FPSLabs : Vigor Monsoon II Review

The Monsoon II from Vigor represents a new chapter in PC cooling: Air-cooled TECs. Does the Monsoon II deliver the enthusiast level performance of more extreme and often more expensive cooling solutions?

A few months ago, we published an article entitled “The Fundamentals of Cooling”. In this article, we gave a pretty in-depth explanation of each type of commonly used CPU cooling technology. As much as we would like to think the article was all-encompassing, it decidedly wasn’t. Not only are there other methods of CPU cooling, but there are variations of the ones we described. Don’t get the wrong impression, though; we still think that was a pretty good article with a lot of useful information, and if it wasn’t for those confounded innovators out there, it would be much closer to complete.

We have reviewed and written about several different innovations over the last year, from eMagin’s Z800 3DVisor to CoolIT’s Freezone TEC CPU Cooler; Bigfoot’s KillerNIC; and AGEIA’s PhysX PPU. These products are the ones that shape the future of computer hardware – true cutting-edge devices that redefine standards and break new ground. Thanks to close relationships we have built with all of the four companies behind these products, we can tell you definitively that the people in charge of the companies are extremely enthusiastic about their products and 100% dedicated towards the cause of innovation. Meeting these people and testing out their products is what really makes our jobs interesting, and keeps us doing what we love.

Last month we published a review of a very large Full-sized steel ATX computer case, called Force, from a company called Vigor Gaming. Vigor has been in the system integration business for about 2 years now, providing extremely high-end systems aimed at gamers with big budgets and bigger performance expectations. Like other companies, such as Corsair, OCZ, and Mushkin, Vigor has decided to expand their product line beyond what they started with - in this case to the component market. Unlike other companies, Vigor’s entries into the component market are a far cry from the generic-looking, average-performing parts that are flooding the market these days.

To get back to the point at hand - where are we going with this new company/innovation/cooling subject? Introducing the Vigor Monsoon II TEC CPU Cooling System: an innovative cooling solution from a company you, more likely than not, haven’t heard too much about.
{mospagebreak heading=Introduction&title=Features}
Features
To be fair, Vigor Gaming did not actually “make” the Monsoon II Cooler. A company called MACS (Micro Air Conditioning System) Technology did. The Monsoon II is giant tower-style heatsink with a 92mm fan, a 12V thermoelectric cooling plate, and 4 heatpipes. The base of the Monsoon II is constructed out of nickel-plated copper, while the convection fins are entirely aluminum. This is a commonly used design among tower-style CPU coolers, including the Termaltake Big Typhoon that we will be testing the Monsoon II against. The Monsoon II also comes with its own “Management unit” that occupies a 5.25” bay. The unit consists of two buttons - one which toggles between Celsius and Fahrenheit, and another which changes the display color - and an LCD display that shows the temperature reading from the thermistor on the cooler, the total number of hours the system has been operating since being installed, and the current system uptime. There is also a picture of a dude shoveling some dirt which means the cooler is working.

All of these features make for a pretty decent heatsink, but what makes this cooler stand out is the implementation of a 12V Thermoelectric Cooler (TEC). To save the trouble of re-writing the whole theory behind TEC technology, here is an excerpt from the TEC section of our “Fundamentals of Cooling” article:

"The third type of cooling is pretty weird, so bear with me. Peltier cooling is based on something called the Thermoelectric Effect. In 1821, a physicist named Thomas Johann Seebeck discovered the presence of an electrical charge in a metal rod when the ends of the rod were at different temperatures. This effect was studied and eventually quantified into equations and applications (thermocouples). It is the ability of this effect to work in reverse, as discovered in 1834 by Jean Peltier, which actually has applications in cooling. Peltier discovered that if a current was passed through two different metals at two different junctions, then heat variation within the metals occurs. This came to be known as the Peltier Effect, but it’s more commonly referred to as the all-encompassing “Thermoelectric Effect.”

