Desperate for advice!

[NSFW]

Hi guys,

I'm in a bit of a jam. I'm what you'd call a half informed PC enthusiast. I know enough to build a system, but not enough to answer or judge some harder questions.

I currently live in Brisbane, Australia. It's hot here during the summer (38 to 41 degree highs), at least it's hot for a migrating Canadian like me. I don't have any reasonable idea how that heat affects PC's in this side of the world, I can only guess more cooling is better. I'm used to living in below 0 environments with central heat, and then air conditioned homes in the summer. No A/C at the place I live.

I'm (so far) planning to Overclock a Q6600 to about 3.2 GHZ in a Antec 900 on a Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3R P35 Motherboard.

I understand that the Thermalright Ultra 120 is the cream of the crop of heatsinks right now. I also realise it's a massive piece of metal, which doesn't come with a fan. It's also (from what I understand) a tight fit in the Antec 900, effectively eliminating the chance of installing a side fan, and that I have to install thermal paste myself (something I dread doing).

The Tuniq Tower if I understand is an alternate to the Thermalright Ultra 120, coming with a fan, but still needing the paste. I'm unsure about the profile though and how it will fit in the 900. It's a bit cheaper as well, at the sacrifice of a few degrees.

The last heatsink i'm looking at is the Freezer 7 Pro. It comes with a fan, and comes with pre applied quality paste. This has a very strong appeal to me. I can't emphasize how much I dread putting on paste myself. It's not something I want to risk screwing up. It's profile seems smaller then the above two as well, which means I can hopefully install a side fan in the 900. My biggest concern? Is it enough cooling in an Australian summer for my overclocking needs.

Any other options? I've read the guide, and a Scythe Ninja looks possible, but I'm still not sure.

If the Thermalright is the only choice, then the Thermalright it is, no questions, I'll buy the fan, pray and then apply the paste...But can anyone possibly recommend a case similar to the Antec 900, both in cooling, features and price?

Cheers and much thanks,

NSFW

 

[Trombe]

Thermalright's Ultima-90 is basically a smaller version of the Ultra-120 Extreme, yet still rivals the Tuniq Tower 120 in terms of performance (if you add a fan, also not included). I got one of these because I was afraid of the Ultra-120 Ex being too heavy and large, especially considering how much I move the machine around. It has the minor problem of being able to rotate while already mounted, but so does the 120 Ex (even though they use different mounting schemes), but it's nothing I've ever had to worry about. Look into it if you need something smaller but still along the top tier for air.

 

[Arcygenical]

I'd get a Thermalright Ultra 120 extreme if you can squeeze it in there. A better HSF will be way more important than a side fan. Don't worry about thermal paste, just apply a rice sized grain of AS5 in the middle of the chip and apply the HSF. Any other method is more complicated and yields like nothing.

Seriously, with a 170w heat output (average for 1.45v @ 3200mhz) you're going to need quite a bit of airflow going across it to get good temperatures.

What are your average indoor temperatures? One can loosely correlate a 1c increase in ambient temperature to a 2c increase in core temperature. A rise of 10c room temperature relates to around 20c core temperature from my personal testing (with 3 seperate processors).

 

[Nenu]

With those temps, I'd be tempted to use water cooling with the water fed underground to obtain below ambient cooling. You will have to seal the cooled devices to prevent condensation if you get them a lot cooler but it should be ok.
I'd watercool the motherboard chipset, ram, hard drives, cpu and graphics card and PSU housing/heatsinks with those air temps!

You dont want the CPU temp to go much over 55C, 60C is ok but that leaves you with almost no headroom using aircooling, a good 20C less than I have for example!
Unless you can get better cooling Its doubtful you will get 3.2GHz without sky high temps.
This is a risk as for every 10C increase in temp, the silicon will age approximately twice as fast.

I've read about some people who have been running Core 2 systems at 70C for 1/2 a year.
before doing that, its best to get feedback from those that have ran at high temps for a long time.
Also get feedback from people who have killed their Core 2's from overclocking as that might give you a hint of how far you can push it.
I wouldnt do 70C myself but if you can afford to replace the CPU should a fault develop, it might be an option.

Its possible that even running at stock, something will overheat so go careful.
Monitor temps of:
Graphics card,
CPU,
Motherboard chipset (check temps of other chips too in case they go into thermal overload)
Soundcard
Memory
Hard drives
PSU exhaust temp

You might need to use aircon to get any overclock and might need it anyway of not water cooling.
Beware, PSUs age a lot faster at higher temps and the max load will drop so get a high power PSU.

