My first overclock, 4Ghz stable but?

[Asomodai]

I have been interested in the world of overclocking for a while, but never invested much in cooling so never went into the deep end before. So i bought a Corsair H50 and i have some questions!

Anyway my rig.

i7-930 Clocked to 4ghz (DO revision)
Corsair H50 Water cooler.
OCZ Reaper 6GB.
Antec 1200
Antec CP-1000 PSU.
Asus P6X58D-E
GTX280

etc.

Heres my rig and airflow

So the H50 is setup on push/pull venting INTO the case as instructed in the manual. I have a single fan above the corsair pushing out, the big fan on top pushing out, and the three fans at the front pushing IN. The PSU fan is pushing air out. GtX280 is stock and is blowing air down into the case.

All of the fans are stock Antec 3's apart from the corsair fan.

My current bios is like this.
CPU Ratio: 21
Speedstep: Enabled
Xtreme Phase Full power mode: Auto
BLCK: 191
DDR3: 1531mhz
DRAM timings are 8-8-6-24
Vcore: 1.318v (In CPUZ its 1.312v)
DRAM is 1.65v
QPI/DRAM: 1.34375v
Loadlinecalib: Auto.

Using prime95 at these settings running at 4ghz i record temps of 79C at its highest peak and on average 78C. Its a relatively stable overclock. I believe HT is enabled (Thought not sure where to check to see if its true?)

Anyway, my questions!

How does my setup currently look to the more experienced people? Anything i should change in my fan placement?

Should i buy better fans?

I have room for another fan on the side of the PC, which i could use as exhaust, should i do this?

Anything i should change with my voltages? As i feel i am running a tad high on the Vcore. However any less and its unstable.

I used the thermal paste the H50 came with and seemed to spread nicely, however i do have an unopened bottle of AC5 should i reinstall the H50 with this paste?

In the bios there is a setting for Xtreme Phase Full power mode, which is supposedly better for overclocking, would turning this on mean i can run less Vcore?

 

[reygjabla]

Leave your settings as it is for now and run prime 95 to check your stability and run either Real temp or Core temp to monitor your temps and go from there.

 

[Skellig]

Somebody posted this a while back and I thought it was very useful:

Positive Airflow

I believe that mobo temps are quite important and affect the cpu temps directly so even with watercooling, you'd best off having a cooler case temp.

 

[gcaster]

Somebody posted this a while back and I thought it was very useful:

Positive Airflow

I believe that mobo temps are quite important and affect the cpu temps directly so even with watercooling, you'd best off having a cooler case temp.

That's a pretty good little article.
Might have to turn some fans around!

 

[Asomodai]

Ok, i have put the h50 heatsink and push pull config onto the top most fan mount, still blowing in. The bottom fan that replaces it now blows into the case.

I am getting about 80c on 4ghz overclock. I would really like to get that down more and i didnt understand anything about the article that was linked, any ideas how to improve this? How about pushing the air out of the case from the H50, instead of in?

 

[cjgardens]

Probably not going to make any odds really but the fans in front of your hard driver i have them sucking the air out. With the way you have it the air from your hard drive will be going into your case. Not that it makes much odds as i said.

With any rad you have the air sucking from out side your case as the air from the out side will be cooler than the air inside your case

 

[~REALiTY]

i think you should put the H50 back where it was as an exhaust because the intake fans at the front will pull in cool air, and then the back fans will draw them across the board and push out the hot air

Because if you have 1 fan blowing against the other one it wont flow air will build up in the middle, although it will get pushed out it will keep warmer air in there, atleast thats what i have found.

H50 as an exhaust performs a lot better for me, and quite a few other people have said this, i saw a drop in temp on my 1055T at 4Ghz load it was 51c now it runs at 46c since i switched to exhaust.

 

[Cr416]

i think you should put the H50 back where it was as an exhaust because the intake fans at the front will pull in cool air, and then the back fans will draw them across the board and push out the hot air

Because if you have 1 fan blowing against the other one it wont flow air will build up in the middle, although it will get pushed out it will keep warmer air in there, atleast thats what i have found.

H50 as an exhaust performs a lot better for me, and quite a few other people have said this, i saw a drop in temp on my 1055T at 4Ghz load it was 51c now it runs at 46c since i switched to exhaust.

This.

