Is Arctic Cooler Freezer 7 Pro or Cooler Master Hyper TX2 ($2 AR @ SVC) sufficient for *mild* Q6600 overclocking? Yes!

[Laminator]

I don't know if this is a common issue now but I remember a lot of people asking this question a few weeks back so I thought I'd share my results.

I'm using a Cooler Master Hyper TX2 (equivalent in performance to an Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro) in a Cooler Master Centurion 5 mid-tower case. Like the Freezer 7 Pro, the Hyper TX2's fan sucks in air and pushes it through the cooler. I have the cooler oriented so that the fan is facing the drives; air is pushed through the cooler and sucked out the case by a 120mm fan directly behind the cooler (included in the case). This is a very standard, easy configuration. I'm using the default thermal paste that comes pre-applied on the cooler. It's a bit much, but let's see how that pans out!

The temperature in my room is about 70 degrees Fahrenheit.

IDLE, BEFORE LOAD:
http://img249.imageshack.us/im...emperaturesidlehh0.jpg

LOAD (OCCT, 4 cores @ 100%; temperatures are NOT RISING):
http://img249.imageshack.us/im...emperaturesloadoh7.jpg

IDLE, AFTER LOAD:
http://img160.imageshack.us/im...aturesidleafterol6.jpg

Much better than I expected! This shows you how far a good, $10-$20 cooler can go. At first I was miffed when I saw companies like Commodore and Alienware using the Freezer 7 Pro for their QX6700/QX6800/QX6850's, but I guess it's not too bad after all. Of course, 3.2GHz is not exactly a miraculous overclock but at least you know $10-$20 will get you to the magic 3.0GHz on a G0-stepping Q6600.

$30 + shipping (+ tax) will even get you that weird-ass ZeroTherm butterfly-shaped cooler, which should have much better cooling performance.

 

[myocardia]

Try running Orthos for 15 minutes. OCCT for 2½ minutes is hardly going to give you max temps.

 

[Laminator]

I ran OCCT for a lot longer yesterday and the temperatures were more or less the same. I'll try ORTHOS later, though.

EDIT: While I'm trying to get Orthos to work, I raised the voltage to 1.32v in the BIOS, ran OCCT for 15 minutes, and here is the result:

http://img61.imageshack.us/img...mperaturesload2gj0.jpg

Not as good as before, but still quite acceptable. Now I'm starting to see the upper limit of this cooler, though.

 

[n7]

OCCT is good, but it doesn't stresss specifically the CPU nearly as much as say small ffts in P95/Orthos.

Get the latest P95; i've heard it works for quad w/o having to run two instances w/ affinities set like Orthos needs.

Your cooler is indeed good, but it's not great.

 

[Xvys]

I just got the Freezer 7 and it works great for me, cooling my P5B / E6300 @ 533FSB x 7, especially with the fan on full blast 2800 rpm. If you use the Q-fan on Performance the maximum is about 2000 rpm under load and the temps rise 6 or so degrees C.

The Freezer 7 is pretty quiet at 2000 rpm, and although the fan is side-mounted, it cools the mb & hd much better than my previous downdraft heatsink. Even at 2800 rpm the noise is acceptable in my livingroom. Two thumbs up, especially for $22.
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Asus P5B / E6300 @533FSB x 7 = 3730 MHz / 2x1 Crucial 10th Anniv. PC2-5300 / ATI X800XL / HEC 420w / SB Audigy SE / Seagate 250g & 320g / Coolermaster Elite case / AC Freezer 7 / Samsung 19" crt @ 85Hz

 

[Laminator]

Originally posted by: n7
OCCT is good, but it doesn't stresss specifically the CPU nearly as much as say small ffts in P95/Orthos.

Get the latest P95; i've heard it works for quad w/o having to run two instances w/ affinities set like Orthos needs.

Your cooler is indeed good, but it's not great.

Thanks; I'm trying to get Orthos to work now but the second instance will get stuck on "Paging" and won't start the threads (I've set the affinities). I'll try out Prime 95.

I know the Freezer 7 Pro and the Hyper TX2 are pretty low-end but a lot of people were asking about their ability to cool a Q6600 up to 3.0GHz so I was attempting to answer that question.