Possible cooling improvements

Kei

Kei

Kei

Soldato
Joined
24 Oct 2008
Posts
2,752
Location
South Wales
As it stands my system runs a phenom II x4 955 at 3.8GHz with 1.45v. This is as far as i have been able to take it and maintain stability. Looking at the temperature reported by coretemp it peaks at 55 degrees when running LinX. This is the current layout of the case cooling. (there is a 140mm silentwings fan in the side panel blowing inwards over the gfx card, also got an 80mm fan blowing on the back of the board) TIM i believe was arctic silver 5. (but i'm not certain as the cooler was mounted over a year ago)
CM690II.jpg


I realise the deepcool fan is not in the ideal location atm. The front intake and rear exhaust fans are the coolermaster originals, bottom intake is an akasa amber and the fan on the megahalems is a scythe s-flex. I am thinking that i could move the deepcool up and mount it to the other side of the megahalems in a push pull config.

Can this be made more efficient or is the only way forward to move on from air cooling to liquid. (been looking at custom loops and the H100) I would like to try and pull some more out of my phenom or at least run it a tad cooler.
 
I refitted the megahalems with new arctic silver 5 TIM and two fans (push / pull), but its not made any difference. Still idles around 36 degrees and peaks at 56 degrees. I'm still stuck at 3.8GHz and it isn't stable with lower voltages. (1.46v is the minimum needed to keep it stable)
IMG_3619.jpg



I have been considering water cooling for a while now. (something like the EK HF 240) How much of a difference is water cooling likely to make and will the difference be worth the expense? (Have been wondering if my problem is i've hit the limit of my phenom as it is a C2)
 
just get the best air cooler possible,as advised on these forums,it may be your cpu wont go any higher,mine just wont get past 3.7ghz no matter what i try and my temps were lower than yours
 
Cheers for the advice so far. I would use a matching pair of fans if i had some. The scythe fan that's on there is an s-flex which i can't find any more.

Daft question, should fans in the top push air into the case or out of the case?
 
if you were going to buy watercooling for it youd be aswell buying a better rig instead...for the £200 ish outlay needed why not sell your chip and board plus ram... stick alittle more to it and get a 2600k/2700k system? would cost you around £440 for chip mobo and ram....worth thinking about as it would apear you have hit your limit at 3.8 just now
 
Food for thought, i have been considering swapping to intel with a p67/z68 and 2500k combo. (which means my ram is fine as its 1600 ddr3) I've not had an intel based system since a P166 though so i've got no experience with their modern kit. (intel has always been way too expensive, but a 2500k doesn't look so bad so long as the motherboards don't exceed £150) My megahalems is a Rev A for LGA775 so i'd also need to find a 1155 mounting kit or buy another cooler. I reckon it would cost about £310 ish to jump ship to intel and then i could sell off my AMD bits to recoup some of the cost. (although i doubt a 955BE and a 790FX board would net me more than £120)
 
Well the rearrangement of the fans has made a fair difference. I put the scythe back on the megahalems (only one fan pushing air through it) and put the amber and deepcool fans into the top panel to pull air out the case. Max load temperature is 52 degrees and idle is now 32. (it had been getting up to 58 before but i hadn't been testing it for long enough to find that out)
 
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