Although it is not impossible to achieve overclocking with Intel's stock CPU cooling fan, system builders must be mindful of its limits. Intel's stock CPU cooling allows a little less than 1GHz overclocking on Core 2 Duo CPUs before reaching dangerous temperatures and CPU instability. As a result, only 3 percent to 7 percent gains are doable. Likewise, AMD's Athlon CPUs also can only be pushed a few tenths of a voltage to achieve an overclocked speed of 1GHz.
Unfortunately, only a few alternative solutions on the market use space-conscious technologies. Those that use water jackets, oversized fins, heat conductive pipes, thermosiphon and thermoelectric (Peltier/TEC) cooling take an enormous amount of space inside a case.
Most of these cooling systems only serve a niche market because they are expensive and bulky—system builders usually promote these products in their high-end systems only.
Vigor Gaming Computer may be changing that perception with its Monsoon II active thermoelectric-type CPU cooling system. The risk of shorting out a motherboard is high, but Vigor's patented software is able to control its TEC cooling system so that condensation (a common problem) is moved away from the CPU. Heat then is transferred via pipes into a large fin area that sits above the CPU. The Monsoon II works like a heat pump by using a Peltier cooling effect.
CRN Test Center engineers tested the Monsoon II on an Intel Core 2 Duo system with 2GHz of memory. Placing the CPU cooler was not difficult, even though the side of the fan is close to the memory. After several tests of bumping up the CPU voltage, the system remained stable and cooled down. Engineers were able to achieve almost one and a half times the CPU speed without stressing the Monsoon II cooler or creating a dangerous condition for the CPU.
| Product: Vigor Monsoon II Lite | |
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• PRICE: $99 • WARRANTY: 1 Year • DISTRIBUTORS/INTEGRATORS: New Egg, Mwave, FrozenCPU/Cyberpower |
| COMPANY: Vigor Gaming Computer |
| City of Industry, Calif. (866) 907-3536 www.vigorgaming.com | |
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