air cooling for QX9770

[cheekyswine]

i just built a new system on a 790i chipset with an intel QX9770.

I'm currently using a ZEROtherm Nirvana NV120 for cooling and I've been having heating issues.

With nothing running except vista, core temps are ranging from 42-46. As soon as I do anything CPU intensive, all 4 cores are reaching up to 60-63.

I've read a lot of info on water cooling on the forums.. I'd like to be able to overclock a bit, but I'm not interested in a water system. Does anyone have any experience with cooling a QX9770? What kind of temps should I expect while gaming (crysis..)? Should I be looking at a different fan/heatsink?

 

[Viper GTS]

What voltage is your CPU getting? (Use CPU-Z to find this).

http://cpuid.com/cpuz.php

Viper GTS

 

[cheekyswine]

I'll post voltage later..

If I decided to go with water, does anyone have any thoughts/experience with a hybrid system similar to:

ZALMAN Reserator XT BK

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

Read this & this.

 

[SolMiester]

Cheeky, sorry to ask, but are you sure you are mounted correctly, I have ACF7pro and idle in low 30's @ 3Ghz, late 40's at load......either poor mounting or your case thermals suck!

 

[WoodButcher]

First off, what case do you have? A pic of your setup would be nice, where is it located, is it generally covered or enclosed? what are the ambients? at/around the PC, not your wall thermo.

Second, if your considering water don't even think Zalman, fans, maybe, nothing else.

 

[cheekyswine]

ended up using a ZALMON 9700, which solved my heating issues. seems to be stable now. it looked like the zerotherm nirvana was mounted correctly, so i'm not really sure what the problem was..

has anyone tried overclocking QX9770 with a ZALMON or something comparable?

 

[cheekyswine]

Originally posted by: WoodButcher
First off, what case do you have? A pic of your setup would be nice, where is it located, is it generally covered or enclosed? what are the ambients? at/around the PC, not your wall thermo.

Second, if your considering water don't even think Zalman, fans, maybe, nothing else.

case i'm using is LIAN LI PC-P80

 

[MichaelD]

I'm using an ArcticCooling Freezer7 Pro on my Q6600@3.2GHz @ 1.39v. I need 1.40v b/c it's not stable at any lower voltage.

At that speed/voltage, my idle temps are 45-47C across all 4 cores. My room's ambient temp is 28C, though. Case airflow is decent but could be better...trying to keep fans as quiet as possible. Stress temps are low 60's. It's stable, so I'm not too worried about it.

 

[Tullphan]

Originally posted by: MichaelD
I'm using an ArcticCooling Freezer7 Pro on my Q6600@3.2GHz @ 1.39v. I need 1.40v b/c it's not stable at any lower voltage.

At that speed/voltage, my idle temps are 45-47C across all 4 cores. My room's ambient temp is 28C, though. Case airflow is decent but could be better...trying to keep fans as quiet as possible.

On average, for a mildly overclocked cpu, how many degrees difference between room ambient to idle? What's "normal"?

 

[aigomorla]

i stay away from zalman threads as i dont like the company.

for that price of the 9700 you could of gotten much better.

 

[daw123]

For your information, I have an air-cooled QX9770 on a GA-X48T-DQ6.

At stock speeds the Vcore (in CPU-Z) is 1.264V and all four cores are rock steady at 40-43C (in HWMonitor) even under load.

I am using a Thermaltake BigTyp 120VX (btw I am not endorsing this HSF - it is crap compared to others on the market).

I'm not sure if these are good or bad results - I haven't looked at any other stats on this forum for a similar set up.

I don't think 43C is too bad; you should start to worry at temps over 65C.

I figure I've got about 110mV to play around with when I overclock this chip before I hit 1.37V VCore, although I will wait for the liquid cooling setup before I even contemplate doing it.

P.S. I will stress test my build this weekend (I have been using it all week and it seems fairly stable; all core temps / voltages seem fine and all the DIMMS are recognised).