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Published in Reviews

Cooler Master Hyper TX3 tested

by on25 December 2009

Index






Testing

After securing the mounting mechanism in place and applying thermal paste, we got to mounting. Note that we used Gelid's GC Extreme thermal paste for all of our tests.

Mounting the cooler is pretty simple and straightforward – you mount the heatsink and mount the fan on it. This procedure won't take more than a few minutes and is no more complicated than mounting Intel's reference cooling.




Testbed:

Motherboard:
MSI P35 Platinum (Provided by: MSI)

Processor:
Intel Core 2 Extreme x6800, 2x 2.93GHz   (Provided by: Intel)

Memory:
A-Data Extreme DDR2 800 (2x1GB) (Provided by: A-Data)

Graphic Card:
EVGA Geforce 260 GTX  (Provided by: EVGA)

PSU:
OCZ GXS 700, 700 W (Provided by: OCZ)

CPU-Cooler:
Cooler Master Hyper TX3 (Provided by: Cooler Master)
OCZ Vendeta 2  (Provided by: OCZ)
Intel Stock Cooler (Provided by: Intel)

Case:
Cooler Master HAF 922 ( Ustupio Cooler Master)




After mounting the cooler we commenced our testing. In this case, testing pretty much boils down to stressing your processor and pushing the temperature as high as it will go. For that purpose we used Prime95 and introduced a 100% load on the CPU. The temperatures were measured using SpeedFan and CoreTemp.

It's worth noting that we used Intel's Extreme processor in our tests, and these babies require quality cooling if overclocking is the name of the game.

We performed a couple of tests – with the CPU running at reference 2.93GHz and when overclocked to 3.33GHz, as well as with the fan running at 60% and 100%.

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The first tests clearly show that Hyper TX3 has an upper hand over Intel's reference cooling, and it managed to score surprisingly well compared to the Vendetta2 cooler.

Now it's time for more extreme testing, and we overclocked the CPU to give this cooler a run for its money.

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In overclocking scenarios, the TX3 kept the temperatures within normal limits whereas Intel's reference cooling never managed to pull it off, not even with the fan running at 100%.




Conclusion:

Reference or stock coolers, which come with your CPU are almost exclusively designed to keep the temperatures within the safe limits, which are of course CPU-dependent, but nothing more than that. Overclocking usually negatively reflects on the thermals and in such scenarios, reference coolers usually fall short of performing adequately. One solution would be to get a better cooler, but if you're strapped for cash and can't afford high-end cooling, then CoolerMater's TX3 cooling is a great alternative.

Hyper TX3 is priced between €15-20 in the EU and is a great alternative to reference cooling.

CoolerMaster Hyper TX3 did well during our testing and it performed far better than Intel's reference solution. In fact, it managed to do very well compared to the much larger Vendetta2 cooler. We must admit that we were pretty surprised to se a cooler of this size churn out a performance like this, but CoolerMaster tends to do that.

With such low pricing and such good performance, we've nothing left but to recommend this cooler and dub it a "Fudzilla Recommended" piece of equipment.


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Last modified on 25 December 2009
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