Hey all, can anyone tell me if you think the cooling which comes with my new pc (dell dimension 9200) is good enough to keep whats inside from melting? q6600 quad 2.4 4gb ram 8800gtx having read reviews about the processor and graphics card getting hot, im just a bit concerned what comes with the computer wont be good enough. thanks!
Hi, welcome to the forums. First off, if the CPU is using the stock heat sink and fan, I would highly advise replacing it with a different heatsink and fan unit, such as any of these mentioned in these heatsink and fan reviews... http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2007/08/02/heatsink_group_test/1 http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2007/03/21/lga775_heatsink_group_test_mar07/1 In most cases, the ram should be fine, and are often nowa days supplyed with heatspreaders and/or heatsinks. Allthough any airflow over these would likely provide you with some better stability. I am not sure which ram that machine is using, but something like the corsair ram cooler would be ideal. link to corsair ram fan unit http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/ProductInfo.asp?WebProductID=466725 As for th 8800GTX, I have found these to get very hot and chuck out a LOT of heat, of which I would recommend having a fan in the side of the pc case, that blows cool air from the outside onto and across the gfx card, I found this can make the difference from the card sitting at 70c when idel and near 100c when on load to 50c idel and to 75c when on load. Other than those, make sure the case has a good airflow, and plenty of room at the rear of the pc to exhaust the excess heat. If you have about £160 you could always get a nice complete water cooling system
I've personally installed a Scythe Infinity 120mm 5-heatpipe 775 cooler onto a Q6600 over the weekend. Absolutely sensational cooler that's nearly undefeatable. From 68 centigrade down to less than 40. 775's mounting system is as mind-fuct as it has ever been--incredibly stupid concept, especially when compared to the brilliant design of 939's mounting approach. The heatsink is not surprisingly very difficult to mount without removing the motherboard due to the nature of socket 775's mounting methods. The reference cooler is prone to pop out of place, and the gigantic aftermarket Scythe cooler will fall off if you don't literally carry your case around horizontally; again, up to you whether you want to slap the sh*t out of Intel for such a mind-boggling socket design. In comparison, the reference cooler repeatedly brought the Q6600 to the very brink of heat-induced self-shutdown. In BIOS, you'd nervously watch as the processor would continually skirt 70 centigrade.
thanks for the input everyone. unfortunately im less than (not at all) capable of doing anything to the inside of a pc without fear of breaking it! delphium, could you recommend any particular water cooling systems? (would they cool all components in the computer?) seeing the replys here i think im going to at least have to get a new heatsink/fan for the processor, ive seen this one mentioned elsewhere and was wondering what you guys thought.... http://www.zalman.co.kr/eng/product/view.asp?idx=277&code=009 thanks!
I'd still recommend the Scythe Infinity solely on a cost-to-cooling basis. Although the CNPS 8700 has a comparable fin surface area and cooling performance, some of its fins are beyond the effective airflow range of the fan, and therefore serving little purpose. Also, I've found that dust collects very, very easily when using Zalman coolers due to debris getting caught inside the decreasing clearance between fins towards the centre of the cooler. The 8700 is also quite wide and may not fit depending on the placement of the northbridge chip and its own cooler. The downside I have to say about the Scythe Infinty is that some of its mounting pegs can come off during transport and that it's quite tall. Clearance to the side panel of the case I installed it in is about 1mm. Also, Zalman coolers are unusually expensive for what they accomplish (why not a 320GB hard drive for what you pay for them?).
the guys over at madshrimps did a big roundup of cpu coolers back in june: http://www.madshrimps.be/?action=getarticle&articID=578 its rather long, butmakes for a good read if you got difficultis to decide what cooler to buy.
Ermm if you fear breaking anything, are you really sure you would wish to be installing water cooling ?! *worried. Well if you do decide that you do wish to brave water cooling, then please have a read of this thread which offers infomation on water cooling parts and kits. http://forums.bit-tech.net/showthread.php?t=137255 Personally i'm using a bit of a mixture of parts, mostly its a swiftech pro kit, but have then bought some extra parts like a better resevoir, an extra radiator, extra tubing and fluid, as I wanted it blue, not clear and a gfx water block for my 8800gtx. PS.. a water cooling system will only cool the components you have water blocks for.
thanks everyone! delphium, belive me if i am to put anything inside my computer to aid with the cooling process i personally will not be the one doing it! just out of curiosity, since the pc is being built as we speak and i should get it next week, does anyone happen to know what the temperatures i 'should' be hoping for are for those components at both idle and load? that way i can at least see how the rig is doing when it arrives (hopefully not too bad as it is!) thanks again.
