funnyperson1 said:Mind you even my SpeedFan temps might be low, I had a Rev1 mobo before this (rmaed when NIC died) and temps with that were around 50-55C load at 2.9ghz.
boostm3 (I just understood your username, heh) the CPU will heat up with overclocking whether you change the voltage or not. Although generally temperature increases from voltage changes are more significant, and it is more important to have lower temps when voltage is changed. BTW, what kind of cooling do you have?
I know Im going to get criticized, cause its not a big name cooler.. As we all know, the 3600+/biostar Tforce 550 newegg combo comes with no cooling. So I bought a couple of HSFs that looked like some of the AMD ones that have come stock on their retail cpus, and which were not expensive. Before I tell you what Im using, keep in mind that, when I went through my Hifi phase, I was Very prone to buying all those parts were money is so deeply spent for gains that are very debatable.. Im talking mainly about things like $500 signal conditioners, $200 power cables, and $100 speaker cables and interconnects... So I have to keep close tabs on myself when it comes to buying technical stuff where marketing tends to goose people like me into Way overbuying.
I consider the HSF to be one of those things. Some of them go out of their way to look like V8 engines, or automotive intercoolers, etc, etc. And, they charge accordingly. One such minor comodity is the thermal grease. Even though the HSF Im leading up to comes with its own little injector full of white thermal paste, I went out and bought from compusa a $12 injector of Arctic Silver 5 because the newegg reviews and hype on it are so strong.. But my friend who very skeptical of marketing claims told me there's absolutely No reason not to use the white stuff that came with the HSF, and to return the Arctic Silver.. To prove his point, he directed me to a couple of comparo reviews, and sure enough, the Arctic Silver either performed the same as, or underperformed many of the others.
So, what HSF am I using? I bought two.. the first is:
http://masscool.com/masscool/Product.aspx?ID=202
and the second is:
http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16835103012
The first, ie, the one by masscool has a nickel plated copper mating surface, and, the cooling fins are much thinner. So, the one we installed was the Masscool. As I write this, Ive been checking out my cpu temps as measured by the biostar T-Utility Fan control, and theyre right at 27-28 degrees. And thats with the fan spinning at only 60%, which is where it stays when i have 'auto' checked.. IF I bump it up near its max, my idle temp comes down a few degrees to right around 24-25 degrees.. So, while not expensive, I think the HSF isnt totally useless. The other one, the Cooler Master RR-KEE-L8E1-GP is still in its box, and Ill probably send it back to newegg for a partial credit or something. Or, maybe Ill just keep it as a spare. I know alot of guys are going to probably tell me to rip my masscool HSF right out of there and replace it with a fancy, multi-piped affair, and Id be tempted to comply, except for the fact that this fan seems to be working. One other reason I went with the unit I did was Size. Going into this build, I was a bit paranoid about the closeness between the cpu socket and the first Ram slot that I had read alot about on the newegg reviews... Folks were saying that unless we use a small-ish fan, we'll render the first ram slot useless. Well, the masscool leaves enough room so that Im not giving up any ram slots. Also, with a Thermal Resistance value of 31, Ive seen alot worse (higher). There are also many with lower resistances.. Take the very popular "ARCTIC COOLING Freezer 64 Pro 92mm". Has a thermal resistance of only 18. Yet, when you read the newegg customer reviews, you find comments like this: "This thing keeps the brisbane COOL. X2 3600 never creeps above 35C" Since no mention of OC is made, I have to assume this is running at stock frequency. Well, the highest Ive ever seen my masscool go is 34 degrees.. Once. When under load. Heres another with the Arctic Cooling Freezer 64 pro: "ASUS software reports AMD 4800 CPU at 34C idle, not OC'ed, while the mobo is at 45C)." Again, that compares to my 27C at idle. So, I know there are better coolers than what I have.. But from the comparative reviews, my current temps Im achieving with my masscool dont look all that bad at all. I dont know what will happen when I oc. And, if there were another reasonably priced HSF that Id be sure would fit my setup without impinging on a ram slot, that produced consistantly cooler temps than what Ive got, Id certainly consider it.. With a current idle of 27 degrees, though, Im not at all sure Ill need it.
So, thats the story. btw, I also have a tool called PC Wizard 2007, which has a nice feature of, when you minimze it, it shows the pc's various temps in the upper right hand corner in real time. For some reason, the cpu temp there seems to fluctuate very little, while the cpu temp reported by the T-Utility fan control fluctuates fairly frequently. Ill probably get the 'speedfan' utility youve mentioned, as well as the other main oc support bm and stresser utilities before I begin. Im anxious to hear how horrible my current HSF is, or the Cooler Master one still in the box. It would be nice if I didnt have to change the one Im using.. But Im pretty sure that folks who spent alot more are going to say that what I have is completely inadequate to support ocing.. Whether its true or not, its almost impossible for folks to admit that, after spending all the bucks they did, something significantly less expensive would fill the bill, whether its true or not.. still, Im open to different opinions.
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