Overclocking and noise
4.15GHz didn't appear to stress the KÜHLER 920 all too much, so we've gone up another notch to 4.3GHz at 1.4V. That's 1GHz above the chip's reference speed, and this combination of frequency and voltage should chuck out a fair amount of heat.
At this speed, Antec's cooler does impressively well to keep temperatures below 75ºC. In comparison, Corsair's Hydro H70 averaged delta and actual temperatures of 56.6ºC and 78.7ºC, respectively, when running at 4.3GHz.
The noise factor
We regrettably didn't have our PCE-318 noise level meter when we tested Corsair's Hydro H70, so while we can't provide a direct comparison, we do have numbers for the Hydro H60 and Intel's high-end 980X cooler, the DBX-B. Here's how the three compare:
| Noise (high-speed) | Noise (low-speed) | |
|---|---|---|
| Antec KÜHLER H2O 920 | 60.8 dB | 36.9 dB |
| Corsair Hydro H60 | 43.9 dB | 32.4 dB |
| Intel DBX-B | 48.2 dB | 34.8 dB |
We weren't kidding when we said the KÜHLER 920 can get noisy. Switch it over to Extreme mode and it's intolerably loud. With the fans running at full tilt, the cooler is clearly audible from adjacent rooms - making this one of the loudest coolers we've heard in a long while.
And contrary to its name, the Silent mode isn't what it claims to be, either. The cooler isn't by any means loud when running at low speed, but you can hear the steady hum of the fans and the occasional gurgle of liquid.