Once something has run a lot hotter it has aged a lot faster too so bear that in mind if you want your system to last.

Good luck !!

 

[Nenu]

One can loosely correlate a 1c increase in ambient temperature to a 2c increase in core temperature. A rise of 10c room temperature relates to around 20c core temperature from my personal testing (with 3 seperate processors).

Interesting results, they differ from my findings.
I found that a 1C ambient temp rise gives a 1C core temp rise.
This is until quite high temps when the temperature seems to rise faster.
I assume this was the start of thermal overload.
Were you running the tests at quite high temps?

 

[NSFW]

I've asked around, and it seems like the average indoor temperatures where I live will probably sit about 4-5 degrees cooler then the highs. Basically only about 6 days throughout the year does it sit at 41 degrees. Otherwise it averages 35-38. So looking at 30-33 room temperatures.

I really don't want to watercool, both expense wise and complication wise.

So Thermalright 120 Ultra Extreme it is, with a boat load of fans, unless someone tells me it can't or shouldn't be done. Anyone able to recommend a case?

Is there any other options? Invest in a chip I don't have to OC?

 

[Nenu]

Thats not so bad.

You may find the need to change your overclock depending on the days temps.
Be careful if leaving the machine on.
Once silicon goes into thermal overload, it uses more power and generates even more heat and can result in quick death of the silicon and even fire.

The reason chips overclock so high is because they are designed to function in extreme environments hotter than yours even!
In extreme environments, attention will be paid to cooling all components adequately so its not the same as putting a home PC in an extreme environment.

At around 33C ambient you should get a pretty decent overclock still
Monitor those temps!

 

[NSFW]

Ok! Excellent... Now to research cases like a mad man.

 

[NSFW]

Hey there again...sorry for the double post.

I was looking at prices and it struck me.

Why don't I just get a Intel Core 2 Duo E6850, 3.00GHz?

I know that it has two less cores, but I really only do gaming on my PC and from what I understand, not many games take advantage of quad cores yet. I beleive in future proofing, so that does give merit to the Quad Core, but I don't know. I also heard Vista 64bit takes advantages of quads as well.

This will save me A LOT of heartache in terms of worrying about heat, and heatsinks and cases etc.

I guess I got caught up on the Q6600 hype.

What do you guys think?

 

[Arcygenical]

Interesting results, they differ from my findings.
I found that a 1C ambient temp rise gives a 1C core temp rise.
This is until quite high temps when the temperature seems to rise faster.
I assume this was the start of thermal overload.
Were you running the tests at quite high temps?

My ambient temperatures were taken as the mean of three seperate digital thermistors (I grow plants, so I need a few aha) with consistant relative humidity level (corrected for increases in temperature). They measured from 18 to around 34c. The test was conducted in early spring where I could still get the room down to such a temperature, or turn the heat up accordingly. It was conducted in a small 150sqft room. Here are the data:

You can see that, on average there was around a 1.6-1.8c increase in core temperatures within the ranges tested.

All testing was done with the same water loop, a BIP240 with 2 yate loon fans at 12v, an MCP655 pump and a Dtek Fuzion.

For the OP: The frequency of the Q6600 during the tests was 3.4ghz @ 1.45v

Hey there again...sorry for the double post.

I was looking at prices and it struck me.

Why don't I just get a Intel Core 2 Duo E6850, 3.00GHz?

I know that it has two less cores, but I really only do gaming on my PC and from what I understand, not many games take advantage of quad cores yet. I beleive in future proofing, so that does give merit to the Quad Core, but I don't know. I also heard Vista 64bit takes advantages of quads as well.

This will save me A LOT of heartache in terms of worrying about heat, and heatsinks and cases etc.

I guess I got caught up on the Q6600 hype.

What do you guys think?

I wouldn't do that. These chips are rated to up to 100c load temperature. I'd just adjust your OC accordingly and run with an Ultra 120 Extreme. Leave out the side fan.

3.2ghz at around 1.4v would net you a full quad load temperature of around 75c with the above HSF... As the heat output will be around 22w less than my Q6600 [(0.025 * (1.45^2) * 3 400) - (0.025 * (1.4^2) * 3 200) = 21.9125 watts thermal]

 

[Arcygenical]

Ok! Excellent... Now to research cases like a mad man.

Lots of Ventilation and the reverse ATX form factor is really helpful for these hot running quads. Anything basically in the lian-li PC family pretty much fits the bill. Depending on your price-range.

I love the PC-V1000B.

The Aerocool Masstige is also another impressive option for around 100$.

 

[NSFW]

Double post removed.

