Quad core questions

[fizzy]

Hi,

Fitted my first intel CPU in quite a while today - a q9550 retail version.

A couple of questions - do the retail pack coolers differ between batches? The one in mine seems very low profile for a quad core cooler (stands about an inch high and is well below the level of the heatsinks on the Asus P5Q board) - my brothers E6600 cooler is a lot taller/thicker and its only dual core...

Been keeping an eye on core temps, and 1 core seems to run a fair bit cooler than the rest (by several deg's often when under load), whereas core 4 always seems to be a couple of degrees higher than the rest - do the quads tend to have varying core temps, or should they generally sit at the same temp when idle if the cooler is sitting correctly?

Upped it to 3 ghz for a slight oc, but don't want to push it without getting something to replace the lightweight retail cooler.

 

[RJC]

Majority of quads have have varying temps accross cores I would not worry about it, your heat spreader could be slightly concave or sensor calibration

Your CPU is based on 45nm technology so in theory should run cooler and Intel can get away with a smaller heatsink.

 

[PaulyD]

My cores on my Q6600 vary by a large amount, even made a thread on here because of it lilke yourself so don't worry

As per the last post the Heatsink could be slightly concave or the surface on the CPU cooler could be uneven as well. A lot of people recommend lapping both to get as flat a surface as possible. I did this and it evened up the temps slightly but cores 0 and 1 are usually a few degrees hotter than 2 and 3 under load but nothing to worry about at all. However - with your CPU i wouldn't personally lap it, only did mine because im going to run it into the ground!

However, would definately replace the CPU cooler with something with a bit more oophm