Benchmarking - Thermal

When benchmarking the Tsunami Dream, we test the temperatures of key components including the actual CPU temperature, the actual temperature inside the heatsink, the temperatures of the DDR, Northbridge, Southbridge, HDD, PSU, and the ambient temperature inside the case, all during normal operation. During our testing, the PSU and CPU heatsink fans remain on to measure temperatures during normal system operations.

Chaintech VNF3-250
AMD Athlon 64 3200+
OCZ PC3200 DDR x 2
Zalman CNPS7000 Copper
Seagate Barracuda 120GB SATA
ATI 9800XT AGP8x
OCZ 520W PowerStream



Click to enlarge.
Since we have updated our test bed motherboard from a VIA chipset board to an nForce chipset board, the Northbridge results should be read as temperatures of the single nForce chip. Southbridge results are not associated with nForce boards and are therefore not applicable.


The thermal readings for the key components and points on the motherboard during operation were as follows:

Thermal Benchmarks - CPU

Thermal Benchmarks - Heat sink

Thermal Benchmarks - HDD

Thermal Benchmarks - DDR

Thermal Benchmarks - Northbridge(VIA)/nForce Chip(nForce)

Thermal Benchmarks - Southbridge(VIA Chipset Only)

Thermal Benchmarks - Power Supply

Thermal Benchmarks - System Ambient

The dual 120mm fans with the single side mounted 90mm fan performed well in the Tsunami as they kept temperatures of all components and the ambient system temperature down and lower than any of the other cases in the chart. The power of these fans did come with a price, however, in sound...

Installation Benchmarking - Sound
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  • Aratharn - Friday, September 10, 2004 - link

    It looks like a nice case (except for the window which is just personal taste). Were there any worries about the longevity of the paint? Cars get scratched and it would seem a glossy black finish is going to scratch over time.

    I find the power supply issue intriguing in that I had no such problems in my CoolerMaster WaveMaster case even though I installed a large Enermax power supply unit (465W). I guess the WavemMaster is an old man of a case now, but it would have been nice to see it included in the benchmarks for this comparison.

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