From Thermoelectric Effect we get something called a Thermoelectric Cooler (TEC) that can be used to cool all sorts of things, most pointedly the heat-producing microprocessors in your computer. Without getting too technical, a TEC is basically a flat plate comprised of different metals that sits in between your processor and heatsink.

Current runs through the plate and allows its underside (the part that contacts the processor) to transfer heat to the other side of the plate at a very fast rate. This allows the contact side to be very cool, often times in the 10C range. Depending on certain characteristics of the rest of the cooling components, and the ambient temperature, Peltier coolers can be either extremely beneficial, or a total waste of money. The ideal scenario for a Peltier cooler is making contact with a heatsink that has very low thermal resistivity (R). This allows the heat to be transferred from the heated side of the plate instead of bogging down and consequently reducing the overall effectiveness of such an ungainly setup."

{mospagebreak title=More boring technical stuff}
Further down in that article, we discussed how the best way to get heat off the hot side of a TEC is probably through a water cooling setup, rather than a normal convection heatsink, even though the thermal resistivity of convection heatsinks is typically much less than that of a water cooling system. Well…that statement is only partially true. If the TEC in question is a beastly powerful one that transfers tons of heat and runs at full power for long periods of time, then yes, a water cooling setup is the only good way to go. However, more and more cooling systems are utilizing lower-powered TECs like the ones found on the CoolIT Freezone that can be cooled by less powerful water cooling setups and even some high-end air cooling solutions. Well, the TEC on Vigor’s Monsoon II is not only a somewhat low power plate, it is also what they called “managed”, meaning it turns on and off based on need. This keeps the overall heat output of the TEC significantly lower, allowing it to be cooled by a reasonable air cooler.

Taking a closer look at the Monsoon II, we see how the heatpipes come together at the base of the cooler. Two heatpipes are attached to the bottom plate of the cooler that directly contacts the CPU, while the other two heatpipes are attached to the top plate of the cooler that directly contacts the hot side of the TEC. The reason the design is like this is to provide a method of heat transfer should the TEC not be operating at the time. When there is no current running through a peltier device, it actually acts as something of an insulator, prohibiting the flow of heat from one side to the other. Therefore, the heatpipes that are connected to the CPU plate can get the heat off the CPU and up into the convection fins. When the TEC is switched on, more heat will be transferred, because more heat is being produced by the TEC itself and more heat is flowing from the cold plate to the hot plate. Examining the convection system reveals that the fins on the Monsoon II are actually split in the middle, with a set of fins containing each set of heatpipes. This seems to be an efficient design to the extent that there are dedicated heatsinks for different scenarios, but makes us wonder why the entire cooling power of the fins is not utilized 100% of the time.

{mospagebreak title=Installation}
Installation
Having built quite a few computers ourselves, we think it’s safe to say that installing aftermarket heatsinks is always one of the hardest things to do. Most of the time you have to disconnect all of your components, take out your motherboard, install a mounting bracket and studs, get the heatsink on there using whatever newfangled mounting system the manufacturers decided to implement, put the motherboard back in, plug all of your components back in, press the power button, and hope and pray that you didn’t mess something up. It really becomes a pain in the neck, and results in re-building your computer time and time again. The Monsoon II is no exception. In fact, we don’t think it’s too far of a stretch to say that the Monsoon II is one of the most tricky-to-install coolers we’ve ever worked with.

The Monsoon II cooler is available for AMD and Intel systems on the 939, 940, AM2, and LGA 775 sockets. The only difference between the AMD and Intel versions is the mounting brackets, which correspond to the different placement of the motherboard holes. You will not be able to use the AMD cooler on an Intel system unless you have the Intel mounting bracket, so if you are interested in buying one, make sure you know which one you are getting.

The first step in installing the Monsoon II is removing the motherboard. Of course this can require quite a lot of work, as mentioned above. Once you’ve got it out, you have to remove any stock or other aftermarket heatsink mounting brackets that might be previously installed. Once that part is done, it is time to orchestrate a frustratingly complex balancing act between the motherboard and heatsink. After having installed the cooler a few times, you start to get the hang of it. For first-timers, however, it is tremendously difficult. The way we find most convenient is the following:

First, lock the processor into the motherboard and prep it with thermal paste. Second, find an elevated, solid surface to rest the cooler on. Set the cooler upside down on this surface, and make sure it is well lighted.

