CoolerMaster GeminII S CPU + Board Cooler Author:  Michael Bosse Date:  2008.08.20 Topic:  Cooling Provider:  Cooler Master Manufacturer:  Cooler Master

Installation and Testing Preparation

The installation of the CoolerMaster GeminII S CPU cooler was a laborious process that involved ripping my motherboard out of the case, removing the stock mounting bracket as provided by the motherboard manufacturer, installing the custom mounting bracket, and in a somewhat complicated sandwich motion, flipping the motherboard over while attempting to keep the cooler from falling off. This was the most difficult installation of a CPU cooler that I had ever been involved with. I found it somewhat disconcerting that the cooler required me to completely free my motherboard from the case; this involved removing nearly every component from my machine.

As you can see from these pictures, there is not a lot of clearance between the bottom of the blades of the cooler, and the top of my RAM. I found it to be quite difficult to remove the RAM from the inner two slots of my motherboard with the heatsink installed. There is enough room under the cooler to remove stock ram, but some of our readers who have ram that features raied heatsinks. These sticks of ram may either not fit at all under the GeminII S cooler, or may require the removal of the cooler. Other than this minor issue, the installation process was relatively straightforward if a bit laborious.

Testing Process

• Establish baseline for Test
  
  1. Install AMD Opteron 1214 with stock retail cooler
  2. Measure temperature at idle using SpeedFan
  3. Run Prime 95 torture test for 10 minutes, recording temperatures
• Test performance of CoolerMaster GeminII S cooler
  
  1. Install AMD Opteron 1214 with Coolermaster GeminII S cooler
  2. Measure temperature at idle using SpeedFan
  3. Run Prime 95 torture test for 10 minutes, recording temperatures

Note that for both of the above tests, I will be using Arctic Silver 5 heatsink compound, as well as a solution of 90% Isopropyl Alcohol to clean the processor between tests.

Lets get to the test system specifics:

The operating system that was used during my test procedure is Microsoft Vista Ultimate Sp1. If you have questions about other specifics of my rig, feel free to contact me, my contact information is on the staff page, and my email is mike@techwarelabs.com.

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