Chip-Con's Prometeia Cooling Unit

Author : Martyn Date : 2002

...Product	'Prometeia' Cooling System
...Manufacturer	Chip-Con
...Supplier	Chip-Con
...Price	475 Euros ex VAT

 

 

 

Part Five: The Test Setup

After having some superb success with our Pentium 4, I decided to use Chip-Con's P4 CPU kit and see just how fast this chip could go.

Intel Test Bed: -

Intel's 2.53GHz Pentium 4
Abit's TH7II [i850]
2 x Kingston 128MB PC800 RIMMS
eVGA's Geforce 4 Ti 4600 Ltd Ed. (Core @ 300MHz, Memory @ 700MHz)
IBM's 75GXP ATA 100
550w Intel Approved PSU.

Part Six: Getting Started

Before we begin I better address the CPU installation. I imagine a few of you are worried about the process being overly complex compared to a standard heatsink and fan. This couldn't be farther from the truth! I found the actual installation. very, very easy indeed. The only potential trouble is found within the application of the seal string but this was only a conceptual error, it's a simple task and not messy in the slightest. I would happily recommend the unit on the strength of ease of use, it's an excellent system.

After connecting the wires from the cooler to the motherboard (another simple task) I was ready to power up my new super cooled P4 system. Upon pressing the power button the unit burst into life and the first noticeable activity is from the huge fan on the rear of the cooling unit. I closely monitored the temparature on the front of the unit and was surprised to see it actually rising! I had almost come to the conclusion something was very indeed but then it started dropping, and dropping dramatically. It's a little strange to have a monitor display very little minutes after you have powered up the system but as I stated previously, the unit holds the system in a reset state so the correct temperatures are achieved before booting. Hardened overclockers may find this very strange as the non active monitor is usually a sign of trouble after overclocking your hardware too much. These feelings soon go away once the machine boots and you have the chance to check your temperatures. I have gotten very used to the elongated boot delay this unit offers throughout my testing. It seems to get shorter every time and becomes much less of an issue than one would initially expect.

I settled for an overclocked state of 3GHz, a speed that will not be offered by Intel until Q1 of 2003. The chip would actually operate with good stability up to 3.23GHz but 3DMark 2001 would becoming very unstable even though the option to set AGP at 66MHz was enabled. 3GHz is still a great number to benchmark at though and we can see just how Prometeia offers its users a look into the future of speed.

Here is how the CPU stayed throughout the testing: -

What about those all important temperatures?

(Wow!)

 

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