2x E5-2687W cooling question

cheezare

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Heya guys,
I have recently bought myself an older Dell Precision T7600 workstation. It came with 2x E5-2667 processors (6 cores each).
I will be using this puppy as my server loaded with ESXi and numerous VMs on top so not really a workstation at all. Looking at the T7600 specs I decided to maximize the core count and bought 2x E5-2687W processors (8 cores each).
Reading around (silly me, after purchasing), these procs draw 150W at full load which is a bit alarming considering I did not give much thought to whether the stock heatsinks are up for the task.

What are you thoughts? Do you have experience with these procs and whether I should be ok with stock heatsink?
Also, I obviously plan on re-applying a decent thermal grease. Any suggestions as to which kind/brand I should go with and perhaps a technique? I cannot seem to find a delidding image of that processor.
Being the alongated kind, I can only assume a "string" technique may work best?

Many thanks!
 
When it comes to applying thermal paste, I've seen from "transparent glass pressed against CPU" tests that a single pea is best, and with a longer processor, I imagine a bean is best.
Yes, a bean shape. Vegetables are healthy, right?

As for heatsinks, it depends what you're doing. When it comes to actual computational workloads, you have to remember that just about any decent heatsink will be fine for a temporary amount of time.
What matters is whether or not the load is applied long-term. Once the heatsink itself absorbs its maximum thermal capacity, can it dissipate the heat at the same rate it absorbs it from the CPU? If not, it'll just keep heating up until it's either molten goop, or the CPU malfunctions, or automatically downclocks.

Nonetheless, short bursts of heat aren't are as worrisome, so you might be fine with stock. Even if stock isn't enough, there's no need to spend a lot of money on *really good* heatsinks if your overall airflow is good, and your workloads aren't very intense.
A cheaper heatsink that's just somewhat better than Intel's stock garbage might be fine.

But a 24/7 100% CPU usage, the machine might benefit from better heatsinks.
 
When it comes to applying thermal paste, I've seen from "transparent glass pressed against CPU" tests that a single pea is best, and with a longer processor, I imagine a bean is best.
Yes, a bean shape. Vegetables are healthy, right?

As for heatsinks, it depends what you're doing. When it comes to actual computational workloads, you have to remember that just about any decent heatsink will be fine for a temporary amount of time.
What matters is whether or not the load is applied long-term. Once the heatsink itself absorbs its maximum thermal capacity, can it dissipate the heat at the same rate it absorbs it from the CPU? If not, it'll just keep heating up until it's either molten goop, or the CPU malfunctions, or automatically downclocks.

Nonetheless, short bursts of heat aren't are as worrisome, so you might be fine with stock. Even if stock isn't enough, there's no need to spend a lot of money on *really good* heatsinks if your overall airflow is good, and your workloads aren't very intense.
A cheaper heatsink that's just somewhat better than Intel's stock garbage might be fine.

But a 24/7 100% CPU usage, the machine might benefit from better heatsinks.

Thank you for the reply. You are absolutely right, I will not be saturating the CPUs so perhaps I am ok.
Sadly there are no other cheap alternatives because of the Dell socket formfactor.
The only alternative I found was this blog: https://t3600fanblog.wordpress.com/2020/08/20/t7600-upgrade-reader-submission/
 
Could be possible to just replace the heatsink fans with some better ones, or at least use good thermal paste and maintain good case airflow.
I'll try the doing thermal paste first, Good point about the fans. The way Dell designed T7600 is a bit odd, the fans from the front CPU blows into the second CPU/fan. Perhaps intentional, perhaps not.
Thanks for the suggestions
 
When it comes to applying thermal paste, I've seen from "transparent glass pressed against CPU" tests that a single pea is best, and with a longer processor, I imagine a bean is best.
Yes, a bean shape. Vegetables are healthy, right?

