Cooler Master Blue Ice Northbridge Chipset Cooler Review

Cooling/VGA & Other Cooling by piotke @ 2005-08-19

When I recently bought my nForce4 based mainboard, I immediately got irritated by the whining sound produced by the chipsets cooler. But Coolermaster has a solution; Blue Ice is the code name! Today I?ll be testing this fancy cooler.

  • prev
  • Go to mainpage

Testing and conclusion

Test setup & Methodology :


Piotke's Test Setup
CPUAMD Athlon 64 3000+ "Venice"
Chipset cooling
  • Cooler MAster Blue Ice
  • Original Asuscooler
    • MainboardAsus A8N SLI
    VGAAsus Geforce 6600 GT
    Memory2*512 Mb A-Data Vitesta DDR600
    PSUAntec TrueControl 550 Watt


  • all results were taken with room temperature at ~27°C, but temp fluctuations, different mounting and user error can account up to 1-2°C of inaccuracy in the obtained results. Please keep this in mind when looking at the results. Each heatsink was tested repeatedly; if I got questionable results the test was restarted.
  • Setup was installed in a case less environment
  • System was stressed by running 3D mark 03 ad copying files. As this stresses the chipset quit a lot.
  • Arctic Silver kindly send us their “Lumière” thermal testing compound which has the same colour as Ceramique, but only a break in time of 30min!
  • The temperature was measured with an external sensor, placed next to the chipsets core.

    The base of the heatsink was very well finished, for optimal heat conduction.


    Madshrimps (c) Madshrimps (c)
    Click for bigger picture...


    Let the results speak for themselves...
    Madshrimps (c)


    The Coolermaster clearly outperforms the original cooler and does so quieter!

    Conclusion

    I'm going to end with some "glow in the dark" pictures. This is the effect you have with the Cooler Master Blue Ice.


    Madshrimps (c) Madshrimps (c)
    Click for bigger picture...


    Coolermaster delivered a nice product with the Blue Ice. The performance and looks are definitely better then the original cooler. And it's very silent too. It comes close to inaudible.

    But I don't think people are willing to give up SLI power for that. And that's also the only negative fact I could find about this cooler, not 100% compatible with nForce4 boards. But if you use any other chipset, and your fan is dying on your chipset and it’s running too hot, this is the perfect solution for you. Combined with the blue led fan, the frosted plexi it's a must have for every modder.


    PRO
    High performance
    Looks fancy
    Can be installed on every common used chipset


    CON
    Not 100% compatible with some nForce 4 mainboards.


    /piotke out

    Questions/Comments: forum thread
    • prev
    • Go to mainpage

    Copyright © 2001-2011 Madshrimps, All rights reserved.
    Graphic Design by Dennis Kestelle, Programming by Maarten Menten, Overall Site design by John Meys

    All information and graphics contained in Madshrimps are sole property of the Madshrimps crew and may not be reproduced or copied in any manner without written permission from us.

    Madshrimps