Then, flip the motherboard/processor over and hold it over the upside-down cooler. Align the mounting bracket holes with the motherboard holes. Get one of the mounting screws ready by inserting it through the mounting bracket and motherboard so that it is sticking out underneath.

Then, slowly lower the motherboard down on top of the cooler while visually lining up the protruding screw with the corresponding hole on the cooler. Make sure you drop the motherboard down evenly so as to provide for decent dispersion of the thermal paste. Once you’ve got one of the screws in, aligning the other three should be relatively easy.

It sounds like a pain, and it is. While not necessarily as hard as installing certain other coolers, the fact that humans only have two hands makes getting this cooler securely in place quite a task. However, after installing a few times, it really is not too terribly difficult. After getting the cooler on, installing and plugging in the management unit is a piece of cake and is just like installing a normal optical drive.
{mospagebreak title=Testbed and Methods}
Testbed and Methods
Test setup

Case: Vigor Force
Power Supply: Antec NeoHE 550W
Motherboard: Intel Desktop Board D975XBX (Bad Axe)
Processor: Intel Core 2 Extreme X6800 (Varying MHz)
Hard Drive: Western Digital 2500KS 7200RPM, 250GB with 16MB Cache Buffer
Video: eVGA NVIDIA GeForce 7900GT KO Superclocked (580/1580)
Memory: 1024MB (2×512MB) Corsair XMS2 PC2 6400 (TWIN2X1024A-6400)
Optical Drive: Lite-ON SHW160P6S05
Cooling: Thermaltake Big Typhoon | Vigor Monsoon II
Audio: Creative X-Fi XtremeMusic
NIC: Killer Network Interface Card

Software Configuration

Motherboard BIOS: D975XBX Express BIOS Update (Rev. 1351)
Operating System: Windows XP Professional with Service Pack 2
Video Driver: NVIDIA ForceWare Version 91.47 WHQL Certified (September 14 release)

Our testbed is unchanged since our last full review of the KillerNIC. However, we will not be keeping our settings at stock while testing this cooler because the whole point of a cooler is seeing how well it does under extreme load. If you have a CPU cooler running your processor at 12C under idle conditions but 60C under heavy load, it is basically worthless. Any overclocking enthusiast will tell you they would rather have a constant temperature of 50C (idle and load) than have 12C at idle conditions and potentially damaging temperatures under load.

However, measuring temperatures can be a tricky procedure. Not only do you have to define measurement standards, but you have to maintain constant ambient temperatures or all of your readings will end up as garbage.

The temperatures of the surface of the chip were obtained using the thermal probes from a Logysis FP206BK fan controller unit. Ambient and exhaust temperatures were also obtained using this unit by taping the thermistor in front of the front case where the air was being sucked in, and one on the back where the air was being blown out. We also recorded temperatures from the built-in diode on the back of the processor using a program called Core Temp and verified using both the Intel Desktop Utilities Hardware Monitor and the Intel Thermal Analysis Tool. Temperatures were also taken from the readout on the Monsoon II’s management unit, which records the temperature directly in between the two thermal plates. This is actually a very useful measurement because it gives a good, linear indication of the change in temperature should the TEC be on during the entire test duration. Testing was carried out on stock speeds at idle, under half-load, and under full load for 30 minute durations with a constant ambient temperature, with readings taken every minute and then averaged (temperature fluctuations were at most 1 degree in either direction and thus, a temperature vs. time graph is not necessary). CPU load was created using two separate instances of the popular stress test application Prime 95. Almost identical procedures were used with each of the two coolers being tested., the exception being that we did no test exhaust temperatures with the Thermaltake Big Typhoon because they were not relevant.

