Fan cooling an OC i7 920

[old fastmover]

Hello folks - you seem to offer the most information about the subject. I'm building an i7 920 PC and wonder how far I can OC the processor with fan cooling. I'm talking about Prolimatech Megahalems or Thermalright 120 Extreme on the CPU. Will run two GTX 275's in SLI.

I'm OCing a Core 2 with a pair of GTS 8800's in SLI now - fan cooled. Does a great job!

Here it is - can they handle 3.0 or better yet 3.5? I'm a flight simmer! Or must I resort to liquid cooling? And if so - just how far should I go? The whole 9 yards custom? Have avoided it so far.

 

[GLeeM]

Welcome to the forum, old fastmover

The Megahalems and TRUE are great air coolers. If you have an i7 920 D0 you should be able to easily reach 3.5.

Many are getting higher OCs. Kind of depends on how high temps you are willing to put up with.

I have the TRUE on a "D0" currently at 3.8 with 1.18 vcore. Temps at load ~mid-60s.

When weather cools off again I will try higher OC.

 

[YBS1]

Depends on the particular chip you get. I'm running a Xeon W3520 (the server version of the i7 920) cooled with a Prolimatech Megahalems and I'm intel burn test/prime95/3DMark 100% stable at 4.2GHz. I'm pretty sure the chip is capable of going even higher with stability but the temps are starting to worry me above that. I tried 4.41GHz once so far, posted, booted into windows fine and was in the process of running prime95 without error but the temps were looking scary so I shut her down.

So no, 3.5Ghz won't be any problem at all for high end air.

 

[Ben90]

yea these chips are amazing; i dont really prime test for that long because temps get scary, but im running stock cooler @ 3.8 with 1.175
the temps are fine for me because im undervolted slightly and i never run anything that cpu intensive (mostly just games) so i can get by

I would pretty much expect you to get at least 4ghz unless you get a really lame chip... in my opinion 4 ghz is pretty easy for d0's, but it the voltage needed ramps up pretty fast around 4.2ghz

 

[themisfit610]

Yeah, most folks are saying 3.5 GHz is easy mode with any kind of decent aftermarket cooler. Hell, I bet you could get that speed with a stock cooler...

Don't worry too much about heat... I only raise my eyebrows when I break 80c on full load My Dell workstation with a Q6700 loads up to the high 70s, and it's rock solid stable

~MiSfit

 

[old fastmover]

Thanks guys! Your replies have solved my fear. Will run 3.50. The next couple of months will collect the rest of the components and then i'm Good to Go! BTW i'm an EVGA user, have a 680i mobo in the present, and have a Classified for the new one. I like em! Thanks again - you do good work!

Oh before I forget - if in the distant future I get to big for my britches and want to add plumbing - is this where I ask?

 

[VirtualLarry]

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