 

[NSFW]

3.2ghz at around 1.4v would net you a full quad load temperature of around 75c with the above HSF... As the heat output will be around 22w less than my Q6600 [(0.025 * (1.45^2) * 3 400) - (0.025 * (1.4^2) * 3 200) = 21.9125 watts thermal]

This flew completly over my head.

I think the summary is that I should be fine running a Q6600 at 3.2ghz, with Air cooling and a Thermalright SI-120? I won't have to constantly monitor the temps, or worry? I don't mind a bit of upkeep, but I don't want to lose sleep over it either haha.

The E6850 I can overclock comfortably to 3.2 GHZ, while saving me a 100 dollars in cash (A full Thermalright setup in Aus cost 150 dollars for Sink, Fan, Paste and Bracket, v.s. say a Freezer Cooler 64, which cost a flat 50 dollars). I just lose out on two cores, which at this point in time for me, is purely future proofing. The 100 dollars saved can upgrade me to a 640 mg 8800 GTS, v.s. a 320mb 8800 GTS which I've currently selected.

 

[Arcygenical]

Well, if you plan on gaming, definitely go for the dual core and the 8800GTS640.

Huge difference!

But yes, a quad would run fine.

 

[bluegt]

I have a setup similar to what you were looking at:

CPU: Intel Q6600 @ 3.6GHz, 1.42V
HSF: TR Ultra 120 Extreme w/ S-Flex SFF21F
Motherboard: Asus P5K Premium, Bios 204
Ram: 2x1GB Crucial Ballistix Tracers PC2-8500 @ 1125MHz/2.15V
GPU: EVGA 8800GTS 640MB @ 684/1566/1080
GPU HSF: HR-03 Plus w/ Nexus 92mm
APU: Creative X-Fi XtremeGamer
HD: 1x 750GB Hitachi 7K1000
PSU: Corsair 620W
Case: Antec 900

For air flow I have:
Inflow:
2x 120mm Antec at the front sucking in
1x 120mm S-Flex middle fan creating a bit of a suction thing and blowing at the GPU...
no side fan,

Outflow
PSU
1x120mm Antec in the back
1x200mm Antec at the top
1x120mm S-Flex on the Thermalright Ultra120Ex blowing through the fins and at the back fan to dissapate heat.

I figure a sidefan would just disrupt the whole flow

I found my temps to be awesome! - with my Q6600 at 3.6 it idles at 38,38,32,32 aprox in 24C Ambient

Another tidbit...
at Stock my 3Dmark was ~9300 with all the OCs (as listed in specs) it is ~12700!

 

[NSFW]

I have a setup similar to what you were looking at:

CPU: Intel Q6600 @ 3.6GHz, 1.42V
HSF: TR Ultra 120 Extreme w/ S-Flex SFF21F
Motherboard: Asus P5K Premium, Bios 204
Ram: 2x1GB Crucial Ballistix Tracers PC2-8500 @ 1125MHz/2.15V
GPU: EVGA 8800GTS 640MB @ 684/1566/1080
GPU HSF: HR-03 Plus w/ Nexus 92mm
APU: Creative X-Fi XtremeGamer
HD: 1x 750GB Hitachi 7K1000
PSU: Corsair 620W
Case: Antec 900

For air flow I have:
Inflow:
2x 120mm Antec at the front sucking in
1x 120mm S-Flex middle fan creating a bit of a suction thing and blowing at the GPU...
no side fan,

Outflow
PSU
1x120mm Antec in the back
1x200mm Antec at the top
1x120mm S-Flex on the Thermalright Ultra120Ex blowing through the fins and at the back fan to dissapate heat.

I figure a sidefan would just disrupt the whole flow

I found my temps to be awesome! - with my Q6600 at 3.6 it idles at 38,38,32,32 aprox in 24C Ambient

Another tidbit...
at Stock my 3Dmark was ~9300 with all the OCs (as listed in specs) it is ~12700!

What was your full load temperatures? If you're idling at 38, 32, and we assume a 1:2 ratio in room temperature... that means I'd be idling at 58, 52 correct? I couldn't guess what it would be around at full load until I finally made the connection with the below post:

3.2ghz at around 1.4v would net you a full quad load temperature of around 75c with the above HSF... As the heat output will be around 22w less than my Q6600 [(0.025 * (1.45^2) * 3 400) - (0.025 * (1.4^2) * 3 200) = 21.9125 watts thermal]

So essentially at full load I'm looking at about 75c, which according to your chart was close to ABORT zone, no? And you used water cooling correct? Sorry just trying to sort things out.

