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Will an Ultra 90-A cool a Q6600?

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deadlysyn

Folding Team Content Editor, Who Dolk'd my stars S
Joined
Mar 31, 2005
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Just as the title says. I have a rig that is getting ready to be upgraded as soon as I get my tax returns. One of the rigs that will be taken out of commission and probably donated to a friend that could use it, has an Ultra 90-A in it, cooling a Celeron D 331 right now, while the rig that will be taking its place has a P4 with an XP-90C. What I am thinking about doing, if it will be ok to run on an OC'd quad, was taking the Ultra 90 and putting it on the quad core, and putting the stock HSF on the Celeron D. I would really like to get a TRUE120, but am trying to use what I can that I already have. Will it be enough, or should I look to getting an Ultra 120 Extreme?
 
An OC'd Q6600 will throw off a lot of heat, especially if you push it much above 3GHz. I'd be nervous doing that with an undersized cooler.

What few people appreciate is that a Q6600 will undervolt as nicely as it overclocks! You could run it at stock clocks and minimum voltages, or look for some compromise (say a 300MHz FSB) that can run below stock voltages and stay cool.

My Q6600 runs nicely at 3GHz at stock voltages. In addition I've set up a "summer" setting with minimum voltages at stock clocks for when the temps start soaring.
 
I would say yes. I ran my Q6600 on stock cooling for a few weeks at 3.3Ghz with temps in the 30s. That being said, I'd grab the 90.
 
I will be taking this cooler out of the rig regardless, and am trying to do my upgrade without having to spend unnecessary money. Would it be safe to say that I can Fold 24/7 with this HSF while running OC'd with no problems?
 
The Ultima 90 will be loads better than the stock cooler for a quad, but your temps (and potentially overall OC) may be limited by its cooling capacity when compared to something else (like the TRUE).
 
I find that my XP90-C to be almost as good as a regular U120 (not extreme) with a low speed Delta 3 blade on it. It should work well for folding as long as you aren't trying to overclock to the bleeding edge. I haven't tried it on a quad, but it was able to keep and E6750 well cooled at 3.6 while crunching Seti. You will have to buy the 775 adapter though. Taking a guess at it, I would say it would do for at least a 3.3-3.4 overclock while folding. As for the Ultra 90, I'm not sure on that. My advice would be to try to mount the U-90 on the old Pee4 and use the XP90-C on the quad.
 
I find that my XP90-C to be almost as good as a regular U120 (not extreme) with a low speed Delta 3 blade on it. It should work well for folding as long as you aren't trying to overclock to the bleeding edge. I haven't tried it on a quad, but it was able to keep and E6750 well cooled at 3.6 while crunching Seti. You will have to buy the 775 adapter though. Taking a guess at it, I would say it would do for at least a 3.3-3.4 overclock while folding. As for the Ultra 90, I'm not sure on that. My advice would be to try to mount the U-90 on the old Pee4 and use the XP90-C on the quad.

I am not sure if this might be of any help but here is a link to the Ultra 90. I think it was just an earlier revision of the Ultima 90. I was thinking about trying to keep the U90C, but thought that the U-90 might be a bit better. I will probably give both of them a go and use whichever one gets the best results. I am not sure how high I would go with my clocks, most likely no higher than 3.2. I just really don't care too much for the plastic SKT478-775 adapter that I have to use for the U90C.

Edit: I just noticed that my distributor also sells Zalman. Is there anything by them anyone here would recommend?
 
The Zalman 9700 is a nice cooler and should keep your Q6600 fairly cool.
 
don't care too much for the plastic SKT478-775 adapter that I have to use

Don't worry about the adapter deadly. Mostly used it on the farm rigs for the last couple of years. Haven't broke one yet....
 
Don't worry about the adapter deadly. Mostly used it on the farm rigs for the last couple of years. Haven't broke one yet....

It's not that I worry about breaking it, its just the way that I have always mounted it that makes it a bit of a pain in the neck. The only way I have found to get the HSF to sit down flat is to put the bracket in the sink, and hand tighten the screws, then incrementally tighten them one by one in a criss cross pattern. Kinda like torquing down lugnuts when changing a tire.

I am going to look around and see what my distributor has from Zalman. Other than that, I am also considering this Xigmatek, although I may have to find it elsewhere. It appears to be out of stock at SVC, and I have seen some good reviews of it here at OCF, it looks to have a price that's hard to beat.
 
Well, the Ultima 90 has about 25-30% more fin area than the Ultra 90 so the Ultra 90 won't be quite as efficient but it should still work OK on a Q6600. I've got Ultima 90s on my Q6600s and even with slow quiet Sythe Kama PWM fans they were running ~10° C over ambient last time I checked. The Ultra 90 should get you within 12-15° over ambient with a reasonably quiet fan.
 
Just like thermal pastes, air cooling is reaching a plateau of quickly diminishing returns. I'm running an Ultra90 on my i7 920 atm and it works beautifully! At stock the idle temps are <30ºC and 100% load barely climbs to 50ºC. I'm at 3.23ghz in my slow climb upwards and temps have just hit 60ºC on one core.
 
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