http://www.skinneelabs.com/feed.rss.html en Skinnee Labs 2006 120 http://www.skinneelabs.com/gtx480-fc.html
The time has come to add GPU cooling to the ever growing list of test reports here at Skinnee Labs. Since this is the first time we ventured into the GPU side of things, we knew there would be bumps in the road and parts/tests we would change after this round was complete, but more on that later. For the first dive into GPU cooling we have a highly anticipated card, and a little furnace too... the Nvidia GTX480. MSI was kind enough to be our hardware sponsor and sent over a card for me to punish and let all of you feast on the test data that resulted. In addition to the support from MSI, each of the blocks were sent over directly from the manufacturer after we notified them of our testing via email. ]]> Sun, 29 Aug 2010 13:56:00 -0400 http://www.skinneelabs.com/gtx480-fc.html http://www.skinneelabs.com/ac-kryos-xt.html
AquaComputer storms back into the high-end CPU block market with the Kryos XT, a micropin block with tremendous performance, aggressive looks, and a new mounting system.]]> Wed, 30 Jun 2010 16:42:00 -0400 http://www.skinneelabs.com/ac-kryos-xt.html http://www.skinneelabs.com/corsair-h50.html
Overall, testing the H50 was a breath of fresh air compared to the grind of fin tower air coolers, even if for just being a different approach all together. Performance wise the H50 held its own and held stability. Being a water head like myself I have some opinions on the H50, but only ones targeted towards improving the product]]> Mon, 28 Jun 2010 09:37:00 -0400 http://www.skinneelabs.com/corsair-h50.html http://www.skinneelabs.com/fcputour.html
What started out as just general banter and sort of a joke while hanging out at CES actually happened, we are on-site at Frozen CPU in Rochester, NY. This article is not going to be an infomercial, more of a behind the scenes]]> Thu, 24 Jun 2010 08:49:00 -0400 http://www.skinneelabs.com/fcputour.html http://www.skinneelabs.com/tuniq-towerextreme.html
To close out, the Tuniq Tower Extreme definitely deserves your attention when shopping for a cooler. Not only is the cooler moderately priced, but bests the other top performers we have tested. The Tower Extreme takes the single fan performance crown using the stock fan with 62.43C.]]> Wed, 16 Jun 2010 11:22:00 -0400 http://www.skinneelabs.com/tuniq-towerextreme.html http://www.skinneelabs.com/tim2010part1.html
This part of the TIM Review 2010 was never meant to shake the world, introduce a great new TIM, or anything like that. It's simply an extension of last year's TIM tests, but on an AMD processor. There's also a series of improvements to both the testbed and the procedure; I'm now using VaporBench v3 (more on this in another write-up), 7 mounts per TIM (at 12 hours per mount!), and a few tweaks to the data analysis. In a lot of ways, it's a bit of a preface to the upcoming TIM Review 2010 Part 2, which will return to an Intel CPU and include approximately 20 TIMs. ]]> Sun, 13 Jun 2010 17:58:00 -0400 http://www.skinneelabs.com/tim2010part1.html http://www.skinneelabs.com/thermalright-venomousx.html
Overall, the Venomous-X is the successor to the TRUE and shares the same tried and true fin tower design with the much needed improvement to the fan clips.]]> Tue, 08 Jun 2010 20:43:00 -0400 http://www.skinneelabs.com/thermalright-venomousx.html http://www.skinneelabs.com/thermalright-true.html
The simplest way to say it, the TRUE is a classic. To draw a comparison, the TRUE is to the air cooling arena as the Thermochill PA is to radiators, and like the PA series, this classic still performs at the top of the crowd.]]> Sun, 23 May 2010 23:27:00 -0400 http://www.skinneelabs.com/thermalright-true.html http://www.skinneelabs.com/titan_fenrir.html
At the end of the day, the Titan Fenrir is a capable cooler right out of the box with the included 120x25mm fan and socket compatibility for most Intel and AMD sockets. The fan is a bit on the noisy side, but the Fenrir needs airflow in order to perform with the tightly packed fin tower. Furthermore, if you really want to see what the Fenrir is capable of, go all out and strap a high speed 120x38mm open corner fan on for unlocking the potential of the design.]]> Tue, 18 May 2010 16:10:00 -0400 http://www.skinneelabs.com/titan_fenrir.html http://www.skinneelabs.com/prolimatech_megashadow.html
Overall, Prolimatech designed one hell of a heatsink that performs at the top of the class and is one of the easiest coolers to prep, mount and get running for your system. I certainly like the look of the black nickel finish covering every millimeter of the Mega Shadow. As much as the performance only crowd will argue against aesthetics being a factor, the looks of any component come into play when your are visualizing your system as you select components for your rig.]]> Sat, 08 May 2010 16:16:00 -0400 http://www.skinneelabs.com/prolimatech_megashadow.html http://www.skinneelabs.com/noctua_nh-u12p.html
