Review

TOM'S HARDWARE GUIDE, March 15th, 2007
Vigor's Monsoon II TEC CPU Cooler

Manufacturer: Vigor Gaming

Product: Monsoon II Active TEC CPU Cooling System (CLT-M2LA)

Date: Thu, March 15, 2007

Written By: Thomas Soderstrom

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Test Setup

System Hardware
Socket 775 Processor	Intel Core 2 Duo E6700 (Conroe 65 nm, 2.67 GHz, 4 MB L2 Cache)
Motherboard	Abit IN9 32X-MAX (initial revision) Nvidia NFORCE 680i SLI, BIOS 1.1 Beta 6 (02-23-07)
RAM	Crucial Ballistix PC2-8000 PN: BL12864AA1005 2x 1024 MB DDR2-1000 (CL 5.0-5-5-15)
Hard Drive	Western Digital WD1500ADFD-00NLR1, Firmware: 20.07P20 150 GB, 10,000 RPM, 16 MB cache, SATA/150
Graphics Card	Foxconn GeForce 8800GTX, P/N: FV-N88XMAD2-OD Nvidia GeForce 8800GTX - 768 MB
Power Supply	OCZ GameXStream OCZ700GXSSLI - 700W
System Software & Drivers
OS	Windows XP Professional 5.10.2600, Service Pack 2
DirectX Version	9.0c (4.09.0000.0904)
Platform Drivers	Nvidia Platform: nForce 9.53 Intel Platform: INF 8.0.1.1010
Graphics Driver	Forceware 97.92

I've often been criticized for using an old, hot-running, poorly-overclocking early revision Core 2 Duo E6700, a stepping that actually precedes retail samples and a valid criticism that I'd like to address. Unfortunately, Tom's Hardware Guide has a limited number of test processors to support all of its contributors and in-house editors, and getting a replacement would probably require ruining the sample I already have.

While any opportunity to get a new test processor is appreciated, testers should treat company property with respect. That thought has been just one reason behind the 1.50V core limit in previous articles, with 3.46 GHz consistently achievable across several platforms. Another reason for this voltage selection is that most air coolers allow the processor to exceed stable heat levels if core voltage is increased marginally.

But desperate times call for desperate measures, and a 3.46-GHz overclock barely got the competing coolers warm! Rather than use an insane voltage that would guarantee quick processor failure, a common "extreme-overclockers" setting of 1.65V was chosen as one that "might" cause processor failure but probably not before testing was complete.

Benchmarks and Settings
3D-Games
Call of Duty 2	Version: 1.03 Video Mode: 1024x768 Anti-aliasing: off Shadows: no timedemo demo2
F.E.A.R	Version: 1.0 Retail Video Mode: 1024x768 Computer: Medium Graphics: Medium Test Path: Options/Performance/Test Settings
Quake 4	Version: 1.2 (Dual-Core Patch) Video Mode: 1024x768 Video Quality: default THG Timedemo waste.map timedemo demo8.demo 1 (1 = load textures)
Audio
Lame MP3	Version 3.97 Beta 2 (12-22-2005) Audio CD "Terminator II SE", 53 min wave to mp3 160 kbps
OGG	Version 1.1.2 (Intel P4 MOD) Version 1.1.2 (Intel AMD MOD) Audio CD "Terminator II SE", 53 min wave to ogg Quality: 5
Video
TMPEG 3.0 Express	Version: 3.0.4.24 (no Audio) fist 5 Minutes DVD Terminator 2 SE (704x576) 16:9 Multithreading by rendering
DivX 6.2	Version: 6.2.2 (4 Logical CPUs) Profile: High Definition Profile 1-pass, 3000 kb/s Encoding mode: Insane Quality Enhanced multithreading no Audio
XviD 1.1.0	Version: 1.1.0 Beta 2 Target qantizer: 1.00
Applications
Autodesk 3D Studio Max	Version: 8.0 Characters "Dragon_Charater_rig" rendering HTDV 1920x1080
Synthetics
PCMark05 Pro	Version: 1.1.0 System, CPU and Memory Tests Windows Media Player 10.00.00.3646 Windows Media Encoder 9.00.00.2980
SiSoftware Sandra 2005	Version 2005.7.10.60 CPU Test = Arithmetic, Multimedia Benchmarks Memory Test = Bandwidth Benchmark

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