Methodology
An AMD Ryzen 9 3950X has to be cooled in various levels of power consumption, joined by 16GB Crucial Ballistix Sport (2x8GB) DDR4 memory on an MSI B550 Tomahawk (BIOS 7C91vAB). The Asus ROG Strix GTX 1060 6GB runs in zero-fan mode for the CPU stress tests only and a Fractal Design Ion Gold 750W serves as the power source. The whole thing is housed in the Thermaltake Core P3 as an open benchtable.
The test system runs on Windows 10 Pro 22H2 (build 19045.2251). All data sets are recorded with HWInfo64 v7.34-4930 – 5000ms logging, the specified temperature results from the sensor CPU Die (Average). Since I don’t have air conditioning, the values in the graphs are the delta between room temperature and CPU temperature. This allows all cooling systems to be compared fairly, even if the ambient temperature is different. The thermal paste included with the cooler or pre-applied is used in each case.
I determine the sound level with a Voltcraft SL-200 meter at a distance of 40cm, which operates in 125ms cycles in Lo mode. The room was measured at 33.3 dB(A), an external sample table helps to break it down.
Benchmarks
In the first test run, a loudness of 40 dB(A) was set at 40cm from the center of the pump and fans on the radiator; in my setup, that’s 33% PWM on the radiator fans and 80% PWM on the pump:
After that, this compact water cooler can show what it can achieve in terms of cooling performance at maximum speed, regardless of the noise level. A maximum of 59.6 dB(A) was achieved at 100% PWM and 40cm distance.
A full comparison to other coolers can be found here:
Roundup und erneute Messung aller getesteten CPU Luft- und AiO-Wasserkühler
Summary and conclusion
A plain exterior also seems to be back in trend now, at least we’ve had a few of these “blackout” coolers around here lately. If all the RGB lighting was too much for you, you finally feel picked up.
However, I don’t recall ever having a three-fan AiO watercooler that didn’t either come with a splitter cable / fan hub or allow daisy-chaining. With a 120mm AiO this is understandable, but here? A little too much was saved there.
And the Core Ocean T38 was also somewhat frugal in terms of cooling performance. Due to the really very high volume of the Core 120 fans, they have to be throttled very much for the 40dB(A) test, and the performance suffers accordingly. However, the low price of (currently) around 80€ is not to be scoffed at, even though it unfortunately only comes with a 2-year warranty. The difference to the other tested AiO water cooling systems is only a few degrees Celsius in the end. Alphacool now holds both first and last place, so the choice is up to everyone.
The test sample was provided by Alphacool without obligation. There was and is no influence on the tests and results. There was also no compensation for expenses and no obligation to publish.
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