Legit Reviews

what is the best way to cool q6600?! air or water cooling system?

for a newbie like me what do you recomend?

im planning to buy zalman 9700... is that goood enuf?

it depends on if you want to overclock or not, and if you care about the temps. if you dont want to overclock and you dont care about temps then you can just use teh cooler packaged with the procesor

well since u r a newb i wont recomend a water cooling in anyway,,they are much costy and need much work...
go for zalman 9700 (needs u to remove the mobo) or thermaltake V1 (dont need mobo removal), that is if u want to OC
if u dont want to OC just go for the stock cooler that comes with the CPU

I gotta find a good water cooler for my Q6600 and my 8800 GTX. I was looking at the Thermaltake Big Water, but I was told the blocks for those are trash. If you do go watercooling, make sure the block is ALL metal and no acrylic facings. I've had bad bad bad experiences with acrylic tops and refuse to buy a cooler that has one on the block.

well Im currently cooling my Q6600 G0 SLACR which is OCed to 3.6ghz with the Swiftech H20-120 Compact Water Cooling and at an average room temp of 25-30c my load temps are around 59c and my idle around 38c, Im really impressed with this small water cooling system, the reason I went with this is so that it would fit inside my SFF case.

If you're a beginner there's really no need to go with watercooling. In fact, if you don' plan on overclocking at all then the stock heatsink does a good enough job as it is.

If you do go with aftermarket cooling, the Zalman is a great choice and you shouldn't have any problems with it.

true I will say this the stock cooler that comes with the Q6600 is a really nice cooler all considering what we usually get with cpus, it can handle the job even a slight OC.

PCFlip wrote:well Im currently cooling my Q6600 G0 SLACR which is OCed to 3.6ghz with the Swiftech H20-120 Compact Water Cooling and at an average room temp of 25-30c my load temps are around 59c and my idle around 38c, Im really impressed with this small water cooling system, the reason I went with this is so that it would fit inside my SFF case.

what kinda mobo do you have?

martini161 wrote:

PCFlip wrote:well Im currently cooling my Q6600 G0 SLACR which is OCed to 3.6ghz with the Swiftech H20-120 Compact Water Cooling and at an average room temp of 25-30c my load temps are around 59c and my idle around 38c, Im really impressed with this small water cooling system, the reason I went with this is so that it would fit inside my SFF case.

what kinda mobo do you have?

GIGABYTE GA-G33M-S2H G33 Micro ATX Motherboard
but I will be upgrading soon to the
Asus P5E-VM HDMI G35 Micro ATX Motherboard

the downside to that Gigabyte board is that its PCI-E x16 slot operates at x4 such a let down, didnt know that until I read the manual but everything else about the board is real nice.

If you want to know more about my rig here is the project log.
http://www.pcflip.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=12

NAiLs wrote:I gotta find a good water cooler for my Q6600 and my 8800 GTX. I was looking at the Thermaltake Big Water, but I was told the blocks for those are trash. If you do go watercooling, make sure the block is ALL metal and no acrylic facings. I've had bad bad bad experiences with acrylic tops and refuse to buy a cooler that has one on the block.

May I ask what were those bad experiences? Cuz i think its bull**** what you'r saying ;) I have two blocks with such tops and no problems since 3 years.

For that Quad i would buy http://www.dvhardware.net/review110_noctua_nh_u12f.html NH-U12F!!! The box cooler is not enought for those cpu's; they'r very hot.
Btw watercooling is always better then AC Everbody was once a noob in WC!

Miazga82 wrote: May I ask what were those bad experiences? Cuz i think its bull**** what you'r saying ;) I have two blocks with such tops and no problems since 3 years.

Well, have you ever thought as to what happens with acrylic when it gets hot? It warps, it melts. If you "forget" or have a user who "forgets" to maintain the system, the acrylic top WILL melt. I've seen it first hand and still have one of the blocks that this happened to. The fitting on this block warped to one side about 4*, causing the block to leak. Not only that, but the block also warped inside where the liquid was passing and broke the seal between the copper and acrylic, allowing more water to leak.

acrylic has a pretty high melting point, hell to make it where you can shape and form it has to be up to 300 degrees F well above what a CPU will ever get too.

I mean I could be wrong but Im sure someone with more spot on info can state the details.

PCFlip wrote:acrylic has a pretty high melting point, hell to make it where you can shape and form it has to be up to 300 degrees F well above what a CPU will ever get too.

I mean I could be wrong but Im sure someone with more spot on info can state the details.

I really doubt the bubbles that formed on my buddies acrylic block are from 300* CPU temperatures.

could have been a bad batch of acrylic or he used cheap blocks, I have been running DD blocks with the acrylic tops on my other rig on the cpu and gpu and its been 4 years zero issues with the typical once a year cleaning to the water cooling system

NAiLs wrote:Well, have you ever thought as to what happens with acrylic when it gets hot? It warps, it melts. If you "forget" or have a user who "forgets" to maintain the system, the acrylic top WILL melt. I've seen it first hand and still have one of the blocks that this happened to. The fitting on this block warped to one side about 4*, causing the block to leak. Not only that, but the block also warped inside where the liquid was passing and broke the seal between the copper and acrylic, allowing more water to leak.

Haha that's funny ... but seriously, I can't imagine something like that. That's just impossible. Was the water so hot or have you put those blocks into your microwave?
The thing is ... the pc would would shut down 1st before reaching 100 degrees.

The block was made by Thermaltake, as part of the Tai Chi case. I really doubt the block was junk... but a bad batch of acrylic could be a possible answer.

Regardless, I only buy all metal blocks now.

NAiLs wrote:The block was made by Thermaltake, as part of the Tai Chi case. I really doubt the block was junk... but a bad batch of acrylic could be a possible answer.

Regardless, I only buy all metal blocks now.

well theres your problem, Thermaltake not exactly a company of quality when it comes to water cooling, yes in these more recent months they have made vast improvements but they still have some way to go. ;)

but there is nothing wrong with going with all metal blocks some people claim better results with them as there is more metal mass to absorb heat but seeing how I myself have tested in such a manner I can only go by what people have said in forums.