Testing

The GX815 was mounted on our Connect3D X1950PRO card which was used for the testing of the other GX series coolers. This will allow for a certain degree of comparison between the different coolers.

The card will be running in a Lian Li PC-B20 case with the side graphics card 120mm fan removed as most people don’t have one.

The case is closed during testing and there is one front 120mm fan and one rear 80mm to provide case ventilation. The AM2 3800+ CPU is cooled by a Zaward Selphy and the system is powered by an Enermax Liberty 400w.

The ambient was constantly at 21C throughout the testing.

The temperature was taken with the onboard thermal diode on the X1950, and monitored by ATI Tray Tools taking measurements every tenth of a second.

To load the card, RTHDRIBL was used at 1600x1200 with 16x multisampling which ran at 5fps which shows that the card was being fully used. The test phase ran for 30minutes after 30minutes of idling.

The stock heatsink and fan present on the X1950 Pro was set for automatic function where the fan speed changes depending on the temperature in order to keep noise levels down. I tested with automatic mode enabled which ran the fan at 40%, and then force the fan at 100% for the second test. At 40% is audible and even more so at 100%. Neither speed could be categorised as silent or quiet.

Results

When testing, the sound of the GX815 was never intrusive and wasn’t louder than any other part of the system. While it isn’t silent, its pretty quiet. Once the fan reaches maximum speed (tested by using a lighter on the thermal diode after the testing was completed) it is audible, but it was still a lot quieter than the stock cooler at full pelt, and the temperatures are far superior too.

The colour of the fan LED has been changed from the red colour that the GX810, this time it’s a more appropriate blue cooler to go with the frosty temperatures.

Click to enlarge

Click to enlarge