Im looking for a new heatsink for my 3.4 HT Northwood because it seems to be at ~50 degrees idle, which Im lead to believe is not good. This could be my motherboard (IC7 MAX3) overestimating the temps, but I want a better one than my bog standard Akasa anyway. Im thinking of getting a Silverstone NT01 from Komplett for £26 with a couple of silent fans. But first I was wondering if anyone else has any experiences with this heatsink/motherboard combo, or just the heatsink in general. I was thinking maybe the OTES would get in the way of it. Also any suggestions on good heatsinks whould be appreciated, thanks.
Is that really that bad? I am happy with anything under 60. Heck 53 makes me estatic. Most procs are specked out at 70-75, so uh, anything under 70 is more than fine.
I was hoping to start OCing it when my new RAM arrives (new BH5 I think Ill get) and this is only going to push the temps higher so a better cooling solution seems logical.
Well, ok, then I understand the worry, but cooling capacity at idle is not a good indicator of cooling capacity under a full load. I am no expert on cooling/over clocking, but what you should try is Folding at home or SETI - these will put 100% load on you processor. See how your heatsink handles that. personally, I use Hyper 6 and it kicks arse - but for an air-cooled heat sink, it can depend more on your environment than anything else. I mean where are you? If the room the computer is in is 100 degrees, don't expect your heat sink to be a lot of help. If you don;t have good case ventelation, etc - then no air colled heat sink is much better than the next.
Well the room its in is currently 18 degrees. The case has 2 fans next to the processor (blowing across it), 2 on the power supply just above it (moving air out) and the OTES fan. Im running Burn In now to test temps, its at 59 degrees already after 2mins. EDIT: Its hitting an easy 65 nad I dont want to push it much more. As for watercooling, Id like to, would be a lot quieter than the fans I have at the moment but I dont think I can afford it.
your using a precott core its gonna roast unless u have some ducting to cool air (maybe some ducting to the front of the case, cut a hole and mesh it?) or put it under water.
I have a northwood, if it was a prescott I wouldnt be so worried about the high temps, they seem to come with the territory.
alright chief. ive had a similar problem with my rig when it came to temps. scarily enough last weekend my cpu fan failed and my core hit a whacking 95 degrees C!!!! if you dont want to look at watercooling then for a good heatsink look at pure cooper with a large surface area covered by the fins. my mate swares by the asus star ice series heres the link if sound isnt too much of an issue, like me, i added a thermaltake 80mm performance fan@2800-3000rpm to the thermaltake ducting mod (eliminates fans centre dead spot) and ive lost a whole 10 degrees in temperature . it didnt cost much and works amazingly on the original cooper coolermaster heatsink ive got.... best of all it looks wicked aswell. you can use ANY 80mm case fan for the ducting mod so you can really go for 4800rpm or more, coloured or not, up to you. dont forget though if the inside air of ur pc is warm then ur cpu fan is just blowing warmish air onto the cpu which aint a fat lot of use . also make sure the cpu fan is not pointing towards ur psu as this can be a huge heatsource. if youre worried bout ur temps then look at ur whole setup not just cpu heatsink and fan. for instance ive got 5 case fans + cpu fan + gpu fan and my temps run at 32-34 idle and 36-40 on full load and mobo never goes above 16. good luck lowering ur temps......
You could try a zalman 7000Cu cooler with a duct to the case side. That'd truely kick a** temps wise.
My thoughts exactly... Run CPU-Z and be sure of your core. 65C for a Prescott isn't horrible, it's just not ideal. All depends on what you want, though. What's the most important: best overall cooling, quiet, lower profile, cheap...
Its definitely a 3.4GHz HT Northwood, unless Im missing something. I looked at a Zalman but it doesnt fit on my board afaik. That hyper 6 looks good though. Thanks for all the replies so far.
Thermalright XP-120 w/ Panaflo 120mm Better then Hyper6 performances and so much lighter You need to bend the Northbridge heatsink fins a little to get it to fit, but its nothing major: http://www.thermalright.com/a_page/main_support_faq_motherboard_xp120_p4_ic7max3.htm
looks good, but I know it wouldn't fit on any of my boards. it does overcome the hyper 6 main weakness - it works better as a horizontal (destop) than vertical (tower). But the weight really isnt a problem - well I use decent mobos, so maybe on cheap ones it may snap them in half, but thats what you get for going cheap. Though cheap does seem popular - so to avoid a flame war I won't mention any names.
