Performance
Test setup and Testing Methodology
The system used for testing is listed in the table below. Ambient temperatures were kept at 24 degrees Celsius +/- 1 degree. The thermal paste used was Cooler Master thermal fusion (for testing consistency). For the overclocked results I upped the voltage to 1.30v and attained a clock speed of 4.2GHz. The cool and quite mode was disabled to prevent the CPU idling at lower voltages to attain accurate temperatures at idle. The fan speed was set to auto. The idle temperatures were recorded after 10 minutes of idle and max temperatures were recorded after a 5 minute torture test using Prime95. The software used to monitor temperatures was HWMonitor courtesy of CPUID.
The testing process showed extremely well results from the cooler! The CPU would run at idle cooler that ambient temperatures on overclock settings. Antec offers optional 2 fans to push and pull and we tested with those optional fans and as you can see at stock settings at idle there was no difference of course. When the voltage was increased we started to see the benefits of having the extra fans. Now for the good part; let us load this thing up and see what it will do!
Now for the number one question, what did it do under load? KUHLER than the rest! As you can see the highest recorded temperature I recorded topped out at 43 degrees Celsius, 109 degrees Fahrenheit. Those temperatures were recorded running on silent settings and without the optional fans installed. With temperatures that low on a modest 4.2 overclock I see future attempts of pushing the limits of this little chip. The Antec Kuhler 1250 does a fine job!
The noise a cooler produces can be important factor to a purchaser. To help, dBs are recorded using a meter that records sound pressure levels not actual acoustic levels. With that being said the Antec Kuhler 1250 has a reasonable maximum dBs reading of 51 but it does become extremely acoustically loud on extreme setting. On (silent) setting the Kuhler is hardly noticeable. At idle, (silent) fan speeds ranged from 837-1077 RPM. Under load, (silent) fan speeds ranged from 1316-1521 RPM. On the extreme setting, the fan speeds ranged from 2092-2170 RPM.
There we have it! The Kuhler H2O 1250 brought to us by Antec! Let us cover a few final thoughts and conclusion of our review.
