Looking for a new i7 Cooler

By Kondrath
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Kondrath

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Well, I stupidly bought an old Zalman 9500 after a friend recommended it for an i7 920. D'oh. I just listed it on craigslist, lol.

I don't want to spend more than $50. I'm running stock clock speed at 2.66. I don't really see a need to OC at the moment. My stock cooler is not performing well at all. Idle is 49c. Rendering a video brings the CPU temperature all the way up to 94c. I had to rip open my case (antec 900) and aim a fan on it because I was scared of it frying... :rofl:

I'm leaning towards the Xigmatek Dark Knight - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?item=N82E16835233029&guid=16e7df5b606d47f8b84c2bd37dfea9b8

Ambient room temps are around 68-70 F.

Thanks :)

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Kondrath

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That Xigmatek Dark Knight looks pretty good to be honest.

If I were you though, I'd save for this Corsair Hydro Series.

Either choice is good.

Not gonna lie, I do have enough for it, and it looks better than the Xigmatek...

$80 though... man....

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Edibg

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http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=41337&vpn=RR-B10-212P-GP&manufacture=COOLERMASTER

This is the best if your looking for a cheap one.

My i7 920 @ 3ghz is currently running around 28/32 on idle and on prime95 load it went up to 58 running for 2 hours.

That's only with one fan on one side. If you add another fan at the other side of the heatsink, it gonna be better.

and its only $30 in Canada

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Kondrath

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http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=41337&vpn=RR-B10-212P-GP&manufacture=COOLERMASTER

This is the best if your looking for a cheap one.

My i7 920 @ 3ghz is currently running around 28/32 on idle and on prime95 load it went up to 58 running for 2 hours.

That's only with one fan on one side. If you add another fan at the other side of the heatsink, it gonna be better.

and its only $30 in Canada

Thanks for that. The reviews make it out to be pretty good. I think I've decided against the Corsair H50... It's kinda' overkill since I won't be overclocking. I think it's between this cooler master or the dark knight.

Grand Master

+shift. MVC

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CoolerMaster V8, Thermalright Venomous X, Noctua NH-U12P SE (make sure you get SE, the one with two P12's bundled), Thermalright Ultra 120 Extreme (Venomous X performs slightly better but you'll need to buy fans), Noctua NH-D14, Corsair Hydro H50 (if you want to spend $80 on it), CoolerMaster Hyper 212 Plus, Xigmatek Dark Knight

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Kondrath

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I bought the Dark Knight and installed it a few hours ago. It's definitely performing better than my stock cooler. But still not that great. I'm running the i7 on completely stock settings, ambient temps are around 67-70 degrees F in here, and idle temps on the CPU are around 35C on the i7. Well, core 0 is around 38C. The others are 33-35C. Rendering a video brings CPU usage up to 80-90% and temps rose to 58C.

Obviously better than my previous 49C idle temps, but it's still not great. According to all the Dark Knight reviews I've read, people have OC'd the same chip as me to 3.4, 3.6, etc. and are getting roughly the same temps as I am right now. I've got my case fans (antec 900) set at high and medium.

Shouldn't I be getting much lower temperatures considering the room is a nice temp, everything's stock, AND I'm idle with 0% CPU usage?

edit: Ambient temps might even be lower than 20C. I"m getting kinda cold, my window is open and it's in the high 40s outside lol

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Kondrath

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RMA'd the Dark Knight and received the H50 today. Idle temps are still not that great, but the load temps are better than the Dark Knight's.

DK - 68c load using prime95.

H50 - 55c.

Idle temps are still the same. Core #0 is 36 , core #3 is 31. Ambient is 19-20c. I don't get how some people, with the exact same setup, are getting in the mid 20c range and only 45c load.

Grand Master

+shift. MVC

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RMA'd the Dark Knight and received the H50 today. Idle temps are still not that great, but the load temps are better than the Dark Knight's.

DK - 68c load using prime95.

