So...how important IS it to cool the northbridge?

[AsphyxiA]

I really do like my setuo i have but there is one thign that really bugs me about my mobo, the f*cking northbridge fan! Anyone who has had an msi k8n neo4 platinum has probably expirienced this too. Anyway, i would eventually like to build a water cooling/phase change system for it but the the high pitched whinny sound is getting on my nerves, (and case sound really dosent bother me much) so im planning on buying this chipset cooler just as a cheap quick fix until i can get the cash.http://www.crazypc.com/Merchant2/merchant.mv?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=51035 But the thing that i have noticed is that the RPMs on the fan are considerably less than my default fan. I'm thinking that some as5 and the copper would compensate for the lower rpms but im not sure. If it turns out to be lower perf. than stock, what kind of perf drops should i expect when overclocking the cpu if any?

 

[AMDCam]

GREAT question man, I'm wondering too.

 

[Solaris17]

yes me also.

 

[wtf8269]

Unless it's much lower performance than stock I would imagine it wouldn't be any different as far as overclockability of your system goes.

 

[AsphyxiA]

the fan is running at 7031 rpms, there is a 2000 rpm difference but who knows what kind of thermal paste was used and the heat sink seems to be made out of what looks like graphite, it might also just be painted aluminum. but yeah ill try it out anyway, probably wont make a difference.

 

[W2hCYK]

on my old motherboard, I upgraded chipset cooling from stock aluminum to a swiftech with a small fan. used arctic silver 3 vs a thermal pad. Overclock was unstable @ 3.8GHz on the chip I had at the time. Once I installed the new heatsink, temps dropped 12c and 3.84GHz was stable for 48hours P95... 2.4GHz 'C' chip... oh how i loved that chip.. but i was dumb and gave it 1.57v, lol...

anyway, since that, i have been a firm believer that better northbridge cooling = higher stable overclocks

 

[giorgos th.]

in my opinion you have to get a better cooling solution for the chipset only if you decide to give extra voltage to cpu-mem.if you have passive cooling and you increase the voltage the chipset is going to overheat so much that if you touch the heatsink you`ll get blisters.........

 

[spectre440]

in my opinion you have to get a better cooling solution for the chipset only if you decide to give extra voltage to cpu-mem.if you have passive cooling and you increase the voltage the chipset is going to overheat so much that if you touch the heatsink you`ll get blisters.........

i completley disagree.
im running my CPU oce'd from 1.5v 1.8ghz at 1.6v 2.25ghz, and the memory at 210mhz 2.6v and tighter than stock timings. (3-3-3-8 to 2.5-3-3-7, i can probably get them to go lower if i clock it down a bit, but i havent bothered to actually check and benchmark what will actually give me the better performance)
and both *can* go higher. i've tested the cpu at 1.6v 2.6ghz and the mem at 240mhz 2.65 and they were both rock solid.
and the northbridge sink was barely warm to the touch.

 

[KennyT772]

it all depends on the chipset. some control voltages on chip others control varible resistors off chip. it all depends on which ur using. but i garentee that system stability in general will be better with a cooler northbridge. the via pt800 on my board is passivly cooled and cold all the time. but the intel 845pe on my celeron server rig is friggin hot as hell and also passivly cooled. its also pumping 1.750 to the celeron and 2.6 to the ram thats the only way i could get the thinkg up to 3.5 (27*130). so it does matter as it made the difference of stability when i had a fan on it or not.

 

[giorgos th.]

spectre i find 2.6v a low voltage for memory in general(on high o/c conditions).2.5v is the default.try giving 3+v and increased vcore on f.e. a Dfi with passive cooling and tell me if it will work and how..
f.e. if i give my 2.6c 1.6v at 3.3 ghz and 2.85v to memory with 2-3-3-6 the heatsink of Asus will change colour from overheating..i`ve done it and it was a bit scary..
Kenny you also have a right point here.

 

[breakfromyou]

technically on an a64 rig, the "northbridge" on a motherboard is really the southbridge...northbridge has the memory controller, which is integrated on A64's...