Hot E6300, water cool or ultra 120?

Ive got a E6300 with stock heatsink and fan. Ive got a mild overclock to 2.8ghz and Im seeing my temps jump to 60c as read by TAT when running orthos. Eventually my pc reboots when the temps go above 60c, so I need to cool it down.

So my question is this: What is the best way to cool this down. Ive read the ultra 120 is a great heatsink, but Im also considering water cooling. As I've been reading the reviews I've noticed allot of the water blocks have a C/W of .13, the same as the ultra 120, so is water cooling worth the extra money?

if you are getting reboots, i doubt it is because of temps. my cpu runs just fine at 65c. even when it was hot out, i could prime for hours at 70c.

i would think that you either need more volts, or your ram is acting up.

to answer your question, any half decent air cooler should do the trick. i've got a scythe ninja plus, its only like $30. it keeps my e6300 at around 63c full load at the settings in my sig. bios vcore is set to 1.5v, i get 1.42v under full load.

As you suspected giving it more voltage resolved the rebooting problem, Its now at 1.25v per BIOS and 1.2V per TAT. Im still concerned with the temps though. My asus motherboard is now reporting 72c at load and TAT is reporting 65c. I want to get a couple years use out of this before it dies, do you think I would be safe leaving it as is, or should I still get a better heatsink?

chuck said:

As you suspected giving it more voltage resolved the rebooting problem, Its now at 1.25v per BIOS and 1.2V per TAT. Im still concerned with the temps though. My asus motherboard is now reporting 72c at load and TAT is reporting 65c. I want to get a couple years use out of this before it dies, do you think I would be safe leaving it as is, or should I still get a better heatsink?

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so its @ 72c with the stock cooler @ stock temps?
that sounds whack...id try reseating the coola

d94 said:

so its @ 72c with the stock cooler @ stock temps?
that sounds whack...id try reseating the coola

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No sorry, its now 72c(65c TAT) @2.8ghz under orthos, both cores at 100%.

Ive been gaming on it for a few hours and it gets upto 55c (48c TAT), its only orthos that generates that heat.

go by TAT, forget the rest (CoreTemp is good too). 65c under full orthos load, IMO should last for a very long time. these chips run like champs. if you wanted to increase your clocks, i would look at a new cooler, but for now i'd say you are fine.

you can always look for ways to optimize your case cooling, like airflow. that could knowck off a few degrees.

What kind of power supply are you using? I've seen things like this be linked to PSU issues. One of my buddies had a top of the line PSU, so he never thought it could be causing an issue, but every brand has their lemons. Leave no stone unturned, otherwise you're going to be spending money fixing issues that don't exist. I've been down that road before and trust me, you don't wanna go there.