A final test we did was for system power consumption. Due to the natural tendency of TECs to use up a hell of a lot of power, we thought it would be interesting to see what kind of power usage (as measured at the wall with a Kill-A-Watt) increases would be seen while using the Monsoon II, as opposed to our alternative cooling solution.
{mospagebreak title=Tests}
Tests
When we received the Monsoon II TEC CPU Cooling System, we already had a Thermaltake Big Typhoon installed in our system. What better cooler to test against the Monsoon II than what is widely considered to be the best air cooling solution around? The CPU was also at stock speeds at the time, as well as slightly under-volted to reduce heat output and energy costs (sorry, electricity is expensive in California).

These results don’t really accomplish anything except establish a “benchmark”, so to speak, of the temperatures obtained on our existing cooling solution. Likewise, the following values give us a general idea of the system’s power consumption with the ‘stock’ configuration – data we can use to compare future measurements with.

After the base measurements were established, we put a pretty decent overclock on the system to 3668 MHz, a 25% increase from stock. This information provides us with a general idea of the increased heat output we created by pushing the processor significantly further than it is supposed to go.

It should be noted that under full load with this overclock, temperatures got quite high and every fan in the system was ramped up to full speed. We kept conditions this way for 10 minutes instead of the normal 30, because we didn’t want anything to accidentally get fried and not work anymore.

[[ ADVERTISEMENT=34 ]]Also note the increased power consumption when overclocked. This rise is generated by fan speed increase and higher processor power consumption.
{mospagebreak title=Monsoon II}
Monsoon II
After we completed our testing with the Big Typhoon, we embarked on the long journey that was installing the Monsoon II. For more details of this installation procedure, see above. We reverted the system settings back to the stock and idle state and commenced testing on the Monsoon II.

These numbers are not too impressive, showing only about a 4C improvement on the surface of the chip and a 6C improvement on the on-chip diode reading. However, the bigger story here is power consumption.

When comparing the system using a Thermaltake Big Typhoon with the same system using the Monsoon II, at STOCK settings, the power consumption appears to have increased dramatically. This is actually quite alarming, considering we did not expect the TEC to be switched on for much of the time under stock settings.

Overclocking the system back to the exact same settings we used with the Big Typhoon, we can see even more interesting results. It seems as though the effectiveness of the Monsoon II increases as temperatures and stresses rise.

An 8C improvement on processor surface temperature when compared to the Big Typhoon? Not bad at all. Also somewhat interesting was the drop in the temperature reading from the on-chip diode from 73C to 64C. This seems to mean that the surface temperature of the chip is correlated to the temperature underneath the chip, which is of course expected. Let’s also not disregard the numbers we see for the system’s exhaust. These numbers give us a good idea about how hard the TEC is working, because excessively hot air coming out of the back of the computer is a surefire sign that the TEC is working. This is so because the air coming off the normally cooled processor is not nearly as warm. The extra heat being generated by the TEC needs to be transferred out of the case, so the exhaust is telling us whether or not things are heating up. But far and away the most interesting numbers we obtained in our testing were those of the overclocked system power consumption under load.

The 312W reading is a 77% increase from the stock/idle reading of 176W. That is a HUGE difference. Let us not forget that during the entire test battery, the system’s video card remained in an idle state. Had the video card been under full load on the final tests, power consumption would likely have been very near 400W. For a single video card system, 400W is quite a lot. Now let’s take a look at some graphs showing a direct comparison for temperatures measured when using the two different cooling solutions.

