On the test bench today, we are taking a look at another of Xigmatek's coolers: The Dark Knight. While the name is synonymous with the D.C. Comic character Batman, Xigmatek's Dark Knight doesn't fend off any super villains, but it does have a job which is to keep that CPU under the hood at a nice chilly temperature. In today's computers the never ending search for more MHz leads one to over clocking, over clocking leads to an increase in heat, increasing the heat leads to premature failure of the part which in this case is the CPU. Electromigration is the main cause of premature failure due to an excess amount of heat over long periods of time that basically wears the traces on the CPU out. I guess this would be more of a physical failure, although on a microscopic scale.

AMD and Intel have made it easier to over clock their processors, compared to a few years ago when we were using trace pens to connect the dots just to enable the ability to change the multiplier on an AMD CPU, which leads to more people into the world of over clocking and the stock coolers just don't cut it as they can barely keep the processors cool at the stock settings.



Link: Hightech Hardware