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Cooler Master Blue Ice


Date
: 07/25/05 – 09:20:30 PM

Author
:

Category
: Cooling

Page 1 : Index

Manufacturer
: Cooler Master

Price
:

Many enthusiasts have a desire to take a perfectly good stock component and replace it with something else. There are many reasons why people do it: some enthusiasts want more power, others beg for silence and some are just brand loyal.

We recently reviewed the brand new, award winning, Albatron K8SLI. We're now going to replace the standard chipset cooler with the Cooler Master Blue Ice. While we already know the existing chipset cooler works perfectly fine and is less than a month old, by replacing the stock component we'll aim for better cooling which may allow us to squeeze a tiny bit more performance out of the system.

Page 2 : Package

Cooler Master shipped me the Blue Ice in its retail package.

The package clearly displays the product, some of the specifications and features. Although it is not a full list, it's more than enough to give you an idea of what it has been designed to do.

The back side of the package shows the other half of the chipset cooler. It also lists some of the technical specifications, dimensions, fan specifications and MTBF.

The plastic container is reusable; a small plus in my book. This allows you to easily pack it away and secure the Blue Ice if you don't need it anymore.

By pulling the tabs apart, we can remove the Blue Ice cooler and all of its contents.

There's definitely not too much to the package, but it has all the components you need to mount the cooler on two different types of motherboards.

The cooler itself is pretty big by chipset cooler standards.

The cooler uses just under 30 fins to cool the heatpipe. The heatpipe runs to the base and then through a small copper heatsink.

At the base of the cooler, there is a 1/8" copper slab that will be in contact with the chipset. The base has been lapped, but not polished. We can see a slight reflection of the Canadian quarter.

The Blue Ice is not a passive cooler, although it can be turned into one without much trouble. At the top of the cooler, it has a plastic frame that is secured by four screws. Removing these four screws allows us to lift the 40mm cooler off.

By lifting off the top of the cooler, we can get a good look at the fan.

Check the next page for full specifications on the Blue Ice.

Page 3 : Specifications

This is what Cooler Master has to say about their own product. It's labeled as Blue Ice II on their website, but my package is labeled the Blue Ice and we both have the same product number!

The key features are:

Last but not least, the specifications:

Page 4 : Installation

The first step in the installation is to remove the protective sticker and attach the foam padding that ensures precious transistors and diodes on the chipset base are not crushed.

The next step is to select which mounting system you need. The Blue Ice is compatible by two different methods: secure by hook and secure by nut. With the Albatron K8SLI, we'll be using the nuts and bolts method. The first step is to install the bolt into the Z end of the metal strip. (The installation guide provides a pictorial installation procedure.)

Once you have that done, slide the metal strip into the groove of the Blue Ice. By sliding the metal strip along the rail and rotating it, you should be able to find a position that will allow you to push the bolt through the motherboard holes. Once the bolt is through, slide a washer up and attach the bolt. The process sounds pretty easy, but it can get complicated. Such as when your chipset is very close to your socket and the heatsink gets in the way. If you get restricted so much that you can't place your fingers to slide the metal strip, things can get tricky.

I was forced to place the Blue Ice off-center and rotate it about 15° before tightening in the bolt because of the position of the cooler.

Once you install the video card, you can really see how much of a twist I needed and how tight the space is.

Despite the minor hiccup of size, we're ready to move on.

Page 5 : Performance

We'll be testing the Blue Ice against the stock cooler. Since the Albatron K8SLI does not have a built in chipset temperature probe, the temperature probes provided by Matrix Orbital will be used.

This is the placement of the temperature probe on the stock cooler and on the Blue Ice:

The temperature probe on the Blue Ice is placed much closer to the center of the chipset than with the stock cooler. Also note that both positions have the flush face of the diode pointing towards the center of the chip.

Testing will proceed by placing the system under load using Folding@Home and Distributed Net RC5-72 for 4 hrs. This ensures that both coolers will have reached their saturation temperature and that the temperature probe achieves an accurate reading. After the 4 hrs, both clients will shut down and the system will idle for another 4 hrs before the temperature values are recorded. The room temperature, recorded by Matrix Orbital was roughly 25°C during testing.

The system was composed with these components:

And the results:

I was not expecting that large of a difference in temperature readings, but the numbers speak for themselves.

Limitations in the memory modules prevented the K8SLI in running any higher, the maximum we could push the system was 315*9, but the system wasn't stable at this rate. If your machine is hindered by an overheating northbridge, I'm comfortable saying the Blue Ice will help fix the problem.

Page 6 : Conclusion

Cooler Master has made a product that caters to two different groups: enthusiasts who need stock cooling alternatives to achieve maximum overclocking potential and those who have a desire to find the quietest cooling solution available. Flanked between a CPU Cooler and a VGA Cooler, it makes it very difficult to hear it. This doesn't mean it is absolutely quiet however, the 26dBA is most certainly audible if you have a completely silent machine.

If you have motherboard that gives you more space around the chipset, the Blue Ice will certainly be a nice touch. The heatpipe cooling is very effective in bringing the heat to the top so it can be dissipated away from your system. Not only that, but with it's blue LED it can give some extra life to a dull machine.

Advantages

Performs well
Two retention systems ensure support
Heatpipe, fins and the blue LED brings life to a dull chipset cooler

Disadvantages

Not easy to install in tight spaces

Overclockers Online would like to thank Cooler Master for providing this evaluation sample to us.