{mospagebreak title=Discrepancies and Conclusions}
Discrepancies and Conclusions
It seems like every time we review something, we learn some obscure yet extremely useful tidbit of information about one thing or another. It just so happens that what we learned this time directly affected the review we were writing. When temperature monitoring software like Speedfan and Motherboard Monitor read CPU temperatures, they take readings off of diodes that are physically on the motherboard. Usually these diodes can be found in the void in the middle of the CPU socket on the motherboard. It’s quite rare that the temperatures you read in any monitoring software are those of the actual surface of the chip. Furthermore, what temperature reading should concerned users be more interested in? With the Core 2 Duo, Intel engineers included an on-chip diode that is mounted on the back of the processor itself and theoretically reads the temperature on the actual CPU die itself. OK, so now we have three different (and all potentially the most important) values for CPU temperature. Well, it turns out that the most important temperature to look at is that of the actual CPU die, since that is where all the business is going down. Unfortunately, there is no really good standard method of getting this temperature on modern CPU’s that have internal heat spreaders covering the brains of the processor. If we take the reading from Intel’s diode as correct, then what do we have to compare it against? The temperatures that we are used to seeing in Speedfan and Motherboard Monitor are in the 30-40-50 range, where the preconceived temperature limits are somewhere in the 60’s and never above 70. We saw when writing this article that Intel’s diode reports well over 70C at times, and that while idle with normal air cooling, the diode reports 42C. Could a processor long touted for its thermal characteristics and low TDP really be idling at 42C when being cooled by the legendary Thermaltake Big Typhoon in ambient conditions of 26C? With the Monsoon II, this temperature was 33C. More realistic, sure. But accurate? Who knows? It’s all kind of fuzzy.

However, the numbers are still numbers, and numbers don’t lie. It appears that in every thermal test we performed, the Monsoon II handily outperformed the Thermaltake Big Typhoon. Of course, based on a price perspective, we would expect this – The Monsoon II costs about three times as much as the Big Typhoon. In the above charts that compare power consumption, you can clearly see that the TEC-based Monsoon II consumes quite a bit of power. Although we had some oddball results in our power consumption readings, it is safe to say that the TEC does indeed consume somewhere around 50W during peak operation, as advertised. Also worth mention is we run the Monsoon II in a system that operates under 100% load nearly 24/7, folding for GotFrag. The system has had absolutely zero instability problems in the more than two straight weeks we have been subjecting it to this load.

As is the case with so many of the other products we have reviewed at GotFrag Hardware, what this review really comes down to is price. The performance is there - the performance is almost always there. Question is, does the performance this product offers justify its price? A few weeks ago we would have said that yes, it absolutely does. That is when X-bit labs published an article about a cooler called the Amanda from Titan. The Amanda is just a different implementation of MACS Technology’s base cooler, and it only costs a cool $90. We could see people paying $90 for a TEC cooler that is superior to any kind of air cooling available, but $130? Sure, the Monsoon II is probably the better version of the cooler thanks to the management unit; however, even though we have not tested the Titan Amanda on this setup to get relevant numbers, it is a safe bet to say the performance is going to be right on par with the Monsoon II. We’re just not sure the fancy LCD screen is worth the extra $40. It undoubtedly is to some people, particularly those that like the high-tech, clean look on their computer cases. To the enthusiast that wants killer TEC performance without the budget killing price, it’s more of a toss-up. One thing IS for sure, though - the Monsoon II TEC CPU Cooling System is one hell of a product that does its job admirably well. EDIT: Upon publishing this review we recieved word that Titan Amanda cooler is not available in the United States. This changes everything since it effectively eliminates that option for consumers in the United States.

Pros
+ Good implementation of TEC
+ Management unit
+ Set it and forget it operation
+ Reduces temperatures significantly beyond those acheived with top-of-the-line air cooling.
+ Very well designed
Cons
- Somewhat expensive
- High power consumption

Rating
9.7 out of 10

While the Monsoon II is an amazing cooler in every aspect, the fact that it is $130 dollars seems like a hurdle for a lot of gamers that can achieve good, although not as good, cooling for heatsinks that are one third this price. Our previous review of the CoolIT Freezone TEC/Watercooling system yielded an Editor’s Pick for that product. Due to the fact that this cooler performs just as well as that one, in fact better in some cases, as well as costs half as much, we have to at least give it a higher rating. Also, with the news that Amanda is not available in the United States, thus eliminating the main criticism we have with the Monsoon in regards to pricing, we have to give this thing an Editor’s Pick award.

Editor’s Pick - Ultra-affordable Extreme Cooling Solution

For more pictures not seen in the review, including side by side comparisons of the Monsoon II and Thermaltake Big Typhoon, check out the picture gallery, here.

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