Amd X2 6400 Black Edition Cooling

[Methious]

Edit: Got the ThermalRight 120 Ultra Revision A and a Vantac Stealth 120MM, THANKS FOR THE INPUT!

Well I just got my X2 6400 installed, benched and such, out of the box 3.214 GHZ, and great bang for the buck (caught it on sale for $179 free shipping over on NewEgg) But the temps are a lil worry some on the beast.

44c Idle 58c load (Load was Orthos 1hr cpu and ram stress)

I'm using a Nmedia Pc Icetank, 4 heat pipe cooler and looking for better cooling, I already installed a ThermalTake 120mm on the rear of the case and turned the case into a wind tunnel, literally you can feel the air coming out of the side vent and moving the hairs on my hand, there's a 120mm front fan helping exhaust, and blow hole fan pushing cool air onto the IceTank.
Using Arctic 5 Silver thermal (not broken in yet)

What kinda coolers you all recommend for cooling it down (Water is kinda out right now as I've been on a hardware binge $$$)

I been looking at an ASUS Triton 70, any thoughts peeps?

[kenc51]

What's your budget?

The Zalman 9700 is a good choice!

[Methious]

Budget like $50

I looked at the AMD recommended stuff and it'll be a cold day when I put that ugly mess in my rig

[Methious]

I downloaded "Core Temp" and have it running from startup right now, it's reporting 40C (0.95.4 b on Core Temp) Asus Pc Probe is the one reporting 44C core temp is the one more likely to be right.

After while I'll load it back down and see what Core Temp Says.

[kenc51]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6835118004

I don't see what's wrong with Zalman. I think performance should always come before esthetics!

[Methious]

Sorry Ken I wasn't saying any thing about Zalman, was dissing the recommended coolers AMD says to use, ugly aluminum fat based, no heat pipes.

Zalman in my opinion is one of better cooling brands, and that black would look good in my case, it's an Ultra Grid, latex flat black on the inside.

[geokilla]

I remember reading that for AMD Athlon chips, you're to use the outside temperature that PC Probe uses instead and not Core Temp. So I myself use PC Probe instead of Core Temp. I found Core Temp to be incorrect at reading the temperatures anyways since I was getting over 10C difference under idle and like 7C difference between the two cores under load.

http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.aspx?catid=28&threadid=2061193&FTVAR_STKEYWORDFRM=&STARTPAGE=2&FTVAR_FORUMVIEWTMP=Linear

core temp can be decieving. You need to be looking at the Tcase Temp rather than the core temps. Core temps will spike up very high at times. AMD specs their cpu by the tcase temps. As best as i can determine Tcase is measured roughly where the die meets the heat spreader. measuring at that point will give a pretty fair indication of how well you are dissipating the heat. The core temps are measured deeper in the die core so you will always get much higher temp readings at that point. If you are using speedfan to measure usually temp 1 is the tcase measurement. CoreTemp will tell you what the Tcase temp rating is for your cpu.

[Methious]

Thanks Geo after while I'll get on the desktop and down Speedfan and retest it, I ran it for like 10 hours yesterday under light load surfing and what not and the temps (Core temp) dropped quickly to 40c - 43c. Given a little break in time I might be ok with the IceTank for a while. Just not used to seeing things run over 40C most of mine have idled around 28c.

With the 6400 generating 145W thermal the last thing I wanted was to fry it (they frown on that lol), a lot of the athlon series ran from 41 to like 71 or 73c but when I read the specs it said 41 to 63c so I thought I had better pay a little more attention to it. I have a ThermalTake Volcano AM2 cooler, but when it spins up it sounds like a Tornado, and after testing I'm not sure it's any better than the IceTank.

[Methious]

A little off topic, I got and installed a ThermalTake ThunderBlade 120mm rated at 70+ CFM, supposed to run at 21dB sounds like a dream right? Well it is, that thing has to be hitting 38dB it's the loudest component in the case.

It's going back to the shop it came from tomorrow, anybody know about some quiet, high cfm 120mm case fans? I got a feeling to reach high cfm the fans gonna be cutting air and making noise.

[Methious]

Well after breaking in the Artic Silver 5 a little, putting a high CFM 120 MM fan in back the 6400 is Idling at 36C, typical load 44c, full load 50c. I was beginning to wonder I've had really good luck with the nMediaPC Icetank.

I still have my eye on a couple of heavy duty coolers (gotta have a cooler when I build the old 4400 x2 anyway)

Anybody used or heard any thing about this one.

