First time OCer and heatsink

[Pinscher]

you haven't gotten your GTZ yet? I just ordered mine from petras on tuesday and it got here yesterday. I just haven't got mine setup yet. It might be awhile since its finals week and I don't really have any time right now.

ratzlaff: you can get a slight overclock out of the stock heatsink, atleast 3GHz with good temps.

 

[ratzlaff]

I don't know much about thermodynamics.

But when I compare Dynatron G129 1U Server Passive CPU Heatsink - Socket LGA 1366 - FrozenCPU.com and Dynatron G520 2U Server Passive CPU Heatsink - Socket LGA 1366 - FrozenCPU.com

They look like they would not cool the cpu as much as the stock. They don't even have fans. Are fans to be added by customer? I probably wouldn't buy a dynatron sink. I saw some reviews on newegg and they were all bad (missing parts and such).

But would you say that these heatsinks (assuming that they have all the parts) would out perform the stock even without the fan?

 

[Pinscher]

No, you definitely want to get a heatsink with a fan. Those are for servers. Server processors generally don't do a whole lot so they don't get very hot which is why they don't need fans. Get the new thermalright fan for lga 1366 that I linked you to earlier

 

[ratzlaff]

alright, cool.


but like i said before its that whole money thing....I may not have enough to spend on a $75 heatsink. So I may wait a couple of months before buying a heatsink.

onto some other questions:

I guess that the thermal paste you suggested is better than the stuff that comes with the cpu. And I should use that instead of the stock grease?

Also again with voltages.

How do you decide when to up the voltage? You said its different with every chip. So when tweaking with the clock when did you decide to increase or decrease the voltage supplied?


Again, you guys have been fantastic. Thanks!

 

[NosBoost300]

No, you definitely want to get a heatsink with a fan. Those are for servers. Server processors generally don't do a whole lot so they don't get very hot which is why they don't need fans. Get the new thermalright fan for lga 1366 that I linked you to earlier

that depends what kinda server you're talking about

 

[Pinscher]

that depends what kinda server you're talking about

haha ya true. but the boring ones only need those passive heatsinks.

ratzlaff, when overclocking, you will most likely eventually hit a speed where your rig will be unstable (i.e. bsod, windows crashing before it loads, failing prime95 or any other stress test program). This is when you will want to slightly increase the voltage until it becomes stable again. But don't just skyrocket your voltage or you will burn your cpu. Don't worry, I've never heard of anybody doing this unless they meant to. Just bump it up one notch at a time until it is stable. As a general rule, try not to go above 1.35v unless you have some good cooling.

 

[ratzlaff]

I would think that if you cause the cpu to fail in the middle of a stress test it would damage the cpu. Is this just part of the oc'ing process?

You mentioned software in the last post. What sort of software should I be getting? Prime95 is a stress test, should I be using other stress tests?

What other software should I get? I would assume some sort of temp monitoring. What would you suggest getting?

Any other software to get besides temp monitoring and stress tests?

 

[Pinscher]

Causing the system to crash in the middle of a stress test doesn't harm it at all. It is just a mechanism in the system put there so you don't harm your system (or some critical error occurs and causes the system to crash which is harmless). Usually in a stress test, it will just tell you there was an error and thats when you know your system is unstable. It doesn't necessarily have to crash right then and there for it to be unstable.

As far as programs go, I use Intel burn test to stress test my cpu. It works alot faster. There are several out there that you can use though. Prime95 is a good one. For temp monitoring, most people like coretemp but I use speedfan and it works fine for me.

 

[NosBoost300]

only time you will find harm is if your running at a constant high temperature and constantly at high voltages

 

[ratzlaff]

Alright, guys. I got a lot of my questions answered. Actually probably all. And I have enough info to get good start on this and definitely have less anxiety about overclocking.

If I have anymore questions I'm sure I will be back!

Thanks for all your help. Especially Pinscher and NosBoost.


-Ratzlaff