Back to the lab with the Q6600 G0!

Well, as the thread title states I am going back to the lab with the Q6600... the OC fever has kicked in and with winter upon me here I'm in need of a good block heater in the bedroom System has been running solid and stable @ 3.2ghz for 3 days now at 400x8 but in my quest for more I'd like to take it to 400x9 and push it to 3.6ghz. Problem is I think I may run into a bottleneck with my cooling, not sure if the Thermaltake is going to be able to hold up to the temps that the Q6600 is going to endure at 3.6ghz on air. I'll be doing the test tonight after work as this weekend is system build weekend so I can start doing spec tests for our next software release so here's what I've come up with:

1. Leave the Thermaltake and go balls to the walls on air, see if the CPU holds at 3.6ghz stable and no caps pop off the P5K Vanilla.

2. Break down and say screw air, pick up a CoolIT Freezone Kit and hold off on the 3.6ghz clock until the kit arrives.

3. Move the desk over by the window, lift the case up onto the desk top, put on a pair of warm pants, some gloves, a parka and a toque and let the lovely canadian arctic air (supposed to be 2 degrees tonight) do the cooling for me.

All you guys and your WC setups have intrigued me to go WC, the CoolIT seems to be about the only one I think I'd have room for in the Antec 900 though... it's so horribly crammed inside there right now

I would go custom over any kit (other than maybe the swiftech kits), the coolit kits just wont compair. If space is an issue a lot of people mount the rad on the back of the case. I've done the window trick before, works damn well. What you really need to do is build a shelf that can slide in and out of the window. So have the comp outside with the window almost closed (space enough for the wires) for your benching, too much work though...
Dan

BobcatDan said:

I would go custom over any kit (other than maybe the swiftech kits), the coolit kits just wont compair. If space is an issue a lot of people mount the rad on the back of the case. I've done the window trick before, works damn well. What you really need to do is build a shelf that can slide in and out of the window. So have the comp outside with the window almost closed (space enough for the wires) for your benching, too much work though...
Dan

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Interesting, the CoolIT kit was an interesting option as it's a water/tec based and maintenance free (i'm a software engineer so I prefer to not have to monkey with my home machine much more than needed). Pretty soon I might as well pack snow around the base of the case

As someone who built a custom water cooling loop, I say it is a lot of work. The freezone seems to be a great kit. So if you really dont care about making it "your own," then go for it.

wildcard* said:

Interesting, the CoolIT kit was an interesting option as it's a water/tec based and maintenance free (i'm a software engineer so I prefer to not have to monkey with my home machine much more than needed). Pretty soon I might as well pack snow around the base of the case

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Seeing what it did on a E6600, it seems ok linky. On high it about matches my temps on my q6600, stock for stock. But given how hot the E6600 got, the extra die might be too much for it. Hard to say.
Dan

I'd go for the option 3
As for the cramped room in your case, build an extra box for the w/c stuff.. I did.. Put my pump, 2 rads, psu, and speed control panel in there. Bolted it to the top of my case and there you go.

Yeah, the Freezone kit is a nice one and only 50 bucks more than the Eliminator though I wish the Freezone didnt have the extra wires. I think I've pretty much hit the wall on air, been trying to run 3.6 stable since I got in from work and I've pushed the vcore all the way up to 1.45v which I really don't want to go any further past. 3.6 boots and is stable up until the CPU test of 3dmark06 at which point the system ends up BSOD'ing. Seeing as it's a P5K Vanilla I'm not sure how far I want to take the vcore past 1.45v heh.

You may want to up the motherboard voltages. (that may be the bit of stability you need) The quads are really stressful on some of these boards.

inkfx said:

You may want to up the motherboard voltages. (that may be the bit of stability you need) The quads are really stressful on some of these boards.

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I may try going to 1.5v (I see you're running 1.5 on a P5K Premium but WC'd?) though I don't know how the temps might fare at that point. When I loaded up 3dmark06, CoreTemp was logging 61 degrees as the highest point hit under load until it crashed. Once CoreTemp was loaded the temps settled to around 50 degrees.

Ah well, no risk, no reward.. back to crank the voltage to 1.5v and see if it holds at 3.6ghz!

I don't know any specifics of the CoolIT Freezone but I know that this kit works great for CPUs and can handle oc'd quads nicely from a few web tests:
http://www.swiftech.com/products/h20-120-compact.asp

MadMan007 said:

I don't know any specifics of the CoolIT Freezone but I know that this kit works great for CPUs and can handle oc'd quads nicely from a few web tests:
http://www.swiftech.com/products/h20-120-compact.asp

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Wow, that's actually a pretty nice kit! I found some reviews on the Freezone compared to the Eliminator and the H20-120... there's really hardly any difference and the Freezone here in Canada is $249 where the Eliminator is $189 and then $159 for the H20-120. Bonus to the H20-120 is that it's expandable.

I went to that swiftech website and entered my info into their web heat calculator. Check out the results!



It looks like I'll keep my TR-U120E. It's about 24* cooler!

jason4207 said:

I went to that swiftech website and entered my info into their web heat calculator. Check out the results!

It looks like I'll keep my TR-U120E. It's about 24* cooler!

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I checked mine there as well after reading your post, something doesn't seem right about that calculator

Anyways, out of all three I think the Freezone might be the best option or I may break down and make a weekend project sometime out of building my own WC solution. Of course that may also come in part with me replacing the P5K for better voltages etc.

Well, another update. I was able to post and hold stable under 3DMark06 this morning, unfortunately the same could not be said for Prime which means that 1.48v is fine for mild stress/gaming but probably won't be stable for any rendering tests. Heat was pretty bad, the CPU is idling at 42 degrees according to CoreTemp right now, maximum hit during 3DMark was during CPU Test 1 where the CPU managed to hit 67 degrees Looks like if I want to run 3.6ghz I'm gonna need 1.5v and a new cooling solution.

ORB details:

http://service.futuremark.com/compare?3dm06=3621491

Swiftech h20-220 is the best kit around. You don't need a big case, you can just mount most of the components on the outside of the case and it reduces the danger from leaks as well. Here's how I did it:

http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=519263&highlight=external+pump