Quad Core Thread: Overclocking, Cooling, Motherboards, Troubleshooting & General Info

[Hopper.]

My cooling loop does a fair bit as well as my quad chip (Couple of 8800 Ultras + a toasty 680i chipset)

EK 8800 GTX Waterblocks
D-Tek Fuzion CPU Block
Thermochill Triple Radiator
Laing DDC 12v

I would recommend the above if you have abit of kit to cool. Not a great picture but you can blame my phone



I have been looking at maybe fitting another Radiator to try and get temps down a bit more as under load after a gaming session temps are up to mid-high 70's

Still attempting to get my head around memory timings - something im still not entirely happy with

[Clunk]

Just out of interest, are you using a cylindrical reservoir? And is your pump and 18w DDC?

[daza]

12hr prime95 stable at 3.2ghz with a 1.45v bridge and 1.35v vcore (under load), temps didnt go above 60c on all cores but pwm's were in the 90c's.

Going for 3.4ghz today (380x9) with 1.41v on vcore same bridge volts, all cores loaded at 62c abd pwms are at 96c, hmmm think I might need some better cooling on these pwms, (and there pulling 108 amps)

[Hopper.]

Yeah the pump is a DDC-1PlusT which has a with Modded Plexi top (So called increases LPM by around 0.5 > 0.7 - Someone at work did it for me cause im useless with a drill)

Swapped my RAM for a couple of sticks of CellShock DDR2 PC2-8000 (Model CS2221450) - Will see what I can get out of them later tonight as well

[daza]

Right thats me sorted 380x9 so 3.4ghz is what I've got, v-core at 1.45 and bridge at 1.45.

Now the temps before were OK after an hour with prime95 (see previous post), but I had three sharkoon 2000's lying about so I've put them on my PA120.3 and all four cores are at 60c load and my pwms wont go above 90c and I'm a happy bunny.

[bigpun69]

Just overclocked to 3GHz...stress testing now with SP2004 on each core and the temperatures are through the roof!

(Measuring with tempcore)
69c
69c
67c
67c

Ordered some new 120mm fans for the radiator as they're probably terrible and the likely culprit and a new one for the front of the case and exhaust too. That should knock off a few degrees. Also need to do some tweaking to how to block sits by adjusting the bolts.

Is it safe to have it running at 69c for now?

[daza]

Is that load or idle if its load its fine Im at 3.4ghz with a 1.45 vcore and load temps are 65c on all cores.

Its ther bloody pwms that have me worried 100c and rising (under water)

[fat jez]

Its ther bloody pwms that have me worried 100c and rising (under water)

How are you measuring those?

Incidentally, I found an interesting, if painful way of making sure your heatsink screws are all under the same tension. First, spend all day yesterday tightening and loosening the screws until blisters form on your fingers. Wait 24 hours and then loosen all the screws before tightening them again until the point where it hurts too much.

My load temps are now in the region of:

Core0: 48-49°C
Core1: 47-48°C
Core2: 44-46°C
Core3: 46-47°C

Once I am happy they will stay around there, I'll start pushing this baby further. My goal is to get as far as I can without increasing the Vcore too much, since my voltage regulators are not watercooled!

Cheers,
Stephen

[daza]

How are you measuring those?

With uGuru and Everest there normally around the 60c mark but under stress they go mad.

[bigpun69]

Yeah sorry forgot to mention its under 100% load Was hoping for around 3.4GHz but doesnt look likely

Whats 'pwms'?

[daza]

PWMS are power regulators and in the case of the Quad gt they run very hot when giving power to 4 cores, damn you board damn you.

[bigpun69]

3GHz, on idle (measuring with core temp) im getting:

Core 0: 44c
Core 1: 40c
Core 2: 40c
Core 3: 40c

Seems insane that under 100% load on each core that it jumps up to 67-69c!!!!

[fat jez]

OK, she's currently running a Prime 95 stab run. Currently at 9x333, load temps are 61,61,56,57 for cores 1,2,3&4 respectively.

Not sure I want to try taking it any higher... That 600MHz increase in clock speed bumped me up 10°C in load temps!

What's considered a safe load temp again? i.e. before the magic smoke escapes from the CPU?

Cheers,
Stephen

[daza]

What's considered a safe load temp again? i.e. before the magic smoke escapes from the CPU?

Well after 3~hrs of prime95 I'm at 60c~65c on all cores so I think your ok for the moment I'm just trying to keep it under 70c as in everyday situations the cpu is never going to get stressed as much as it is now.

Oh and there good upto 100c before mr grim comes.

[fat jez]

Well after 3~hrs of prime95 I'm at 60c~65c on all cores so I think your ok for the moment I'm just trying to keep it under 70c as in everyday situations the cpu is never going to get stressed as much as it is now.

Yep, I went for max heat gen in Prime 95, folding doesn't get it that warm. I'm trying to keep mine under 65°C if possible. I might risk 3.2GHz (8*400 if poss) providing I don't need to bump the CPU voltage (I haven't needed to so far).

Cheers,
Stephen

[daza]

I'm just going for the overall stability with ram thrown in for good measure as its overclocked from 1066mhz to 1140mhz so fingers crossed it should be 12hrs stable.

If your going to try 800x8 (mine wont boot) you might have to bump up your north bridge voltage a tiny bit, whereas mine wont even post at 1.65v at 800x8 (stupid quad gt.)