H50 - 55c.

Idle temps are still the same. Core #0 is 36 , core #3 is 31. Ambient is 19-20c. I don't get how some people, with the exact same setup, are getting in the mid 20c range and only 45c load.

Maybe they're looking at the wrong temperatures ;)

I generally don't believe anything other than CoreTemp / RealTemp measurements or temperatures taken with a thermistor like in the HardOCP cooler reviews.

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Kondrath

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After letting the computer rest awhile, the temps are looking better. 30c idle. Haven't done a stress test yet, but I assume they'll be better than last time. Since I had to remove the antec fan in order to put the Corsair one, I attached the antec 120mm to my side panel as an intake to help keep the mobo cool. It's at 25c. That also might be because it's a cool night, my window is open, and I have a fan aimed at the PC :laugh:

About how hot should the north bridge be at idle temps? I've never paid attention to it before. It's idlin' around 33-37c.

Grand Master

Sikh

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Just worry about your CPU at the moment, and for the CPU Temps, it will take 100 Hours realistically for Artic 5 to break in. My temps after a month went down about 2-4c's as that is a significant drop, but Thats the paste settling in. Im running a phenom 2 and these run cool as it is, but with it idle it idled at 36. Now its down to 32 with everything off as in Cool n' Quiet, overdrive, etc. Its running at 3.0ghz all the time, but at idle its 32C.

Intels usually have the equivalent with Speedstep and all that BS, turn ALL OF THAT off. Also, at idle im running 6 programs in the back at all times not including my browser. So there not bad temps at all. Rooms 66-70 always and cpu cooler is at 50% fan speed. If i turn up my fan speed to 100% room is at 60(lans, etc) and all the case fans are set @ 100 my CPU idles 24C. Its crazy.

Everything is a part of how your temps play, case, fan, outside temp, intake fans, etc. I have 2 230s, 4 120s, 1 140 in my whole case. Also a 120 in the CPU cooler. So yes my temps are ALWAYS low. All of them sit under 40 as far as northbridge/southbridge/etc.

Just give it a few days and youll see the H50 is great cooler, as long as you applied the paste right.

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Kondrath

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Just worry about your CPU at the moment, and for the CPU Temps, it will take 100 Hours realistically for Artic 5 to break in. My temps after a month went down about 2-4c's as that is a significant drop, but Thats the paste settling in. Im running a phenom 2 and these run cool as it is, but with it idle it idled at 36. Now its down to 32 with everything off as in Cool n' Quiet, overdrive, etc. Its running at 3.0ghz all the time, but at idle its 32C.

Intels usually have the equivalent with Speedstep and all that BS, turn ALL OF THAT off. Also, at idle im running 6 programs in the back at all times not including my browser. So there not bad temps at all. Rooms 66-70 always and cpu cooler is at 50% fan speed. If i turn up my fan speed to 100% room is at 60(lans, etc) and all the case fans are set @ 100 my CPU idles 24C. Its crazy.

Everything is a part of how your temps play, case, fan, outside temp, intake fans, etc. I have 2 230s, 4 120s, 1 140 in my whole case. Also a 120 in the CPU cooler. So yes my temps are ALWAYS low. All of them sit under 40 as far as northbridge/southbridge/etc.

Just give it a few days and youll see the H50 is great cooler, as long as you applied the paste right.

I actually didn't use my AS5, I left the default paste on. After googling, I heard it was actually a really good compound. Well, all of my fans were at full speed earlier and I couldn't get any cooler. I'm thinking my CPU just runs hotter than normal for some reason, or my board is being weird.

I think I have speedstep enabled... When I monitor using realtemp I can see the voltages / mhz constantly shifting. Would turning that off somehow enable better temps? From what I can tell, speedstep seems like a pretty good energy saver. And it clocks up to when I need it most.

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bob_c_b

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Intels usually have the equivalent with Speedstep and all that BS, turn ALL OF THAT off.

