Table of contents
Testbed:
Motherboard:
MSI 790GX-GD70 (provided by MSI)
AMD 790GX/SB750
MSI P55-GD65 (provided by MSI)
Intel P55
CPU:
AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition (provided by AMD)
Intel Core i5 750 (provided by Intel)
CPU-Cooler:
Cooler Master Vortex Plus (provided by Cooler Master)
Memory:
G.Skill 4GB Kit PC3-12800 (provided by G.Skill)
1333MHz CL7-7-7-21 CR1T 1.35V
Graphics Card:
MSI R4850-2D1G-OC (provided by MSI)
Power supply:
PC Power & Cooling Silencer 500W (provided by PC Power & Cooling)
Hard disk:
Samsung F1 1000GB RAID-Edition (provided by Ditech)
Case:
Cooler Master Stacker 831 Lite (provided by Cooler Master)
Enviromental temperature: 21°C
Fan/Noise
As expected the fan is extremely loud when spinning with the maximum speed, which resulted in 2890rpm in our testbeds. On some boards the max. power consumption of 3.12W may also cause troubles. Setting the fan-speed to 50% inside the BIOS makes the fan almost inaudible. But at ~1500rpm you are limited to two cores or energy efficient CPUs.
The fan is specified with 35dB(A). We don't have a noise-proof soundbox to test the real noise-level, but our audio-meter showed about 50dB(A) in about 1m distance from the cooler.
