Sytrin KuFormula VF1 Plus

Performance:

For testing the Sytrin KuFormula VF1 Plus, we had installed the GPU and RAM cooling solution upon a Leadtek WinFast PX7800GTX 256MB graphics card. For comparison purposes, we had also tested the stock Leadtek GPU and RAM cooler, which very closely follows NVIDIA's reference design for the 7800GTX G70. The 7800GTX was chosen for testing due to its high-end status as well as NVIDIA's proprietary Linux display drivers allow core temperature monitoring from its nvidia-settings panel. Through the thermal monitoring tab, the core temperature is displayed in Celsius as well as the slowdown threshold temperature. Below is the system specifications used during the complete testing process.

For comparing the Sytrin cooler against the stock cooling solution, we had recorded the temperature while the GPU was idling as well as under load. For the idle numbers, we simply let the system run with no major processes running while GNOME v2.10 was loaded, and system power management features were disabled to prevent the display from turning off as well as the screen saver from activating. It is important to keep in mind that the GeForce 7800GTX continues to use three performance levels for adjusting the GPU voltage and frequency depending upon the graphical load. The three performance states are 275MHz, 415MHz, and 430MHz, while the voltage levels are 1.20V, 1.30V, and 1.40V. The memory frequency is maintained at 1200MHz. For GPU load, we had run Quake 4 v1.0.6 with high quality settings while running loops of our Purification Center demo. The idle and load testing had both lasted for 20 minutes and during testing the ambient room temperature was maintained constant. Unfortunately, we were forced to run the 7800GTX through the duration of testing at its stock frequencies. Back on August 1 of 2005, we had reported a bug to NVIDIA's Linux developers in regards to a CoolBits conflict when running Xinerama with a multi-monitor environment (Bug: 181974). However, even with the latest 1.0-8178 display drivers the issue still exists which does not allow CoolBits overclocking in a multi-monitor environment unless using TwinView. On the following pages are our results as well as our conclusion.