What would my full load temp be at a OC of 3.0 GHZ?

 

[bluegt]

I haven't looked into the math or anything... but at 24C Ambient my load temps are 70, 70, 61, 61 at most (using Small FFT 2x Orthos)

Im not sure if there is a standard for what a load temp is, but those are the highest temps I can record (they flucuate every second).

 

[NSFW]

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[Arcygenical]

So essentially at full load I'm looking at about 75c, which according to your chart was close to ABORT zone, no? And you used water cooling correct? Sorry just trying to sort things out.

What would my full load temp be at a OC of 3.0 GHZ?

Yes, but my abort was due to instability not temperatures... My chip doesn't like it over 75c.

It all depends on voltage though. Core speed makes very little difference.

 

[NSFW]

Yes, but my abort was due to instability not temperatures... My chip doesn't like it over 75c.

It all depends on voltage though. Core speed makes very little difference.

Thanks for all your help =)

Apparently the temperature ratio's I was worried about were a little exagerated.

The peaks of 38-41 only occur mid day, and not to often. Most of the day time temperature (when I'm at work anyway) is at high of 35 degrees. I won't be running my PC then anyway. The evening cools down completly. As you said, it just comes down to being a little diligent in terms of watching out for the hotter days. The weekends might be an issue, heatwise... but we'll see.

I'm still a little nervous, only because I'd hate to purchase everything, only for it to dissapoint my expectations, but it seems the margin for that isn't very large. I suppose at the end of the day, if my overclock limit was say 3.0 GHZ instead of 3.2 GHZ during the summer, I'd still be matching a e6850 but with double the amount of cores. This PC I'm building right now is probably going to be the only PC I'll be able to build in the next 5 years (I go back to being a poor University student soon). So I've got to future proof it as much as I can.

Hey at the end of the day, a Q6600 2.4 GHZ overclocked or not is going to cane my old Pentium 3.2 GHZ completly and I'm sitting here worrying about overclocking the thing to 3.2GHZ! Talk about losing the perspective a little eh?

Thanks for your help guys, I couldn't ask for a better response.

P.S. Decided to stick with the Antec 900, outside of no screw installation, I love the feature set and design the most. Shame Antec didn't go full bore and offer screwless installation, I woulda paid the price tag.

 

[Nenu]

If you're good at budgeting how about...
Dont buy expensive now, buy good enough to get the job done satisfactorily.
Keep the money saved and use it to upgrade later when you need more performance.
In a few years you'll have a much better PC this way.

I saved a friend £100's by telling him to buy a dual core and get a quad core later when needed after quads first came out.
He now has a quad and a lot more other toys

 

[NSFW]

What are you suggesting I hold back on? I'm very open to ideas.

I figured I was building a bit on the conservative side already. At the end of the day, a E6850 cost about 15 more the a Q6600 over here in AUS. My entire system purchase is as follows:

EVGA e-GeForce 8800GTS PCI-E 320MB 320-bit DDR3 500 1.6GHz Dual Dual Link DVI
(I actually wanted to get the 640mb version, but I've chose not to upgrade my monitor which can only run a max resolution of 1280x1024, making the 320mb sufficient)

OCZ 4GB DDR2 PC2-6400 Dual Channel Kit (2 x 2GB, 800Mhz)

Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 2.4GHz FSB 1.06GHz CPU
(Could settle with the E6850, no direct save in CPU, but a save in cooling equipment)

Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3R P35 Motherboard

Corsair 620W HX-620 ATX Power Supply

Antec Nine Hundred Case
(Could buy a cheaper case, since I need less cooling, I couldn't go to conservative though, as I'm still dealing with a bit of high heat over here)

MS O/S Windows Vista Home Premium Edition 64Bit DVD Version OEM

Thermalright SI-120 Heat Sink
Thermalright LGA775 Bracket for SI-120
Artic Silver 5 Thermal Paste
Scythe S-FLEX SFF21F 120mm Fan
(Save $100 here by purchasing a Freezer Cooler 7 instead)

Seagate 160GB Serial ATA HDD

Logitech LX8 Cordless USB Mouse

Samsung SH-S203 20x DVD writer, Sata

Logitech MEDIA KEYBOARD 600

I've put in bold the things I could save on and in brackets my reasoning.

It works out to about 150 AUS saved unless you can show me where you would cut, that I haven't considered.

