Testing
The WaterChill goes up against all the recent coolers I've tested for HEXUS, including a Cooler Master Hyper-6 and Zalman's Reserator 1. I've only tested at 7V, the 12V numbers barely different and they made the main graph unreadable. Commendable performance at 7V for sure. The base platform is an AMD Athlon FX-51 at stock voltage, on an ASUS SK8V motherboard.The same format as recent cooler reviews means testing temperature, noise and overclocking. It also means I can cut and paste the testing methodology.
To test the noise side of things I used my good old ears. To limit the affects of ambient noise in my wholly unscientific listening tests, I equipped the system with a Gainward SilentFX graphics card and a very quiet Tagan power supply. The SK8V comes without a discrete fan on the K8T800 bridge so things were eerily quiet.
To monitor temperatures I used Motherboard Monitor with the default SK8V profile. Temperatures were pre-tested to get a quick idea of the maximum and idle temperatures for each cooler, before a half an hour run of the HEXUS SETI benchmark was used to generate CPU load and therefore heat. After the half hour was up, the SETI instance was closed and drop-off temperatures were recorded, giving a full spectrum of results for idle, quick load, constant load and load drop-off, over a 30 minute period. Ambient temperature throughout testing for all coolers was a nice 18°C.
Temperature Testing
While the Zalman Reserator seeks to offer silence at the expense of outright performance, the WaterChill is an overclockers tool, seeking to do more than cool your stock clocked processor. Stock clocked testing it is though, to begin with, before we look at overclocking.
Stock clocked performance is the best of the bunch, besting the Reserator by a large margin, the stock cooler by even more, and even trouncing the Hyper-6, a superb air cooler. That bodes well for overclocking.
Noise Testing
The ADDA fan's rated dBA of 38 at 12V seems accurate. At 7V they barely make a sound, puffing enough air through the radiator to keep things cool, without assaulting your ears. Great stuff. A high point of the KT12 kit, a definite high point here too, the ADDAs a fine selection.The pump barely makes a sound, although it did have a tendency to vibrate the mounting used for the reservoir, making it annoying at times. Otherwise fine.
Overclocking Testing
| WaterChill KT03A 7V | Hyper-6 3000rpm | Stock Cooler | |
| Maximum Overclock | 2.58GHz | 2.46GHz | 2.40GHz |
| Maximum Temperature | 67°C | 71°C | 74°C |
Another 120MHz on top of the Hyper-6 with a drop in temperature to boot. An FX-51 that's scared of high speed on most air coolers gets a new lease of life under the KT03A's Antarctica block. The L30 pump and dual-fan Black Ice do their part too.
