Gigabyte P35G v2 and Cooler Master U3 -- pretty decent performance...

Have been shopping around for a decent cooler for a new P35G v2 that I've had for about two weeks now ...

It's idle and load temps aren't that bad as it is ... at least not much worse than most other gaming laptops out there ... but always wanting to improve things for reasons of longevity, I thought I'd try a laptop cooler and see if it made much of a difference under some benchmark scenarios...

I tried the Cooler Master U2 first and it was okay ... but the fans were pretty weak and didn't allow as precise of a placement as I was wanting.

The Cooler Master U3 "Plus" seemed a better option as it had three fans, with adjustable speeds and a bit more vertical adjustment room towards the rear of the laptop, where the main P35G v2 GPU and CPU cooler intakes are located ...

So I got one of of those and just did some benches/test today.

The results are good enough to make keeping the $40.00 U3 cooler pretty much a no brainer.

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Here's how I lined the Cooler Master U3 fans up on the bottom fan intakes of the P35G laptop:

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Here's some numbers...

Tests were done in a 22.5C room ambient temperature

** idle test results are the highest CPU/GPU temps recorded over a 15 minute period of system inactivity
** load temps are the highest CPU/GPU temps recorded during a 1080p Metro Last Light Benchmark looped 5 times and at Medium quality settings. Oddly, I found the CPU temps to be higher when running this looped Metro:LL benchmark program than I did running Prime95 and so used the data from the Metro runs
** all tests done with U3 fans set on highest setting

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(all temps in Celcius)

CPU idle NO U3 COOLER: 58c / 54c / 54c / 57c
CPU idle WITH U3 COOLER: 48c / 46c / 44c / 43c

CPU load NO COOLER: 90c / 87c / 88c / 83c
CPU load WITH COOLER: 85c / 85c / 86c / 80c

GPU idle NO U3 COOLER: 56c
GPU idle WITH U3 COOLER: 47c

GPU load NO U3 COOLER: 82c
GPU load WITH U3 COOLER: 76c

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As mentioned, those are the hottest instance for each test .. the average temp would be a few degrees less across the board.

CPU idle temps were quite drastically reduced when using the U3 cooler, the CPU load temps, not so much.

GPU temps were more dramatically improved on both idle and load scenarios.

My machine is in an idle state, or being moderately stressed far more than it is being intensively stressed and so the improvement with the U3 cooler is significant for my daily usage. I don't game too much with the P35G v2 as I have a pretty pimped out SLI desktop machine which occupies the vast majority of my gaming time ... but I do use the P35 daily at work as a general workstation ... and the addition of the U3 cooler will certainly add a degree of peace of mind in regards to component longevity ... nothing bothers me more than too high idle temps ...

Anyway .. thought other P35 users might find that information useful.

I've also got a NZXT Cryo x60 on the way but I doubt it will be as effective as the U3 since it uses two, much larger fans that won't be able to so neatly and precisely target the air intakes .. but we shall see. Going to do some comparisons with it in the next few days after it comes in.

For now, the U3 is pretty decent and it fits the P35G v2 very nicely:

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I have the p35w v2. i purchased the notepal u3 and to be honest i don't see too much difference. Maybe i am not locating the fans in the best way.


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I've found that it is really sort of room ambient dependent ... either way though, the temperature reduction is generally just a few degrees at load. Idle temps are a bit better too but still nothing dramatic...

I use the U3 at home and a NZXT X60 at my office ... they perform similarly with the NZXT being just a bit better due to shear power/fan size/output ...

Still .. as long as my machine doesn't break 80C on the GPU when gaming, I figure it's worth it ...