[Cathar]

I am not going to add additional shit to the fight, but will only repeat user observations that have been reported to me over the years, and not specifically relating to the Storm at all. Correlate them at your will/peril.

In all non-IHS scenarios there has consistently appeared to be a very strong correlation with artificial die performance, and the ability to overclock and/or sustain lower reported CPU temps. A trawl through the various OC forums over the years shows that this is a strong general trend. Not a given fact.

Users of IHS capped CPU's have fairly consistently reported a "numbness" effect with respect to reported CPU temperatures. There is always very little to separate different blocks from each other, if anything at all, unless there is a truly vast difference in measured artificial testbed performance.

Users of IHS capped CPU's who have subsequently removed their IHS's have trended to observe cooling performance and overclocking performance consistent with projected artificial test-bed performance. i.e. lower reported temps and better overclocks. As always, temperature reporting differences are numbed/dulled by the practises of temperature "fiddling" and compression that occurs by mobo makers in the industry.

Those few users who have persisted with assessing waterblock performance between both different waterblocks and different IHS capped CPU's, and as such perhaps provide a clearer independent picture of the extent of the muddiness of the IHS->wb relationship, have found that reported waterblock performance is wholly dependent on the individual CPU+IHS being used. On one individual CPU, broad cooling patterned wb A can be found to be better than focused cooling patterned wb B. Switch out the CPU for another of the exact type, and the observable wb performances will trade places, as will achievable overclock.

In all of this, it is quite clear to me that no-one is lying, and no one is at fault. The only issue is this:

The use of IHS's provides a variant and inconsistent mechanism around which cooling device performance may be assessed. Where any individual gets "tripped up" in all of this is choosing to believe otherwise, or worse, choosing to base expensive business decisions on the results provided by a variant and inconsistent testing mechanism.

Are bare-die-sims better than "real world IHS die sims". Yes, and no. They are because they are consistent. No, because they do not reflect the real world directly. The problem here though is much like chaos theory. The introduction of the IHS provides for a large set of variables that absolutely defy consistent measurement. We could sit here all day and construct hypotheticals for why the use of IHS's are providing varying results as they are, and the more we do so, the more we will come to understand how futile it is to attempt to use them categorise cooling design performance.

So where does that leave us? Between a rock and a hard place. Damned if we do (use IHS's for measurement) and damned if we don't (cue cries of "NOT REAL WORLD!").

The real world sucks (IHS use). In a world where IHS's pollute results, the best any of use can do is fall back to the one thing that is providing consistent results, and that is bare-die simulation testbeds. It may not simulate the real world, but I'll be damned if someone can convince me that using a mechanism that introduces a multitude of variables for purposes of assessing wb design performance can ever be described as "a good step forwards".