Cooling for my new Q6600 and 8800GT system?

[TheVrolok]

So I'm putting together a new gaming rig composed of a Q6600 and 8800GT. Without OC'ing at all I'm worried about this system generating quite a bit of heat. I am thinking about OC'ing the CPU a bit, but I'm not sure how far I'll go with that - I've never been completely comfortable with overclocking (1 because I'm an OC'ing noob, and 2 because I'm scared to death of beating up my CPU/GPU). What would you guys recommend? Liquid? Could I liquid both the Q6600 and 8800GT (what fits the 8800GT?)? Or should I just air cool them both? I'm definitely thinking of aftermarket cooling for the 8800GT at least, if not the Q6600 at least.

I've got an Enermax Liberty DxX 620W, so I should have enough power to go around. The case is an Nzxt Lexa Blackline for style, I'm willing to do some moding if necessary (thought about cutting out some of the PCI slots and installing a fan there). Suggestions? thanks guys.

 

[Nurn]

If you don't plan to go crazy with overclocking, air cooled is fine. You can even drop in a good air cooler (e.g. Ultima90) for about $50, that will give you lots of room to overclock a Q6600 up to at least 3 GHz from 2.4 GHz with two or three simple settings changes in your BIOS (FSB Speed and voltages for CPU and RAM). I wouldn't worry about watercooling unless you are aiming for 3.6 GHz or greater on your Q6600... it tends to be expensive, and is geared more towards the enthusiast, extreme overclocker or modder. Buy quality components (good DDR2 RAM, and a decent mobo). You don't necessarily need to spend a lot of money for quality, but you do need to do your homework, and read the reviews.

 

[TheVrolok]

Originally posted by: Nurn
If you don't plan to go crazy with overclocking, air cooled is fine. You can even drop in a good air cooler (e.g. Ultima90) for about $50, that will give you lots of room to overclock a Q6600 up to at least 3 GHz from 2.4 GHz with two or three simple settings changes in your BIOS (FSB Speed and voltages for CPU and RAM). I wouldn't worry about watercooling unless you are aiming for 3.6 GHz or greater on your Q6600... it tends to be expensive, and is geared more towards the enthusiast, extreme overclocker or modder. Buy quality components (good DDR2 RAM, and a decent mobo). You don't necessarily need to spend a lot of money for quality, but you do need to do your homework, and read the reviews.

Thanks for the response, that sounds good to me. Any opinion on cooling for the 8800GT though, aftermarket cooler? I probably will either way, don't want that puppy getting too hot. Perhaps I'll just run some stress tests on it before I go and purchase though, to see what the idle/load temps are.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

First, our friends are correct, you have no need for water-cooling if you're currently reticent about over-clocking. If you're standing on the water's edge, looking to get your feet wet, and you don't mind spending $100, then, order a ThermalRight Ultra-120-Extreme or Ultima 90 for starters -- that's about half your budget.

The stock cooler on the vid card is adequate, but for the remainder of your $100, you can cool down the load temperatures about 20C degrees with either the ThermalRight HR-03 (Plus, or other model that fits your vid-card), or the VF-1000 by Zalman.

With those items, you can over-clock your Q6600 pretty well -- as much or more than 33% over stock, and you should be able to cool your video card so well that the only limit on over-clocking is your own fear and the practical limits of the hardware.

 

[LOUISSSSS]

i'm getting 3.5ghz with artic cooling freezer 7 pro.

 

[John]

Your temps on the 8800GT (stock cooler) may vary from others by around 40C under load. Gary Key (AnandTech hardware reviewer) found that some (maybe all?) of their 8800GT cards, purchased directly from stores, were running in excess of 107C under full load. My BFG 8800GTOC was also hitting 108C under load. While I've seen others claim 70-80C under load with the stock cooler I'd have to assume it's <60F in their room, or they simply have superior airflow thru their case. Using RivaTuner to adjust the fan speed to 100% lowered the load temp by about 5C, but in the process it damaged my hearing since the 60mm fan was screaming like a newborn baby. I found anything above 45% unacceptable since I have a quiet case. I decided to purchase a Zalman VF1000 and some Thermaltake copper BGA memory heatsinks for the VRM clusters. Using the included fan mate to adjust the fan speed about 1/4 turn from the base setting my load temps dropped 40C. Others have reported great success with the Thermaltake DuOrb.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

That's interesting, John. Were you measuring the GPU temperature? Or the GPU-Diode temperature? I found that the latter was between 8 and 10C hotter than the GPU temperature.

I use an HR-03-Plus with 80x15mm fan with mobo (and VGA card) ducting. My load at OC settings with an 8800 GTS card was around 63C (Diode) under a serious stress test.

My careful conclusion from reading a VF-1000 review and test results was that the ThermalRight cooler -- with my ducting -- could only best the Zalman by about 2C degrees. So I would think the Zalman matches -- even slightly exceeds -- the ThermalRight.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

. . . . That was with room-ambient between 73 and 75F . . .

 

[John]

Originally posted by: BonzaiDuck
That's interesting, John. Were you measuring the GPU temperature? Or the GPU-Diode temperature?

I used ATITool and RivaTuner to monitor gpu (core) temps and they were identical.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

What chipset are you using? I didn't have trouble using ATI Tool to monitor or even "test" core and memory limits, but I had trouble with it as a means of applying the settings. I have an nVidia chipset, and nVidia graphics card. But I would think this issue would only be relevant to the graphics card, and not the chipset.

On the matter of temperatures, they may be called different things with different monitoring software. Everest Ultimate distinguishes between a "GPU" temperature and a "GPU DIode" temperature. With so much stuff on my plate, I've held the assumption that this is analogous to the difference between CPU TCase and CPU "core" or [TJunction-based] temperatures.

 

[John]

I have a DFI Ultra D mobo w/ NF4 chipset and use RivaTuner 2.06 to adjust and set the clocks on the 8800GT. I only use ATITool for the artifact test.