I have my H70 as an exhaust (no choice in the ft02 really lol) and it hits around the 45-50 on stock clocks and around 55 - 60 oc. Positive air pressure wins

 

[Asomodai]

i think you should put the H50 back where it was as an exhaust because the intake fans at the front will pull in cool air, and then the back fans will draw them across the board and push out the hot air

Because if you have 1 fan blowing against the other one it wont flow air will build up in the middle, although it will get pushed out it will keep warmer air in there, atleast thats what i have found.

H50 as an exhaust performs a lot better for me, and quite a few other people have said this, i saw a drop in temp on my 1055T at 4Ghz load it was 51c now it runs at 46c since i switched to exhaust.

Ok i did this and it made no difference whatsoever, well maybe a 1 degree drop, but its still too hot (About 79 Degrees) Any ideas?

 

[cjgardens]

Change your fans around air needs to be sucking from the out side for your rad dont listen to them.

In through your rad out past your hard driver. What ever with the top fan

your only going to better them temps by going push pull really and even then its not going to be massive.

Get your self a proper kid. Cool the card at the same time

 

[bifday2k]

Have the 3 front fans as intakes as ur pic shows, have the top and rear as outtakes, and also have the fans on the H50 as out takes too.

It will give u far better overall system temps that way. The only way ur gonna lower the temps on the cpu, is to tweak the vcore/qpi really.

 

[cjgardens]

Have the 3 front fans as intakes as ur pic shows, have the top and rear as outtakes, and also have the fans on the H50 as out takes too.

It will give u far better overall system temps that way. The only way ur gonna lower the temps on the cpu, is to tweak the vcore/qpi really.

How will it. Care to explain how taking hot air from in side your case and sending it through your rad is better than sucking cooler air form out side you case through your rad

 

[Asomodai]

Have the 3 front fans as intakes as ur pic shows, have the top and rear as outtakes, and also have the fans on the H50 as out takes too.

It will give u far better overall system temps that way. The only way ur gonna lower the temps on the cpu, is to tweak the vcore/qpi really.

Thats what i did. I cannot lower the Vcore anymore without system instability. Infact there is instability at the current Vcore at the moment after a few hours.

Change your fans around air needs to be sucking from the out side for your rad dont listen to them.

In through your rad out past your hard driver. What ever with the top fan

your only going to better them temps by going push pull really and even then its not going to be massive.

Get your self a proper kid. Cool the card at the same time

I am already using Push/Pull. If you give me the money then I'll get the kit. Otherwise I want to maximise what i have now.

Which begs the question I have posed, will getting better fans help my cause?

Rob.

 

[bifday2k]

How will it. Care to explain how taking hot air from in side your case and sending it through your rad is better than sucking cooler air form out side you case through your rad

I never said it was better, i said it would give overall better system temps, as the air flow through the case will not be getting messed up.
Having the fans on the rad as intakes may drop the cpu temp by 1/2c at most, but will mess up the case airflow, so will heat up other components.

Also he has a external exhaust GPU, so the air from that would rise up to the intake fan on the rad, so another reason why i wouldn't bother with intake on the H50.

From my own testing trying different methods on rads, being intake/out-take.

Intake will give u best cpu temp.
Out-take will give you best overal system temps.

So the OP would have to test and see which way he is happy with.

@Asomodai

80c is about the right kinda temp for that cooler and vcore, your not really gonna get much lower unless you change to top top air cooling or custom water.

 

[Asomodai]

I never said it was better, i said it would give overall better system temps, as the air flow through the case will not be getting messed up.
Having the fans on the rad as intakes may drop the cpu temp by 1/2c at most, but will mess up the case airflow, so will heat up other components.

Also he has a external exhaust GPU, so the air from that would rise up to the intake fan on the rad, so another reason why i wouldn't bother with intake on the H50.

From my own testing trying different methods on rads, being intake/out-take.

Intake will give u best cpu temp.
Out-take will give you best overal system temps.

So the OP would have to test and see which way he is happy with.

@Asomodai

80c is about the right kinda temp for that cooler and vcore, your not really gonna get much lower unless you change to top top air cooling or custom water.

Odd considering i keep seeing far better temps then mine on similar rigs.

I ordered some Scythe Gentletyphoons and i am gutting an old fan to use as a shroud. See if i can bump the temps down that way. Will report back with my findings.