looking for a cheap liquid cooling solution

[kyle2020]

somethings not right here - 50 degrees C on IDLE? my quad idles at 30 degrees! do you live in a kiln? haha!

 

[ZenZimZaliben]

He has a B3 stepping you have a G0.

 

[kyle2020]

does that make such a big difference to temperatures?

 

[tzitzibp]

He has a B3 stepping you have a G0.

still there is a great difference! I would think that 10 degrees C is more common than this!
thermal paste could take part in this as well as sitting the block properly! just a thought!

 

[ZenZimZaliben]

Yeah it really is a big difference. Which is also why most B3 q6600's have a hard time making it past 3.2Ghz.

 

[kyle2020]

Yeah it really is a big difference. Which is also why most B3 q6600's have a hard time making it past 3.2Ghz.

i see! thanks for the info!

 

[ZenZimZaliben]

@ 3.6Ghz like the OP says he's running, he has to be pushing 1.5v or dang close. On air cooling that will easily hit 50c idle, I bet he's 65c+ on load.

Probably dangerously close to frying his chip....may want to underclock a little to preserve the life span of that CPU or get on water cooling ASAP.

 

[phanbuey]

@ 3.6Ghz like the OP says he's running, he has to be pushing 1.5v or dang close. On air cooling that will easily hit 50c idle, I bet he's 65c+ on load.

Probably dangerously close to frying his chip....may want to underclock a little to preserve the life span of that CPU or get on water cooling ASAP.

Im running 2 DUAL Swiftec mcr220 (240? forget the name... anyways 4 120MM fans!!!) radiators with and i have to run 1.53v to get my Q6600 3.6Ghz stable... lemme tell ya... both of those puppies are warm to the touch on load. I would easily idle at 50-C on air...

He's probably throttling and doesnt know it.

 

[dadi_oh]

Well I "just" installed the Q6600 in my rig. Applied MX2 thermal compound. Everything is at default and ran small FFT's on the cores for max heat. Temps look pretty reasonable.

Next step is some quick benches and then start cranking things

So after some very quick overclocking, not yet optimized here are my temps at 3.6GHz @ 1.408V. Temps up by about 22C and at 56C on the cores under Prime95 small FFT's. Seems stable so far. Now for some benches.

 

[frankie827]

@ 3.6Ghz like the OP says he's running, he has to be pushing 1.5v or dang close. On air cooling that will easily hit 50c idle, I bet he's 65c+ on load.

Probably dangerously close to frying his chip....may want to underclock a little to preserve the life span of that CPU or get on water cooling ASAP.

yes thats exactly right

i dont actually keep it at 3.6 24/7...i wouldnt have a cpu if i did lol

i keep it at 3ghz and idle at around 36*C

but id like to keep it at 3.6 24/7, which is why im looking into water cooling

 

[Binge]

Here's the ish, you're using 65nm so right there you need more volts, but that's alright because the chip can handle more volts. Watercooling or a sweet air cooler is a must because you've hit that magic point where every .05 volts or so start to bump up the package temps at a pretty steep curve. I looked into the AC Freezer 7 Pro and from what I saw I would not put that on my dual core. Instead I've come up with a few sinks that might fit your needs.

\\Thermalright Ultra 120A- All my friends who use quad cores on a server level use thermalright, but that's the extent of my knowledge. These guys make a solid product though. Lots of heat pipes, bolt on (the plastic easy snap on coolers don't give me peace of mind), and the 120mm fan space. NICE!

\\Sunbeam Core Contact Freezer 120mm- Solid buy. Had one myself and my E8400 temps @4.5 1.42V didn't budge by more than 12C, but it's 45nm and also not a quad core.

\\Zalman CNPS9500- This particular cooler is pretty damn amazing if I do say so myself. Reason being is my brother had similar success with this as I did my Sunbeam CCF, but he told me it was due to the design of the sink. Depending on the airflow in the case more than the fan on the sink itself the temps were better or worse (better with more fans/flow, worse with less fans/restricted air). This can be said about any cooler but it is especially true in this situation.

All of the forementioned, above, have bolt on kits which are what I look for in any cooler and you will be required to bolt on your water cooling block no matter the model (if it is respectable).

As for water cooling... I gave it some thought and had a flashback to my first loop. Back then I had no luck keeping the loop below my air cooled temps on a 120mm rad w/ 3/8" tubing and I'm working with overclocked dual cores . I moved to a 360mm rad and admittedly a 240 would have been fine for just a cpu. Just keep in mind that the bigger the rad the less likely it is you'll have a built in res and even less likely that you'll stay below the $150 mark.

 

[dadi_oh]

So after some very quick overclocking, not yet optimized here are my temps at 3.6GHz @ 1.408V. Temps up by about 22C and at 56C on the cores under Prime95 small FFT's. Seems stable so far. Now for some benches.

After spending some more time with stability testing it looks like I need about 1.44V to get it stable at 3.6GHz. That extra 0.032V adds another 10C to my temps So I am at about 66C at full Prime95 small FFT loads.

To be fair to my WC system I have a couple of things working against me.

1) I keep my 2 X 120mm fans on my rad at 60% speed to keep things quiet.
2) I have a northbridge waterblock and a video waterblock in the same loop with the CPU.
3) I am using 3/8" tubing. Could probably use 1/2" to get better flow.

If you want the full scoop on my settings I have posted a new thread below.

http://forums.techpowerup.com/showpost.php?p=978909&postcount=1