As for heatsinks, it depends what you're doing. When it comes to actual computational workloads, you have to remember that just about any decent heatsink will be fine for a temporary amount of time.
What matters is whether or not the load is applied long-term. Once the heatsink itself absorbs its maximum thermal capacity, can it dissipate the heat at the same rate it absorbs it from the CPU? If not, it'll just keep heating up until it's either molten goop, or the CPU malfunctions, or automatically downclocks.

Nonetheless, short bursts of heat aren't are as worrisome, so you might be fine with stock. Even if stock isn't enough, there's no need to spend a lot of money on *really good* heatsinks if your overall airflow is good, and your workloads aren't very intense.
A cheaper heatsink that's just somewhat better than Intel's stock garbage might be fine.

But a 24/7 100% CPU usage, the machine might benefit from better heatsinks.

As said it really depends on your intended workload and especially if you’re overclocking. CPUs can take far more heat for a longer time than most realize. What is the intended use and what temperatures do you get doing that right now? I’ve had CPUs that I ran near their max temps for years and years on stock cooling so if its just normal daily work within thermal specs don’t worry about it. People say that shortens the life of a proc and sure maybe it would fail 30 years down the road but who cares it will be trash by then.
 
As said it really depends on your intended workload and especially if you’re overclocking. CPUs can take far more heat for a longer time than most realize. What is the intended use and what temperatures do you get doing that right now? I’ve had CPUs that I ran near their max temps for years and years on stock cooling so if its just normal daily work within thermal specs don’t worry about it. People say that shortens the life of a proc and sure maybe it would fail 30 years down the road but who cares it will be trash by then.
Excellent points! You are right, This server's purpose is to host fairly non-demanding VMs which I should be probably totally ok with.
Here is another quick question: What is regular shelf life for a thermal pastes? Over the years I have accrued a few popular brands that stayed on a shelf for say 4 or years. Do I trash them and get brand new?
By the way the pastes I have are: GLID GC Extreme, Noctua NT-H1, Acritc MX-4 and 5. I plan on using GLID one.
Thanks
 
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honestly you shouldn't have a single issue the airflow in servers is healthy enough to dissipate heat off just about any heatsink and a those xeons are happy running up to 90c continuously without issue. when you get it run a cpu benchmark and see the temps my guess is they will still be well within the acceptable range.

as for paste any of it should still be good as long as it doesnt appear to have separated internally. as mentioned a nice peas size dot is really all you need and press the heatsink down and work it around to cover the ihs face.

Those should be great chips for a vm server so enjoy the upgrade
 
Excellent points! You are right, This server's purpose is to host fairly non-demanding VMs which I should be probably totally ok with.
Here is another quick question: What is a regular shelf life for a thermal pastes? Over the year I have accrued a few popular brands that stayed on a shelf for say 4 or years. Do I trash them and get brand new?
By the way the pastes I have are: GLID GC Extreme, Noctua NT-H1, Acritc MX-4 and 5. I plan on using GLID one.
Thanks

If they are sealed they should be fine. If they were partials that were already opened there is a good chance they will be done for. I have reused paste that old though and had it be fine if it was well kept.
 
If you wanted to max out the cores you can use 10c chips in those and while they do run at 2.4Ghz stock they go for under $100 these days each on Ebay.
 
If you wanted to max out the cores you can use 10c chips in those and while they do run at 2.4Ghz stock they go for under $100 these days each on Ebay.

The 2687w is a good chip I would take it over the 10 cores of the same generation
 
All good, the faster per core speed is nice! I am looking at 2x of those for my T5610, but the cost still being up there is making me hold out (i just moved my 2 x E5-2658 v2 to a T620 tower i got for cheap to be able to add more than 128GB of ram)
 
I was using a Be Quiet Dark Rock TF on a single 2678 V3. Runs silent with one fan.

Just upgraded to a 2699 V3, same cooler. If you have the spacing between CPU's, great cooler.

Picked up the 2678 V3 for $65 and the 2699 V3 for $300
 
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