CoolIT Boreas MTEC Chassis Review

Performance Results (100% On TECs and Fans)

To see exactly how well the Boreas can really do when we open the throttle up, we have purposely turned off the advanced features and set the Predictive cooling temperature to Below Ambient. For testing we stared at 8°C but this was not cold enough to ensure 100% load on the fan and the TECs. We had to further reduce the temperature another 2° Celsius before we could reliably count on the system staying at 100% for both the TECs and the fan (yes that is right we had to set the temperature to a mind blowing 6°C before it would stay at 100%!) .

This is not recommended as sustained below ambient temperatures can cause condensation which could damage your motherboard, and in fact this is the reason we have forgone the stock speed of the Q6600 as it created enough condensation to seriously worry us. If you chose to do this, we here at HWC take no responsibility for your actions. We are just showing you what this cooler can POTENTIALLY do, and it is up to you and ONLY YOU to choose which of the myriad of cooling combinations is right for you.


Q6600 Performance Results


Oh…my…GOD, talk about "intelligent design"! Though, thank his Noodly Noodliness we started at the high end of the spectrum and worked our way back as this fricker sweats worse than a pig in a barbecue pit. Well we did say we wanted to know what it would take to make it sweat and boy did we get our wish.

With idle temperatures this low, all four TEC groups and the CPU block were creating copious amounts of condensation (and the humidity of the our testing room was kept LOW!). Once we got over the amount of sweat this thing can make we got out a bunch of towels to absorb the moisture and kept going. If you choose this extreme (and rather loud route) we highly, highly recommend you properly insulate your motherboard.

Honestly, the only thing more impressive than 6° or 7°C idle temperatures is sub 30°C load temperatures. If you need to go lower than this then your going to have to shell out the really big bucks and go full on phase change as I don’t think you can get much better than this from water.


Phenom 9750 Performance Results


It seems I was wrong when I said you couldn’t get much more impressive that the Q6600 results. Lets face it the Phenom is a real hot rod of a CPU and for any cooler to be able to keep it to near 25°C at full load is astonishing. I really got to wonder if Mr. Olde was wrong about what they use for the coolant as I pretty darn sure there must be at least SOME unobtainium floating around in there..