Published: July 31, 2006 | Source: Specialtech | Author: Matt Kemp

Silverstone Cooler: Nitrogen NT03

Test results

Here are the results obtained from the tests.

Idle Temperature at stock settings

As you can see both of the coolers kept the CPU at a very reasonable temperature at idle. The AMD heatpipe cooler slightly edges it here but the NT03 does very well.

Load Temperature at stock settings

At load there is a lot more heat for the NT03 to compete with. This is where the higher CFM and bigger Fins of the AMD cooler have the advantage. I think that this is a pretty impressive result for the NT03 considering it’s size.

Idle Temperature at overclocked settings

Both of these coolers kept the CPU at 34Â°C during idling at stock. Here the NT03 was not spinning up at all. Another nice result.

Load Temperature at overclocked settings

Here the NT03 definitely lagged behind the AMD cooler a bit. The NT03 is designed for a P4 of 3.4GHz and above, but our 3200+ Venice is now running far above stock settings and having 1.55v pumped through it. I feel that the fans do ot pump enough air to really get rid of the heat.

However, the NT03 still kept the CPU at 500MHz above stock speed without getting what I would term ‘worrying’ temperatures. 55Â°C is perfectly reasonable for a 90nm AMD 64 part and most people would be fairly happy with a cooler that can achieve this.

Testing Thoughts
The NT03 did pretty well in our testing and I was impressed that it kept the temps down reasonable levels, especially for such a small sized cooler.