CPU and cooling advice please

Hi Guys,

Time to build another box and it's been a year or two...

I have a Gigabyte X38-DS4 board and am looking for an Intel Quad for it. It supports the Q6600/6700 and the new 8 and 9 series quads.

I don't want to overclock it, but I DO need hardware virtualisation, so that rules out the 8 series I believe.

Looking at scan's prices, I see the Q6700 OEM for £142 and the Q9400 at £185.

Given identical clock speeds, higher fsb on the Q9400 vs more cache on the Q6700, I'm guessing there's not a lot in it for performance so it looks like the Q6700 has it on price (not worth an extra £40 for the Q9400). Anyone know of any better priced alternatives?

As to cooling, at stock speeds, I have an Intel stock cooler (unused from a Q6600) or last time I was buying, the Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro was the recommended budget cooler of choice (although the price seems to have gone up a little). Is this still the best budget option, should I stick with the Intel stock cooler, or are there other preferable options now?

Thanks for any advice.

May be a stupid question, but is this for another rig or are you upgrading the one in your system? Only reeason I ask is that if you are upgrading you'll see no difference using a Q6700 over a Q6600.....

But the stock cooler will be fine for the Q6700 if you aren't overclocking. :) You're right about the performance difference between those chips too.... negligable.

Sorry, it's for a new rig (I just happen to already have the MB).

What's the stock cooler from the Q6600 like? Is it very noisy - worth £18 to upgrade to something like the AC7?

Thanks

I highly dislike the stock cooler that comes with Intel CPUs. The main reason being the horrible pushpin mounting system.

Its always worthwhile to invest in third party CPU cooling, especially since its the powerhouse of your whole system.

The AC7 is a decent cooler and for the price its pretty good. If you feel that you can stretch your budget a little I'd recommend the Sunbeam Core Contact Freezer.

An excellent and inexpensive piece of kit.

For running that processor at stock speeds, the intel heatsink should work just fine. Btw - that chip is brilliant, don't waste your money on the 9400.

However, that particular chip (q6700) is begging to be overclocked (10 multi, low fsb). If that ever interests you, or you just want to run very cool and quiet at stock speeds I recommend the TRUE Black.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by quikgoner

I highly dislike the stock cooler that comes with Intel CPUs. The main reason being the horrible pushpin mounting system.

Its always worthwhile to invest in third party CPU cooling, especially since its the powerhouse of your whole system.

The AC7 is a decent cooler and for the price its pretty good. If you feel that you can stretch your budget a little I'd recommend the Sunbeam Core Contact Freezer.

An excellent and inexpensive piece of kit.

---

Don't forget the the ACF7 Pro is also pushpin..... :)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by quikgoner

I highly dislike the stock cooler that comes with Intel CPUs. The main reason being the horrible pushpin mounting system.

Its always worthwhile to invest in third party CPU cooling, especially since its the powerhouse of your whole system.

The AC7 is a decent cooler and for the price its pretty good. If you feel that you can stretch your budget a little I'd recommend the Sunbeam Core Contact Freezer.

An excellent and inexpensive piece of kit.

---

Not only that but the Akasa AK-965 is just as good but cheaper than the older ACf7p, there's also issues that can arise with the PWM fan on the ACf7p which leaves it stuck at 100%

I'd agree with looking at an after market cooler because of another issue you can get with the stock intel fan, dust mat (my name for it) the top of the heat sink is fairly rough which can lead to a mat of dust building up on top of the heat sink, which blocks the air flow causeing the fan to speed up more.
It's not an issue if you remove the dust build up but I've had to clean out a couple of dozen intel stock coolers which where suffering with this at work. (granted they were around 2 years old)

Sunbeam coolers has a good rep but very hard to get hold of in the UK.

All this said, for low noise I'd look at a 120mm fan based cooler, when running at stock almost any would be fine, although you need to make sure you case is large enough, esp if you're reusing an old case as many will not be wide enough.
(if the case you plan on using is 200mm wide or have a 120mm rear fan then it should be wide enough for it not to be an issue)
For a low cost cooler in the new AC freezer extreme has had some good reviews, although opinion seems to be divided over it's connection methord.
The ZEROtherm ZEN FZ-120 is another low cost cooler to consider.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Pob255

Not only that but the Akasa AK-965 is just as good but cheaper than the older ACf7p

---

I was looking at that one too - has quite a good review here on Hexus :)

Seems like a good alternative to the AC Freezer 7.

Thanks