Just give it a few days and youll see the H50 is great cooler, as long as you applied the paste right.

There is no reason to turn C-states off, they save power and respond so quickly to state changes you won't even notice it. This will drop your idle temps massively. Sikh, if you insist on posting on the hardware boards do some research, one of the great benefits of the i3/i5/i7 architecture/s is the vast improvements to power gating. This will only get better in the next few years and unlike the early days of SpeedStep/Cool n' Quiet, it works well and does not majorly bork performance.

I actually didn't use my AS5, I left the default paste on. After googling, I heard it was actually a really good compound.

The stock compound on the H50 is Shin Etsu and it is excellent and has virtually zero curing time. The whole curing time things is massively overstated anyway, it's usually only good for 1-2c at best.

Grand Master

Sikh

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There is no reason to turn C-states off, they save power and respond so quickly to state changes you won't even notice it. This will drop your idle temps massively. Sikh, if you insist on posting on the hardware boards do some research, one of the great benefits of the i3/i5/i7 architecture/s is the vast improvements to power gating. This will only get better in the next few years and unlike the early days of SpeedStep/Cool n' Quiet, it works well and does not majorly bork performance.

The stock compound on the H50 is Shin Etsu and it is excellent and has virtually zero curing time. The whole curing time things is massively overstated anyway, it's usually only good for 1-2c at best.

i do know they have improved it but I can careless about saving power. If i was worried about power I wouldn't of built a gaming pc now would I?

Is it really neccessary to have all that stuff on to save spittle power and randomly have it change states or etc. I do everything from ripping movies to browsing to gaming. I like the fact that I have full power all the time. No point in me keeping it on as it wouldn't even be able to stay like that for more then 5 minutes.

Regardless it has it's advantages and disadvantages and they are improving the tech a lot but I plan on using it when I have more then one computer.

@kend: wh ok. Good choice. I heard the stuff you get stock is very good. Even then let it set and break in. Report back every week

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random_n

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Addon hardware and drivers can affect idle temperatures - particularly USB stuff. Try unplugging your USB equipment and seeing if that makes a difference. Also, if you have Windows 7, you can run powercfg -energy and it will make an HTML report of anything in the system that may be preventing the CPU from sleeping.

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bob_c_b

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i do know they have improved it but I can careless about saving power. If i was worried about power I wouldn't of built a gaming pc now would I?

Is it really neccessary to have all that stuff on to save spittle power and randomly have it change states or etc. I do everything from ripping movies to browsing to gaming. I like the fact that I have full power all the time. No point in me keeping it on as it wouldn't even be able to stay like that for more then 5 minutes.

Regardless it has it's advantages and disadvantages and they are improving the tech a lot but I plan on using it when I have more then one computer.

@kend: wh ok. Good choice. I heard the stuff you get stock is very good. Even then let it set and break in. Report back every week

Please go read up on the tech, you don't understand it.

Grand Master

Sikh

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Please go read up on the tech, you don't understand it.

Running a processor at high clock speeds allows for better performance. However, when the same processor is run at a lower frequency (speed), it generates less heat and consumes less power. In many cases, the core voltage can also be reduced, further reducing power consumption and heat generation. This can conserve battery power in notebooks, extend processor life, and reduce noise generated by variable-speed fans. By using SpeedStep, users can select the balance of power conservation and performance that best suits them, or even change the clock speed dynamically as the processor burden changes.

What dont i understand about it? Speedstep changes core volts and speed to reduce heat and noise(fans). What do i not understand? Atleast point out where im wrong so I can learn. If your not going to help one another then just STFU and quit asking me to leave without being any help. Would suck to know you in real life if you acted like this. Im sorry i dont have extensive knowledge in speedstep/cool n' quiet but i believe its BS for what I do on the computer. I dont see it realistically working for me as it changes to what your doing and whats required by the OS.

@tsupersonic: how about you either help me understand where im wrong or stfu? simple as that right? jesus people.

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