Review

Anand Tech, February 6th, 2007
Monsoon II Lite: Thermal Electric Cooling Tower

Topic: Cases & Cooling

Manufacturer: Vigor Gaming

Author: Wesley Fink

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Overclocking & Power Requirements

As cooling solutions do a better job of keeping the CPU at a lower temperature, then it is reasonable to expect the overclocking capabilities of the CPU will increase. In each test of a cooler we measure the highest stable overclock of a standard X6800 processor under the following conditions:

CPU Multiplier: 14x (Stock 11x)
CPU voltage: 1.5875V
FSB Voltage: 1.30V
Memory Voltage: 2.20V
nForce SPP Voltage: 1.5V
nForce MCP Voltage: 1.7V
HT nForce SPP <-> MCP: Auto

Memory is set to Auto timings on the 680i and memory speed is linked to the FSB for the overclocking tests. This removes memory as any kind of impediment to the maximum stable overclock. Linked settings on the 680i are a 1066 FSB to a DDR2 memory speed of DDR2-800. As FSB is raised the linked memory speed increases in proportion. The same processor is used in all cooling tests to ensure comparable results.

The Monsoon II Lite reached the highest stable overclock yet seen with this CPU at 3.96 GHz. While the CPU, cooled with the Monsoon II, would boot at speeds of 4.0Ghz, the system was not completely stable. The highest stable speed was 3.96 GHz and voltage needed to be increased to 1.6125V at that speed for complete stability. However, the Monsoon II maintained a comfortable 54C even at 1.6125V.

It is very interesting that the Tuniq actually tested a couple of degrees cooler than the Monsoon II at 3.90 GHz, but that the CPU could not be pushed to even higher speeds with Tuniq cooling. It is not clear why the Tuniq couldn't handle the higher voltages for stable operation above 3.90 GHz, but the Monsoon II Lite hybrid TEC certainly gave an overclocking edge at the top. The Intel retail cooler, at a top 3.73 GHz overclock, is now some 230 MHz behind the overclocking leader.

Power Consumption

A normal HSF, whether a retail Intel cooler or a huge heatpipe tower, is similarly restricted by the amount of power that can be delivered to a fan header. While there are accessory fans that draw more power and require Molex to fan header adapters, in general the power requirement for a cooler is of little concern. A Peltier or TEC cooler is quite different, and the power requirements of a TEC should be a concern when buying a TEC cooler. Vigor specifies the power requirement at 50W at 100% load, which is a relatively low power requirement. To confirm this specification power usage in watts for the entire system was measured with a Kill-A-Watt meter at the wall socket. Measurements were then compared to power requirements for the same system running a Retail Intel HSF.

Power measurements confirm Vigor's specification of a maximum 50W power requirement for the Monsoon II TEC. At both stock speed and overclocked to 3.73 Ghz, the power delta between the Intel retail cooler and the Monsoon II Lite was around 50W. This also was true at both idle and stress conditions.

One very interesting number is the power consumption of the system at a 3.96 GHz overclock. Idle under these conditions it consumed 285W, but the stress of continuous gaming raised the power requirement to 415W. Our test system used an NVIDIA 7900GTX video card. If we had tested the same system with the Peltier and an NVIDIA 8800 the power requirement may well have exceeded our 520W power supply.

Whatever is now required for proper operation of your system, you will need to add 50W for the Monsoon II Lite. In most case this requirement will be negligible, but in some configurations the extra 50W requirement could make a difference.

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