Noctua succeeded in designing a cooler that performs and restores some silence to your machine. The mounting system is one of the best I have used for Air Coolers, it is simple and provides very consistent mounts. Be prepared to struggle a bit with the wire fan clips if you have a large heatsink on the northbridge/IOH, but expect this for all coolers that use the wire clip fan mounting system. All in all, the Noctua NH-U12P handled the load from our 920 D0 at 1.275V (toasty little guy to say the least) under control and kept pace with high performing coolers. The one major advantage for the Noctua was the silence of the stock NF-P12 fans, which is a welcome feature.]]> Sun, 02 May 2010 16:23:00 -0400 http://www.skinneelabs.com/noctua_nh-u12p.html http://www.skinneelabs.com/coolermaster-v8.html
Final thoughts on the Cooler Master V8, I would have to say that my expectations were met even though I was caught off guard by the lack-luster performance with the GT-1850. The V8 should easily handle most moderate jump from stock clocks, and we know it handles 1.275V Vcore on my warm 920 D0, so I would not be the least bit concerned about capability.]]> Tue, 20 Apr 2010 14:15:52 -0400 http://www.skinneelabs.com/coolermaster-v8.html http://www.skinneelabs.com/koolance-cpu-360.html
Koolance debuts their newest flagship waterblock pairing a stunning all-metal design with a high-performance, low-restriction, microchannel base. ]]> Sat, 17 Apr 2010 16:33:00 -0400 http://www.skinneelabs.com/koolance-cpu-360.html http://www.skinneelabs.com/cpu-testbed-v3-flowmeters.html
Another peek into what goes on at Skinnee Labs. This time we look at the process for testing and calibrating flowmeters for the upcoming CPU Block Testbed upgrade. The aim is to use 3 Koolance FM17s to reproduce or improve the quality of output data, as well as making it easier to implement.]]> Thu, 15 Apr 2010 14:01:00 -0400 http://www.skinneelabs.com/cpu-testbed-v3-flowmeters.html http://www.skinneelabs.com/akasa-neros.html
Overall, the Akasa Nero S was a big surprise, as I was not expecting the performance that was displayed in front of me after opening the retail package and mounting up the Nero on the bench. The flagship cooler from Akasa is more than capable at handling a good overclock from your chip and keeping core temperatures under control. The Akasa Nero S most certainly receives our recommendation.]]> Thu, 15 Apr 2010 13:40:00 -0400 http://www.skinneelabs.com/akasa-neros.html http://www.skinneelabs.com/ek-supreme-hf.html
The EK Supreme HF is the newest offering from EK. While it only has minor internal and external visual differences compared to EK Supreme, it's actually an all-new block and promises to perform radically differently.]]> Thu, 11 Mar 2010 22:01:00 -0500 http://www.skinneelabs.com/ek-supreme-hf.html http://www.skinneelabs.com/lab_02-09-2010.html
We have been rather quiet over the past two weeks working like crazy on several different things. I had expected to get another blog post up earlier than this, but a large shipment of Air Coolers landed at our door thanks to FrozenCPU. As you can probably guess I have been pre-testing on the bench to make sure the test procedure was ready for full on testing. No, results are not ready but you can be sure there will be lots of data for your viewing pleasure in the next couple weeks. For now, here is a glimpse of the coolers, extra fans and TIM for the round up. ]]> Tue, 09 Feb 2010 18:26:50 -0500 http://www.skinneelabs.com/lab_02-09-2010.html http://www.skinneelabs.com/2010-sl.html
As many of you can see, 2010 brought about a few changes at Skinnee Labs. The first big change and most noticeable was the site upgrade from static HTML to a Content Management System and site redesign. We moved all of the content over from the old site to the new, I wanted to make sure the work we did in 2008 and 2009 was readily available and not lost in an archive site somewhere. There is still some major work that we need to do and some clean-up to get the new site running as Vapor and I envisioned, but the new layout and CMS backend are working well. Do not hesitate to contact us if have an improvement idea, find a mistake, 404-Page not found or just want to provide some general feedback.]]> Wed, 27 Jan 2010 12:23:30 -0500 http://www.skinneelabs.com/2010-sl.html http://www.skinneelabs.com/ek-cs360.html
EK, the water block powerhouse releases a radiator. The EK CoolStream RAD XT 360 is here. We all know EK Waterblocks; we have been looking at those gorgeous full cover GPU blocks for years now. The EK Supreme has been a top contending CPU block since Core 2 were the hot chips and I myself have several of the Multi-Res... ]]> Fri, 01 Jan 2010 17:32:09 -0500 http://www.skinneelabs.com/ek-cs360.html http://www.skinneelabs.com/cu1020h.html
We recently looped up our first Koolance radiator on our bench and now it is time to look at the copper radiator from Koolance. For the next few pages we’re going to take a look at the HX-CU1020H. If you have already read the review on the CuV then you can skip the rest of the intro. If you have not well there is a bit of history to explain then... ]]> Wed, 30 Dec 2009 17:00:04 -0500 http://www.skinneelabs.com/cu1020h.html