OC Cooling and Stability Help

[PCTC2]

My main rig, my E6400, I bought a few months ago.

E6400 Rig
Also:
E6400 @ 3.6GHz (450*8) 1.55v
Corsair Dominator @ 900 4-4-4-10 2.275v

I have a Zalman 9700 cooling it.
It's stable to the point where I can run all of my programs for hours on end but when I run Orthos or Prime95, it fails in under a minute. I'm planning on getting AS5 to drop the temps a little (40/60) and maybe gain a little stability, but should I just drop the clock and vCore to pass Orthos and drop temps?

I was planning on maybe getting a Vigor Monsoon II or a Coolit Freezone. Is it worth shelling out the cash for a TEC cooler? I have a 700W PSU. Would I need an AUX PSU?

A little help I anyone pleases. Thanks.

 

[jjet67]

That's a fantastic result.

 

[PCTC2]

Oh yeah... here's the CPU-Z Validation page:
CPU Validation

 

[tersome]

1.55v is quite a lot for only 3.6ghz. Have you tried lowering voltage to lower your temps?

Also, are you running the Orthos Blend test or the Smallfft test? If you're failing the blend test, it might be related to your chipset or memory instead of your CPU.

 

[PCTC2]

I'm failing the Small-FFT test. And it won't boot below 1.525v and programs won't run genuinely until 1.55v. tried lowering.
I don't mind the temps, but stability is a problem for some stress tests (Prime2k, Orthos, 3DMark, and TAT @ 100% come to mind).
I preferably don't want to drop clocks because my system is noticeably slower at 3.44GHz (430x8), the highest clock I have been able to be Orthos stable.
Just mainly want an opinion on coolers and tips to increase stability without sacrificing performance.

 

[myocardia]

Originally posted by: PCTC2
I'm failing the Small-FFT test. And it won't boot below 1.525v and programs won't run genuinely until 1.55v. tried lowering.

I preferably don't want to drop clocks because my system is noticeably slower at 3.44GHz (430x8), the highest clock I have been able to be Orthos stable.
Just mainly want an opinion on coolers and tips to increase stability without sacrificing performance.

If you're only running the Small-FFT test, and failing, then you have two choices-- lower your overclock, or add more vcore. And concerning heatsinks, the Tuniq Tower is the best air cooler you can buy. It performs nearly as well as the two TEC heatsinks you mentioned: link, although CoolIt makes a higher-end TEC that's considerably better. It also costs ~$300.

 

[htne]

Originally posted by: PCTC2
I preferably don't want to drop clocks because my system is noticeably slower at 3.44GHz (430x8), the highest clock I have been able to be Orthos stable.

Dropping the FSB from 450 to 430 is a 4.4% decrease in cpu speed. This is truly insignificant, and under normal circumstances, cannot POSSIBLY be noticed. The only way a human could tell the difference is by running a program like CPUz.

 

[myocardia]

Originally posted by: htne

Originally posted by: PCTC2
I preferably don't want to drop clocks because my system is noticeably slower at 3.44GHz (430x8), the highest clock I have been able to be Orthos stable.

Dropping the FSB from 450 to 430 is a 4.4% decrease in cpu speed. This is truly insignificant, and under normal circumstances, cannot POSSIBLY be noticed. The only way a human could tell the difference is by running a program like CPUz.

He's likely noticing the difference in SuperPi.

 

[PCTC2]

Haha. Very funny. Mainly boot time because I can't lose productivity and on start up I have a minimum of a dozen programs open.
Also, the general time for XP to boot is longer. And I'm an impatient person. So sue me.

 

[myocardia]

Have you considered raising your RAM timings a little? That's pretty tight timings for XMS @ those frequencies, unless of course, you have the early XMS that's got Micron D9 IC's.

 

[PCTC2]

It doesn't make a difference. I've run them at 4-4-4-10, 5-5-5-12, and 5-5-5-5-15 and full auto (4-6-6-12) and other than benchmarking results, all perform similarly and the system has similar stability so I just leave it at 4-4-4-10

 

[PCTC2]

But back to the original question. Would it be worth it to get a Tuniq Tower or possibly a Monsoon II?

 

[myocardia]

Well, both would lower your temps a few degrees. Did you not read the article that I linked you to? It compares a Tuniq Tower against a Monsoon II Lite, with a C2D @ 3.90 Ghz. And there are many heatsink reviews that compare a Tuniq Tower against a Zalman 9700. Notice in that article that the Tuniq has the lower temp. Of course, they aren't comparing it to the more expensive CoolIt, either.

 

[n7]

Your system isn't anywhere close to stable if it's failing 3DMark.

If you never do anything intensive, then i suppose it'd be alright, but if you never do anything intensive, how is 3.6 GHz any different than 3.0 GHz?

 

[PCTC2]

Well, I got my computer to run 3DMark. It wasn't stable when I decided to run 3DMark with a bunch of background programs running (about 15).
I can run most stress tests, but only fail Prime and Orthos. The difference between 3.0 and 3.6 GHz is the time it takes to boot and load everything, which is quite noticable.
I've got major ADHD so that extra few minutes saves me. It's weird but it happens.

 

[PCTC2]

Well, just wanting an opinion. Should I get a Thermalright Ultra 120 or a Tuniq Tower 120. I've got a fan for the Thermalright so which would perform better? I can't find a comparison review with both anywhere.