The ADATA XPG Levante 360 AIO Cooler Review: Stuck in the Middle
by E. Fylladitakis on April 4, 2022 8:00 AM ESTTesting Methodology
Although the testing of a cooler appears to be a simple task, that could not be much further from the truth. Proper thermal testing cannot be performed with a cooler mounted on a single chip, for multiple reasons. Some of these reasons include the instability of the thermal load and the inability to fully control and or monitor it, as well as the inaccuracy of the chip-integrated sensors. It is also impossible to compare results taken on different chips, let alone entirely different systems, which is a great problem when testing computer coolers, as the hardware changes every several months. Finally, testing a cooler on a typical system prevents the tester from assessing the most vital characteristic of a cooler, its absolute thermal resistance.
The absolute thermal resistance defines the absolute performance of a heatsink by indicating the temperature rise per unit of power, in our case in degrees Celsius per Watt (°C/W). In layman's terms, if the thermal resistance of a heatsink is known, the user can assess the highest possible temperature rise of a chip over ambient by simply multiplying the maximum thermal design power (TDP) rating of the chip with it. Extracting the absolute thermal resistance of a cooler however is no simple task, as the load has to be perfectly even, steady and variable, as the thermal resistance also varies depending on the magnitude of the thermal load. Therefore, even if it would be possible to assess the thermal resistance of a cooler while it is mounted on a working chip, it would not suffice, as a large change of the thermal load can yield much different results.
Appropriate thermal testing requires the creation of a proper testing station and the use of laboratory-grade equipment. Therefore, we created a thermal testing platform with a fully controllable thermal energy source that may be used to test any kind of cooler, regardless of its design and or compatibility. The thermal cartridge inside the core of our testing station can have its power adjusted between 60 W and 340 W, in 2 W increments (and it never throttles). Furthermore, monitoring and logging of the testing process via software minimizes the possibility of human errors during testing. A multifunction data acquisition module (DAQ) is responsible for the automatic or the manual control of the testing equipment, the acquisition of the ambient and the in-core temperatures via PT100 sensors, the logging of the test results and the mathematical extraction of performance figures.
Finally, as noise measurements are a bit tricky, their measurement is being performed manually. Fans can have significant variations in speed from their rated values, thus their actual speed during the thermal testing is being recorded via a laser tachometer. The fans (and pumps, when applicable) are being powered via an adjustable, fanless desktop DC power supply and noise measurements are being taken 1 meter away from the cooler, in a straight line ahead from its fan engine. At this point we should also note that the Decibel scale is logarithmic, which means that roughly every 3 dB(A) the sound pressure doubles. Therefore, the difference of sound pressure between 30 dB(A) and 60 dB(A) is not "twice as much" but nearly a thousand times greater. The table below should help you cross-reference our test results with real-life situations.
The noise floor of our recording equipment is 30.2-30.4 dB(A), which represents a medium-sized room without any active noise sources. All of our acoustic testing takes place during night hours, minimizing the possibility of external disruptions.
<35dB(A) | Virtually inaudible |
35-38dB(A) | Very quiet (whisper-slight humming) |
38-40dB(A) | Quiet (relatively comfortable - humming) |
40-44dB(A) | Normal (humming noise, above comfortable for a large % of users) |
44-47dB(A)* | Loud* (strong aerodynamic noise) |
47-50dB(A) | Very loud (strong whining noise) |
50-54dB(A) | Extremely loud (painfully distracting for the vast majority of users) |
>54dB(A) | Intolerable for home/office use, special applications only. |
*noise levels above this are not suggested for daily use
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Oxford Guy - Tuesday, April 5, 2022 - link
Hacks are beside the point.Khanan - Tuesday, April 5, 2022 - link
Your comment is generally wrong. It doesn’t matter from which standpoint I look at it.With the demise of SLI and Crossfire GPU coolers are bigger than ever because there is no place reserved for the second gpu anymore.
Oxford Guy - Monday, April 11, 2022 - link
Bigger than ever? So what?It's still a lot less space and it's not at all optimal in terms of airflow.
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Hifihedgehog - Friday, April 8, 2022 - link
> CPUs need so much space and money devoted to efficient cooling but GPUs do not.This statement needs some qualification and some tweaking. First, I think what you are trying to say is CPUs require additional spending for proper cooling, whereas most GPUs already come with adequate cooling out of the box. That ignores the fact that the third-party cooling solutions that vendors add above reference designs do increase prices above relase base MSRP. Second, your comment about space is inaccurate: GPUs are very much needing so much space for their stock cooling. The most recent offender is the RTX 3090 Ti, and before that the RTX 3090 Founders Edition. Worse yet, the recent round of rumors for RTX 40 series/Lovelace state that the RTX 3090 Ti is a mere taste for the cooling requirements that lie ahead, namely 450-800W power draw is expected for the next generation NVIDIA consumer flagship. All in all, your comment has some merit but is a bit out there since it ignores these points about the GPU space.
matthatnz! - Thursday, April 28, 2022 - link
https://asia.evga.com/products/product.aspx?pn=12G...Ah that statement is not really true. If you want better than normal cooling on a GPU (like these sort of cpu coolers provide) then just get the product above. I have had a EVGA 980 ti Hybrid for 6 years and its still going strong. Nevers gets over 60 degrees. MSI are now doig similar products as well. Standardisation of cooling soltuions is never gonna happen as board partners use custom PCB's so yeah nah.
matthatnz! - Thursday, April 28, 2022 - link
https://www.msi.com/Graphics-Card/GeForce-RTX-3080...Here is the MSI product. I can see more and more of these types coming out due to the TDP coming up of the 4000 Series from Nvidia
Foeketijn - Tuesday, May 17, 2022 - link
Other than the complications when trying to watercool the GPU, a GPU can be 90C° for ever without an issue. A CPU can't. Most GPU's are cooled propperly from factory, most (intel) CPU's aren't.The reason I would still Watercool my GPU is, I don't want that heat dispersed in my case.
maxmarrie - Monday, April 18, 2022 - link
This GPU is not working properly on my system and just because of this issue I am unable to complete my work