to do much more than surf the web, it is going to get hot.
Adding a single, low speed 120mm AcoustiFan (model AFDP-12025B) turns the Z600 into one of the best coolers I have used. Adding a second AcoustiFan dropped the load temperatures two more degrees, but did add a bit of noise. I'd recommend just running with one, as the performance boost doesn't outweigh the noise difference (in my opinion).
Taking a look at the Sphere, I was a bit disappointed. It didn't cool all that great, and it was noisy, too. Since the fan has a 3-pin power lead you would need a separate speed controller to do anything about the noise, but then the temperatures would surely rise, too.
For reference, the Vendetta used the fan that comes with it, and the NH-U12P was used with the 120mm AcoustiFan, too.
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