Phenom II x4 965 BE - High Temps, Cooling Advice Needed

Ranked1_of_1 · 1 May 2012 at 19:04

I've recently upgraded from a GTX460 to a GTX580 and when monitoring the temps I realised that my CPU temp was quite high. I initially figured it was due to the bigger, hotter GPU, but then when I run Prime95 the GPU stays cool and the CPU gets really hot. The following screenshot is after about 5 minutes of running. The CPU is running at stock speeds :

It has got hotter which is something that bothers me, but has never shutdown.

I decided to add an additional fan and bought an Akaska Apache Black and add it as an exhaust fan - moving the stock exhaust fan to be an additional intake fan. I have also cleaned all dust filters etc. I have taken a picture of the inside of the case and how I have configured the fans. It isn't the tidiest build ever, but I don't think it's too bad.

Here are the full specs of the system.

Fractal Design R3 case
Gigabyte GA-880GMA-UD2H
Phenom II x4 965 BE (running at stock)
Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro Rev.2
MSI Twin Frozr II GTX580
8Gb Corsair XMS3
Antec TruPower 650W
Samsung SpinPoint F3
Western Digital HDD
Akaska Apache Black fan (connected to System Fan PWM)
2 x Fractal Design stock fans (connected to manual controller (on full))

Any help or advice is welcome. My next thought was to change the TIM, but the arctic cooler has pretty decent TIM already applied has it not?

deshepherd · 1 May 2012 at 22:08

Just a thought ... is the CPU cooler in the right orientation ... I thought it was meant to be direct towards an output fan so hot air is immediately exhausted. With your setup it is probably accumulating hot air at the top of the case. Change of gfx card may have made this worse as it will be pulling in air that is rising from that card so this may have got hotter.

Ranked1_of_1 · 1 May 2012 at 22:40

I was pretty sure when I built the machine that the cooler could only go in one of two directions and Arctic Coolings site also shows this :

http://www.arctic.ac/en/p/cooling/cpu/4/freezer-7-pro-rev.-2.html

However it does show that I should have a case exhaust fan directly above it. I could move the exhaust fan, but do you think it would make much difference considering the placement of the current exhaust fan? The Fractal Design case has sound proofing covering that top slot at the moment, although it can be removed easily.

Jayster · 2 May 2012 at 00:24

Yes it can only go on one way, when I first got my 965 I tried out a freezer 7 pro rev 2 I had lying around and found it to be no better than the stock cooler which I put down to the tiny contact area for the chip. Personally I would look at getting a new cooler (would give you a bit of overclocking head room too) or another thing you could try is undervolting the cpu.

Ranked1_of_1 · 2 May 2012 at 14:00

Is it worth going for the Corsair H60 - been thinking about getting one of those and putting the Akaska fan on it.

BLT · 2 May 2012 at 15:55

Ive got my 955 overclocked to 4.2 with a H100 and it never seems to go above 55-57 when stress testing and stays around 45ish area when gaming, so would have thought the H60 would be fine with lower clock speeds. Also had the exact same CPU cooler (Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro Rev.2) before and wasnt that impressed with it

Relentless81 · 2 May 2012 at 16:00

Mine is running at 3.6 with a Nero S cooler and I get no where those temps with a very similar setup only difference is the case, the CPU cooler expels the air directly through the top mounted exhaust fan

Only other thing I can think of is thermal compound