Page 3 - Test Results
Out test configuration is as follows:
CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 5600X
Motherboard: MSI MAG B550 Tomahawk
RAM: XPG Spectrix D50 DDR4-3600 2x8GB
Graphics: EVGA NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti
Chassis: Corsair 5000D
Power: SilverStone Decathlon DA850 Gold 850W
Storage: Samsung EVO 970 1TB, Patriot P400 1TB, Lexar NQ100 480GB
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 10 Pro
Compared hardware:
- DeepCool AK400 Digital
- ARCTIC Freezer A35 A-RGB
- ARCTIC Liquid Freezer II 280 A-RGB
- Cooler Master MasterLiquid PL240 Flux
- DeepCool AK400
- DeepCool LS720
- DeepCool LT720
- GAMDIAS CHIONE M3-240W
- SilverStone Hydrogon D120 ARGB
All tests were run in our custom-built computer to best reflect real-life performance. The computer remained in the same place and room for all tests. The ambient temperature of the room was roughly 21 degrees Celsius. The thermal paste applied to each cooler was stock respective to their manufacturers to rate its performance. Sufficient time between testing was applied for the paste to settle. The fans on all heatsinks were connected to the same motherboard's 4-pin connector. The test computer was turned on and idling for at least one hour for the idling tests. High CPU load results were obtained using the Prime95 in place large FFTs test with twelve worker threads for a minimum of 15 minutes and recorded when the temperature was deemed stable.
For the first test, I let my computer sit idle for a while. After about an hour, I shook my mouse to wake my computer up. We can see the DeepCool AK400 Digital sat around 36 degrees Celsius, which is the same as the original AK400's idle temperature. The SilverStone Hydrogon D120 ARGB and ARCTIC Freezer A35 A-RGB both had higher idle temperatures at 39 degrees Celsius when it came to air cooler comparisons. The liquid coolers had better idle thermals for the most part, although this is less surprising. Interestingly though, the DeepCool AK400 Digital had a slightly lower idle thermal than the GAMDIAS CHIONE M3-240W, a liquid cooler. While this is a good start, idle tests do not give a full representation of their cooling capabilities, thus leading us into our load tests.
Starting Prime95 and giving the processor time to load all the cores and threads, we can see how the cooler performs when the processor is under heavy stress. The DeepCool AK400 Digital performed well here, peaking at 63 degrees Celsius. This was exactly the same peak load temperature as the original AK400, which is not surprising given the same build structure, and the marginally improved fan specifications made no noticeable difference. This was only a degree warmer than the SilverStone Hydrogon D120 ARGB and matched the load temperature for the ARCTIC Freezer A35 A-RGB. The maximum temperature was 5c above the Cooler Master MasterLiquid PL240 Flux and 7c warmer than the ARCTIC Liquid Freezer II 280 RGB, which is a reasonable difference in both cases. We observed the boost frequency throughout the test, which was 3.7 GHz across all cores. The results here prove the DeepCool AK400 Digital can handle itself under load with my AMD Ryzen 5 5600X.
Sound is often perceived differently by people, but we try to make our subjective audio tests as objective as possible. On a scale of 0 to 10, where 0 is silence and 10 is being in the middle of any EDM music festival, I would rate the DeepCool AK400 Digital around 2.0/10 when idle and 4.5/10 when under full load. The DeepCool fan was acceptable in operation when it comes to noise, although my colleague Aaron Lai did find them sort of loud with two of them running in the AK620 Digital. Under day-to-day use, the noise was not very audible though.
Page Index
1. Introduction, Packaging, Specifications
2. Physical Look - Hardware, Installation
3. Test Results
4. Conclusion
