Installation and Operation:
The NZXT Cryo LX was matched up with a ASUS F7KR-X1 notebook for this review. The F7KR-X1 has a dual core AMD Athlon 64 X2 TK-55 1.8GHz processor, 17" widescreen display, 256MB ATI Mobility Radeon HD 2400 discrete graphics, 3GB of DDR2 667MHz memory (upgraded from 1GB), and a 120GB SATA hard drive.
As the images below show, the two items look like they were made to go together. This 17" notebook (and most likely any other), fits well on the surface of the Cryo LX. NZXT lists 15" and 19" notebooks as also being compatible, and I suppose that would be true. You would definitely have more cooler exposed while using a 15" model, while a 19" model would probably be just slightly larger than the cooler.
 
The cables provided were kept bundled up while making the connection between the computer and cooler, but depending on the location of your USB ports you may need the full length provided.
The images below provide a look at the setup from a few more angles, and the size and shape of each item makes them work well together.
 
As you can see in the above right image, the perforated fan box is really only providing direct airflow on to a small band of the notebook's underside. However, the notebook is slightly elevated off of the cooler so air can circulate across more of the surface, even if it isn't in the direct path of the fans. Moving your hand around the edges indicates that air is flowing out in many directions, so cooling is being provided to a good deal of the computer's base.
Testing:
Testing the performance of the Cryo LX was rather simple. CPUID's Hardware Monitor 1.06 was loaded in order to monitor the thermal results of various internal components while the system was stressed by running through several loops of PassMark's Performance Test v6.1. This benchmark tests the processor, memory, drives, and graphics; and it was just launched repeatedly until the temperatures stopped rising.
The chart below shows the maximum, load temperatures achieved on each processing core, the graphics card, and the hard drive. The tests were executed with no cooler in place, with the Cryo LX running at its lowest speed, and with the Cryo LX running at its highest speed. As you can see, the processor benefited the most from the addition of the cooler, dropping 10-12 degrees Celsius whether the cooler was at low or high speed. The video card and the hard drive each dropped a maximum of 3 degrees, but lower is always better when it comes to hot running system components!
In addition to the thermal results, I also paid attention to noise production during testing. No matter what speed you have the Cryo LX running at, it is never silent! At the lowest speed the sound is quiet, but noticeable. You would hear the low hum of the fans in a relatively quiet room. At high speed, the Cryo LX makes its presence well known, as the rush of air is easy to hear over other noises in a room, and it would take some fairly loud music or sound effects from a game to completely drown the noise out. Given the minor improvement in cooling performance between low and high speed, I see no reason to run the Cryo LX at anything other than the lowest setting. It would be nice if the dial allowed the fans to run even slower, or perhaps to turn them off completely.
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