New heatsink possibly

Hey, this would be my first post on this fourm so i figure i say hey .

Motherboard - m4a78lt-m le
Max Walts for mobo is 95w
Socket is am3

My current heatsink is a XION HP9310P 3 . My question is would i need a new heatsink if i plan to OC my processor, or is this heatsink good enough already. Also im new to OCing so i don't plan on doing anything amazing compared to some many people on this fourm. My budget on upgrading heatsinks would be 30$, wish i had more but i plan on upgrading my processor . I can't have a heatsink any bigger then the XION due to the fact that the Xion is a perfect size so any bigger wouldn't fit at all. Ill post a link to my case if your wondering.

I wasn't sure if i should make a new thread which would take up extra space so i figure i should just post 2 questions on 1 post.

My Processor is an Athlon X4 630 but i plan on upgrading it to either a phenom x4 925 or an 840 but im stuck on deciding which is better. The links to the items are below.

Case
Phenom x4 840
Phenom x4 925
Xion Heatsink

also my final question would be if i overclock would the wattage of the CPU change? just wondering because my motherboard can't go over 95w and both cpu's are at the 95w limit.

It really depends on what temps your are now.

Run prime 95 for 10 minutes, use Coretemp to monitor temps.

Let us know what your idle temps are and what your Prime 95 load temps are.

Yes, your processor works harder when overclocked, thus more wattage. And I don't understand the mobo is limited to 95 watts. I'm sure it just says 'you can only use these processors". Since it's only 95 watts processors you can use, thats why you think it's only 95 watts.

Conum, looking at the pics of his board on newegg, I can see why they want to limit power draw on that board as it doesn't even have any sinks on the power mosfets. Putting sinks on those would be the very first thing to do before pushing a processor significantly faster than stock to keep from cooking them off. Looks to be an economy board.

skylinecalvin, do you see those little black squares to the left of the socket? Not the 4 big square box looking things between the caps but rather the 9 a little further left. You are going to need to put heatsinks on those before even thinking of trying to overclock, or you will burn those up. Or buy yourself a bit better mobo. If you decide to buy some heatsinks, a pack of either these ramsinks or these ramsinks would be needed to help cool those mosfets. Get the ones closest to the size of the mosfets on the mobo.

So for the motherboard, is the mosfets the things marked with a white line\dot


Also i ran prime for 2 hours and these were my temps.

They seem pretty low right?The temps look wrong so I'm going do an 8 hour prime later tonight then re post tomorrow morning.

and which processor should i get(referring to the ones i posted in the first post)?

Yes, those are the mosfets that you have marked that need heatsinking.

As for which way to upgrade, I'm afraid I really can't help you there as I'm presently strictly Intel and don't know which is better for you. Sorry I can't be more of help on the processor upgrade.

Nah, muddocktor your cool, you already helping me such as telling me that i would've burned up my mobo if i oced . anyways to how do i install the heatsinks onto the mosfos? IM guessing i would use thermal paste?

skylinecalvin said:

Nah, muddocktor your cool, you already helping me such as telling me that i would've burned up my mobo if i oced . anyways to how do i install the heatsinks onto the mosfos? IM guessing i would use thermal paste?

Click to expand...

No, don't use thermal paste on the mosfets.

To stick mosfet heatsinks to mosfets you use thermal tape.

I would recommend buying these, I bought a pack a while back myself for the same reason, and these even come with little pieces of thermal tape in the package. Though you have to apply the thermal tape to the heatsinks yourself it is fairly easy to do and self explanatory once you have them in front of you.

They are also almost the exact same size as the mosfets themselves.

Just noticed the first link muddocktor posted is for the same 'sinks I'm talking about, and they're a bit cheaper there.

Oh, and to the forums by the way.

Yeah, I'm using those same sinks on my GTX260 mosfets. I have a GPU only waterblock on it and needed something to heatsink the mosfets and vrms on the vid card.

Be sure to thoroughly clean the mosfets off before trying to apply them. Use something like Arctic Clean or acetone followed by as pure an isopropyl alcohol you can get (90% at least), to remove any residual oils or whatnot off of them. Otherwise they won't stick well and will fall off.

ok, and thx for welcoming me , i plan to buy artic 5 for thermal compund for the processor and the artic silver thermal remover to clean it first.

k,i should be good to go for buying stuff, list would be
Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound
AMD Phenom II X4 925 Deneb
Arctic Silver ACN-60ML (2-PC-SET) Thermal material Remover & Surface Purifier
Enzotech MOS-C1 C1100 Forged Copper Heatsinks

Im buying the heatsink for the mosfets at newegg to save me the trouble of going to multiple websites.

Thank you for your guys help, i would've been completely lost without it.

I ended up buying that same Enzotech C1 set for a 6950 and they should work fine for your board. They're very small though, so be careful you don't lose them.

Instead of the AC removal stuff, you can buy 91% or higher rubbing alcohol and it's basically the same thing for less.