Well not knowing what coolers are already in use in the machine, as your having it built, is the builder fitting a non stock heatsink and fan or not? If your running it with stock cooler, expect to see around 55-60c when idle! and under load, about 70-80c, not so sure under load, when I discovered the stock cooler was that crap, I replaced it with a proper cooler asap. A 3rd party air cooler such as the Scythe Infinity as Amon suggested, then you should expect temps of around 35-40c idel? and 55c load? Gfx card, as mentioned in first post, 70c when idel and near 100c when on load By having a fan attached to the side window of the case the gfx card sits at around 50c idel to 75c when on load. Water cooling will usually sit at 35-40c idel and 35-40c on load. I managed to overclockclock my freinds Quad core to 3.822GHz, two 8800gtx in sli, all water cooled and after loading a few demos and running the 3Dmark 06 benchmark, the cpu and gfx temps where only 38c.
well, if it runs at that temp i will surely have to get some new components. by the way, if it helps its a dell dimension 9200, being built by them as we speak (im not one for building a whole pc myself as you can probably tell!). i would assume that seeing as dell are building the whole thing from scratch they would have to make sure it does not overheat? maybe im wrong but i wouldnt think they could get away with selling a computer which can be built from an options list on their website, and not build it in a way which it will be stable for ever and a day. am i way too optimistic in the quality of dells computer building skills? edit - this is the system i got built; pretty much toe top spec you can choose within the options. it does say stuff about a 'cooling' case but it might be rubbish..... http://www1.euro.dell.com/content/products/productdetails.aspx/dimen_9200?c=uk&cs=ukbsdt1&l=en&s=bsd
Stock airflow will be fine with that rig. Its BTX so the processor has what amounts to a giant slab of heatpipe infused copper on it, and the graphics card has a sufficient cooler to cope with that cases airflow. Don't worry about getting aftermarket coolign for it, especially seeing as aftermarket cooling in BTX is almost non-existant, and your only option for cooling an 8800GTX, is the Thermalright HR-03, which takes up 3 PCI slots and probably won't take kindly to the confines of a dell case, because they tend to use a lot of non-standard parts that might interfere with mounting such a huge cooler.
Maybe I missed it, but are you planning on overclocking it at all? If not then the stock cooling will work fine. It wont overheat. Sure you can put in your own cooler in and run it at lower temps and it wont make as much noise, but thats really a personal decision. Do you need a pc thats as quite as possbile? and does it matter if its running 10degrees cooler when the stock temps are nothing to worry about? and if it does overheat it will happen fairly soon so the warrenty will still cover it.
http://www.pcworld.idg.com.au/index.php/taxid;1069155810;pid;3488;pt;1 Sounds like it should be ok. Not sure what tempts to expect, but cant go far wrong with a 120mm fan drawing air across the heatsink.
i am not planning to overclock, and to be honest dont care about the noise. sorry guys i should have explained it was a dell, maybe it would have saved people from taking time to reply (thanks to those who did). if you guys say it will be fine then im going to probably stick with as it is.....
If you don't OC, and don't care about noise, don't bother replacing the HS + Fan... Stock should be sufficient (why would Intel/Dell otherwise include it?)
I too have a system being built that will include a q6600. However, I’ve been selected as a candidate to demo a custom Westinghouse Meissner Xtreme (tm) version of this CPU. According to my friend and employee of Intel, he says they have some kind of business proposal going on to try and see if mainstream commercial superconducting hardware is a viable business path. This is a very recent development and I’m sure they will be making a press release within a day or two From what I understand there is a special containment unit that will isolate the chip from the rest of the hardware in the case, but will still allow it to attach comfortably to the motherboard. The main portion of this thing supposedly sits on the outside of the case. The chip is developed with a copper-clad alloy of niobium and titanium (NbTi). Submerged in liquid helium it can reach clock speeds of close to 10Ghz and thus will be able to simulate your mom. . .. . . . . . . . . . . . didn't really believe that did u? if so.... ok ok... q6600 asus striker extreme Vigor Gaming Monsoon II Lite heat sink...supposedly rivals the tuniq i guess i'll find out when my computer arrives from cyberpower in a few days...
My first clue came when I saw 'friend', just because no-one gets into intel **** by being someones friend.
