Ok well, I bought this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16835118114 To put on my old P4 478 since I had watercooling on it and wanted to switch it back to air to give it to my bro, however, upon receiving the fan, i noticed it needed the stock support struts which i had to remove to place the water block! So now, I'm just wondering whether it's worth the effort to remove the stock cooling of my Core2 E6300 clock at 2.2Ghz with the Zalman Cooler linked above, or just stick with stock? (I'm just really lazy...) Would it give a significant temperature drop?
At 2.2ghz i would say not really. It is a well known fact that stock cooling on a "good" setup, with decent air flow through the case can get you close* to 3ghz. So at the end of the day the question is whether the e6300 has the same 2.2ghz future, or whether it is going to be pushed further. In which case you mase well fit the fan now that it has been bought. It may be worth looking at lapping and buying some decent thermal paste if you havent already if you are a bit worried about temperatures of the e6300. At the end of the day it will happily run at temps a lot higher than at its stock 1.86ghz temps. But at the same time i currently have mine at 2.8ghz and i feel an aftermarket fan is needed to keep things running smoothly. More peace of mind than anything else.
Thanks for replying At 2.5Ghz it idles at 57 about, so I'm not pushing it further. If it would make much of a dif with the other cooler, then I'd push it as far as it would let me ofcourse
is that the p4 or the e6300? For a direct comparison my e6300 at 2.8ghz with an arctic pro freezer runs at 47/45 degrees idle. If the 57 degrees is for your e6300 then i would definitely put the good fan on it as on load it will be in the 65's which i wouldnt recommend. I dont like taking mine over 60 degrees.
Yea, that's why I reduced it to 2.2Ghz. Would I see a difference though between 2.2Ghz and 3.0Ghz? (Provided I can get it up that high while keeping temps below 60)
hmmm ill be brutally honest and say when using super pi .. no. Simply because the "better " chips for example quad core.. dont really even have to interact with the systems ram due to the onboard capabilites. Not the only reason but, for example the extra cache on the e6600 (i think?) plays a big part in super pi times compared to the e6300. However, when looking at the e6300 i have found that around 2.8ghz you hit a wall with the chip. You will be getting 20second approx times. To get down to 18's and im talking 18.6 - 19 seconds you have to push the chip to around 3.15ghz. The extra voltage and temps due to this really arent worth it. Take a look on the last couple of pages of the super pi 1m rankings on here and ull see how much diff i made between 2.8 and 3.15, hardly worth it. So for your case id say.. there probably isnt much point unless you use cpu intesive programs even then i have found (once again using super pi as a benchmark here) that tightening your ram timings can shave off over a second. So if you leave yours at a mild overclock.. try fsb at 333 = 2.45? and then tighten your ram and you will see a lot better performance over stock 1.86 and stock ram.
Put the new fan on and see how it goes with your temps if all seems ok take the chip up to around 2.8ghz and tighten the ram timings. You should get a good stable overclock and decent performance as i have with mine. I know everyones mobos are diff etc and set ups but i really dont see a lot* of benefits by going in to 3ghz range. Unless you are running atleast a E6400
Terribly sorry for double post. The pump on the old computer died, and I really want to get him off watercooling, like I said, the fan needs to come with it's own supports since the plastic shroud around the CPU socket is gone. I was thinking of this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16835106061 Not sure if it's really worth the bucks for it though. He uses the comp for gaming and it's a P4 3.4Ghz Northwood core chip
