At this point in the "testing," I got tired of taking sissy pooh-pooh shots of the Silverstone/CoolIT venture, and was itching to see just how much I could stress this machine out. So I fired up an instance of Prime95, making sure it was taking a good chunk out of all the CPU cores, and ran a loop of 3DMark with all the settings maximized. Oh yes, I wanted to make this baby burn, and while it didn't catch ablaze, it did get noticeably warmer. Shown here:

As a whole, the cooler functions remarkably well. Considering that it's packing a flaming CPU and two 8800s in the same loop, I was pleased to see temperatures staying within reasonable ranges (40 degrees-ish). Heck, I was even able to get the coolant itself down to a pleasing 25 degrees (on an idle system, mind you). Which reminds me; the software package that powers the entire deal, CoolIT's MTEC Control Center, is unequivocally badass. And simple. All you need to do is pick a temperature that you want the coolant to hover around, and the Boreas will take care of the rest by automatically raising or lowering the fan speeds. It's a mixed blessing; you get lower fan speeds (and lower noise) when the computer's running normally. But when it starts to output the heat, and the Boreas kicks it up a notch to match your cooling preferences... you might want earplugs.

But that's how the computing cookie crumbles. It sure beats a Boreas that's running at 100 percent all the time, that's for sure. And as I've gushed, the unit's cooling prowess -- strapped into a pretty "1337" case -- is a great combination. Heavy as all get-out, but great. As always, CoolIT provides an excellent alternative for those who don't want to futz with building their own custom water cooling rig.