EDIT: The parts themselves are all centered around being able to put something in new, without having to rip everything out. Hence the motherboard choice for instance. If DDR3 becomes affordable, I can get some without having to replace my motherboard. I know better motherboard will be out by then, but it's not the point. Saving 300 bucks for a set of ram, is a lot better then saving up 450 bucks for ram and a motherboard. Likewise, if DDR3 never surfaces strongly, well i've put in two sticks of 2GB, rather then 4 sticks of 1 GB, this way, if more RAM suddenly becomes popular, I can put more in. I'm even tempted to upgrade to the 640mb GTS anyway, simply because if I do get the oppurtunity to upgrade my monitor, I'm not forced to upgrade it, and the graphics card as well.

 

[Nenu]

You could go for 2x1GB ram.
4GB isnt needed yet, I use 2GB without a swapfile and suffer no crashes.
I've read a few reports that demonstrated there is little advantage going from 2GB to 4GB ram in Vista.
You might want to look at some non mainstream branded ram as well if you come across good reports. You will likely get 2GB of faster ram for less than half the price of the 4GB modules.

I wanted to say get a dual core cpu but that a bit sketchy as some upcoming games will throw Physics calculations to any spare cores and will likely suffer.
So I wont say go dual core when I'm thinking of buying a quad soon myself lol.

As you say, a cheaper case but thats aesthetics and its gotta look right so thats up to you

The SI-120 heatsink and extras is expensive, for a small performance drop there are much cheaper alternatives.
I'd go for the Freezer Cooler 7 as thats already a preference.

Now to completely go against what I was saying, I'd get a bigger hard drive, they only cost pennies more so its not so bad.
Once you get a good PC, it fills up rapidly!

 

[Nenu]

To answer your edit:

Hmm having 2 slots for ram makes it touch and go starting with 2GB.
Perhaps just look for a cheaper 4GB set but their isnt going to be any big difference in price.
On the bright side you can have 2GB DDR2 now and upgrade to 4GB of DDR3 when prices are reasonable so it could work.
Remember you can sell the old DDR2 so its not a total loss.

I'm tempted to agree with your getting a 640MB gfx card if you will be gaming above 1280 res.

 

[NSFW]

You could go for 2x1GB ram.
4GB isnt needed yet, I use 2GB without a swapfile and suffer no crashes.
I've read a few reports that demonstrated there is little advantage going from 2GB to 4GB ram in Vista.
You might want to look at some non mainstream branded ram as well if you come across good reports. You will likely get 2GB of faster ram for less than half the price of the 4GB modules.

I chose 4 GB, because everyone was telling me that's what was needed for Vista. I'm not saying your wrong here, only that it goes against everything and anything that I've looked into haha. I rather stick with mainstream branded RAM, simply because I wouldn't know what I was looking for in a non, and at least with mainstream I know I'm getting something good.

I wanted to say get a dual core cpu but that a bit sketchy as some upcoming games will throw Physics calculations to any spare cores and will likely suffer.
So I wont say go dual core when I'm thinking of buying a quad soon myself lol.

Trust me, I wish I could find a concrete reason to go with the E6850. I just can't. I play turn based strategy games on top of high end Graphic games. One of which, is Gal Civ II. The lead programmer of said game is gagging at the bit for Quad Cores and 64 bit supported environments to become more mainstream. He said the possibilities for him as a programmer are incredible with this technology in terms of AI.

As you say, a cheaper case but thats aesthetics and its gotta look right so thats up to you

Yah, just haven't been able to find a cheaper case that offers the same level of airflow, and features. I've considered a Lian Li V1000B, I'm just worried about it's airflow abilities over the 900. If someone could explain to me the design and advantages around the Lian Li 1000B, I'd consider it. It would save me about 80 bucks right there.

The SI-120 heatsink and extras is expensive, for a small performance drop there are much cheaper alternatives.
I'd go for the Freezer Cooler 7 as thats already a preference.

I'm already worried about overheating with the SI-120, because everyone's been telling me that's what I would need =P. I'd love to go with the FC7, but I'm willing to pay for a bit of peace of mind with the SI-120.

Now to completely go against what I was saying, I'd get a bigger hard drive, they only cost pennies more so its not so bad.
Once you get a good PC, it fills up rapidly!

Never used more then 3/4 of a 40 GB hardrive in my life. I can't imagine using up a 160 GB. I orignally had a 320 GB but I couldn't fathom using it all.

EDIT:

Hmm having 2 slots for ram makes it touch and go starting with 2GB

???? I'm pretty sure the motherboard supports either 4 slots of DDR2 ram, and 2 slots of DDR3, or it has floor slots, 2 of which support both DDR2 and DDR3, while 2 only support DDR2. I'm guessing it's the former.