fairly general but....

beano · 24 Jul 2007 at 18:58

What are my options for cooling with the following system? I doubt i'll be overclocking initially, but that'll probably be an option a little further down the line... Do i really need anything more than the heatsink and fan supplied with cpu?

Antec Sonata iii case (with front fan fitted)
P5K Dlx mobo
q6600 cpu
8800 GTS gfx card
4gig RAM (providing i can use 4 x 1gig sticks!?!)

Thanks for any tips.

Biffa · 24 Jul 2007 at 19:42

beano said:
Do i really need anything more than the heatsink and fan supplied with cpu?

Yes, if your not overclocking then fitting an aftermarket cooler such as an Arctic Cooler Freezer Pro will drop your temps by around 10 degrees under load.

Anything better than that say a Thermaltake BigTyp 120 VX you would look at 15 degrees improvement, or Tuniq Tower or Thermalright Ultra 120 and you are going 15-20 degrees over the stock cooler.

Also these higher end coolers will maintain lower temps when overclocking so can give you more headroom and peace of mind if you do decide to get a free upgrade

What you have to be careful of is your case depth, the Antec is 206mm deep,
the Tuniq is 155mm, the Thermalright is 160.5 mm and the BigTyp 120 VX is 150mm all of which should fit fine inside your case unless you have any side fans installed.

beano · 24 Jul 2007 at 23:11

okay, cheers for the info Biffa.

Chris Beard · 25 Jul 2007 at 11:26

You can overclock on the intel stock heatsink. It is noisier and hotter but still possible. If you're going bang for buck I suspect not even the arctic freezer pro is worth it for the extra clock you'll get. It's only really worth it if you want low noise AND high performance.

Edit:// Just noticed you have a quad, these are two duos strapped together so it might be possible the heat produced is so high it's worth the extra cost for an aftermarket sink.