Thermalright Ultra-120 Extreme CPU Cooler, for Intel LGA775 & AMD Socket AM2 Processors, Model: U-120E
Can be seen here http://directron.com/u120e.html

[stopthekilling77]

Well after breaking in the Artic Silver 5 a little, putting a high CFM 120 MM fan in back the 6400 is Idling at 36C, typical load 44c, full load 50c. I was beginning to wonder I've had really good luck with the nMediaPC Icetank.

I still have my eye on a couple of heavy duty coolers (gotta have a cooler when I build the old 4400 x2 anyway)

Anybody used or heard any thing about this one.

Thermalright Ultra-120 Extreme CPU Cooler, for Intel LGA775 & AMD Socket AM2 Processors, Model: U-120E
Can be seen here http://directron.com/u120e.html

yep. it works GREAT. worth every cent. im not too worried about noise with my rig, and i have a Thermaltake 120mm Smart Case Fan II installed on it.
im getting about 19 degrees C idling at stock right now. under load, and OCed to 3.10Ghz, i run at about 38C

[kenc51]

If you still looking for a good and quiet 120mm fan, "Papst" fans are all I use!

They might be hard to find and or expensive in the states (Their German)

the S-Flex series and Nexus fans are also good choices.

Ian is correct, the Ultra-120 Extreme is one of the best air coolers available now!

[Methious]

I'm pretty much sold on the Ultra-120 Extreme it'd be more convincing if it came with a good fan, might find one that does I've only looked at it a couple of places. Fan wise I'm running a thermaltake thunder blade right now, it moves a lot of air but annoys the better half. I also have a couple of Ultra 120mm that are whisper quiet but as for moving air not so much.

Been looking at Vantac Stealth at 55cfm supposed to be acceptable noise level. the thunder blade was supposed to be 21db so I'm relying more on word of mouth than what's written in the description, I also have a thermaltake volcano cpu cooler setting in a box sidelined for excessive noise, sounds like an airplane propeller spinning up so I'm kinda soured on thermaltake right now.

Not to be a pain in the posterior or any thing but how much noise do the Corsair water cooling kits generate? Now that I've gotten temps down to 50c under full load x 3 hours orthos I can afford to wait a little while (No you can't; buy that 8800Gt Aplha Dog you wimp); Oh sorry bout that that musta been the green eyed monster getting out lol.

For real though I'm getting down to the wire on this rebuild, Waiting on a good PCIE 2.0 board, lettem work the kinks out a bit first, superior cooling be it air or water, and an 8800GT preferably a 512m I don't care much about over clocked or not. Performance wise the video would probably give me the greatest increase right now, but I'm thinking better availability and maybe price after Christmas. Given those three things I should be in pretty good shape for a while (maybe a year).

[dgood]

Really any cooler in the size range with good copper heat pipes will be good. I think the ultra or the zalman are both good options.

[kenc51]

Been looking at Vantac Stealth at 55cfm supposed to be acceptable noise level. the thunder blade was supposed to be 21db so I'm relying more on word of mouth than what's written in the description, I also have a thermaltake volcano cpu cooler setting in a box sidelined for excessive noise, sounds like an airplane propeller spinning up so I'm kinda soured on thermaltake right now.

Not to be a pain in the posterior or any thing but how much noise do the Corsair water cooling kits generate?

They are quiet, but stil audable. If your looking for silence, you'll have to get a better water cooling kit or build something with a dual 120mm radiator.
Building it yourself is more rewarding, you get better performance and less noise, but it's more expensive.
Swiftech make some nice kits and they perform great for the money.

[martini161]

this is a little late, but if you still havent bought one look at this
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6835887001
my friend has one, he says it keeps his c2d pretty cool with out a fan, but he doesnt overclock at all

[Methious]

Not late at all, I'm still waffling on cooling, the thermalrite 120 is looking good though, and if I make the switch to Intel in 2008 it should handle those. I'd really like to go water but if I killed my rig with it I'd never hear the end of it. I already hear "If you'd just leave it alone it'd run better." She doesn't understand in computers if your not moving forward your falling behind.

Since I switched fans in it, one 120mm high cfm thermaltake thunderblade (rear fan), ultra medium cfm (front fan), antec 80 mm blow hole, and added a quiet expansion slot single fan cooler next to the 8800 gt temps have dropped to 32C idle, 50 full torture x 1 hour so I can afford to wait a while, but waiting means I can't really clock it any with a safety factor (only going to clock to 3.5 anyway not a lot of head room in those).

[Methious]

Thanks all, I went with the ThermalRight 120 Extreme Vantac Stealth 120. Figured go heavy duty in case I go to an Intel this year. (In case, lemme revise that when I go to Intel this year.)