It allowed the Ryzen processor to hit 74 degrees, though the CPU dropped down 50 MHz at the slightly higher temperature, so the thermal load was ever so slightly reduced. So the Prism set the benchmark at 71 degrees.Ĭoming in just a few degrees warmer is the copper version of the Wraith Spire. We saw the R5 3600 peak at just 71 degrees when spinning its fan at 2100 RPM, and remember it was choked with cardboard. The Wraith Prism is the cooler AMD supplies with the Ryzen 7 3700X and 3800X along with the Ryzen 9 3900X. In other words, CPUs such as the 6-core/12-thread Core i7-8700 came with the lousy aluminum cooler which I recall testing about how it throttled and ran at 100 C out of the box.īut Intel doesn't care and they're shipping the newer Core i7-9700, a $330 8-core processor, with the exact same cooler, which is tragic to say the least. By the time Skylake was released Intel dumped the copper model entirely, in favor of the cheaper aluminum model. Intel used the copper insert version for not just the Sandy Bridge i5 and i7 processors, but also for the Ivy Bridge and Haswell generations. The E97379 is an all-aluminum cooler and it was first bundled with the Core i3 Sandy Bridge processors. The E97378 features a copper core with aluminum fins and was first bundled with Sandy Bridge Core i5 and i7 processors. There have been many different Intel cooler models over the years, we're using the Intel E97378-001 and E97379-001 coolers - pretty catchy names, we know. For truly accurate data we should have locked the voltage and multiplier but since this isn't meant to be a scientific test but something to satisfy our curiosity we left the R5 3600 on auto to do its thing. With the limited fan speed we decided to target 2000 RPM with all the coolers tested, so with fan speeds somewhat normalized and the same air-flow restrictions in place, we once again went for the test.
We messed around for quite some time but couldn't get the fan to spin at full speed for more than a few seconds. On the Phantom Gaming-ITX the fan never spun faster than 2100 RPM which is an issue for the Intel cooler as it relies on fan speed to keep temperatures under control, or at least stops the CPU from melting through the PCB. Last time we tested one with the Core i7-8700 on a Z390 board it spun at between 3000 - 3500 RPM. Typically, Intel box coolers are noisy buggers that spin very fast. The next issue we ran into was fan speed. Therefore to replicate this on the Steel Legend which is a more open motherboard, we encompassed the Wraith coolers with a strip of cardboard, modified to replicate the air-flow obstacles of the ITX board. The Mini-ITX board is cramped and there's no open space around the cooler, this will negatively impact CPU cooling performance. Since we're using the exact same CPU with the same settings, this should still provide accurate results with the only potential issue being the board layout. Now, this motherboard only supports Intel coolers, so to test the Wraith range on the same R圜PU we used the Asrock Steel Legend. So we bought a Phantom Gaming-ITX and got to testing. Asrock did this to save space on the board and we weren't going to miss the opportunity to stick the crappy Intel box cooler on the Ryzen 5 3600. This particular board uses LGA1156 mounting holes, meaning it has native support for Intel coolers. In a failed attempt last year we cut the mounting hardware off the Wraith Stealth and the Intel box cooler and jerry-rigged them onto an AM4 motherboard with similar levels of pressure, the results were interesting but since the correct amount of pressure wasn't being applied to either cooler, we decided not to publish these findings.īut recently shortly after testing the Wraith Spire, we received a tip to compare Intel and AMD's box coolers using the new Asrock X570 Phantom Gaming-ITX/TB3 motherboard. Ok, so we may be overselling this one, but it is something we've wanted to do for a long time but hadn't got around to do it using a satisfactory test method. Core i5-9400F battle in over 30 games, you've also seen the R9 3900X and Core i9 9900K duking it out in a few dozen titles, but today we have the most epic battle of them all.