Cooler for a 955 Presler

[emul8]

Need i say the stock coolers for these chips are pants.

So! i am in the market for a decent cooler mainly to quiet it down but also if i want to speed things up a tad.

I have been looking at the Zalman CNPS9500.

Or would it be better to go for a different type of cooler with just fins and no heat pipes?

I have looked at a few coolers with heat pipes and in order for them to work the motherboard would have to be lying flat (horizontal) but i would say that most cases stand upright.

I was also wondering if this type of Coolers air flow would have any adverse effect on the passive cooling on my motherboard Asus P5N32-SLI



Wich then leaves me with water cooling

Any ideas welcome

[aidanjt]

toms hardware used the Zalman CNPS9500 to crank a P4 805 from 2.66Ghz up to 4Ghz. albeit the CPU started throttling back at full load, but it just goes to show how effective the HSF is.

[arthurleung]

I have that HSF and its happily running my PD920 @ 4Ghz just below the throttle ceiling.

I doubt a non-heatpipe aircooled heatsink will handle the heat produced by the Presler.

I would say 4Ghz is the max you can get on air-cooling. If you need more then try some water cooling.

[DR]

I use a 9500 on my 955 system here...

[emul8]

wich way do you all have your sink orientated and wiich way up are your MB's?
aidanjt were there any pickys on th review ?
David why don't you show your spec's ? (thats also a request)

[DR]

Motherboard is up just normal

I run a few systems here - my Presler is this:

955 @ 4.0GHz
Intel 975X BadAxe
3GB Ram
ATI 1900XT AIW
ATI 1600XT
1 74GB Raptor
Plextor DVDRW


I am going to change it tonight to the following

Conroe 2.67 o/c to 4GHz (ish) [Will go XE when I get mine back]
3GB Ram
ATI X1900XT AIW
1 * 250GB Boot Drive
1 * 250GB Hot Swap Drive (for carrying data)
1 * Hotswap bay - which doesnt need caddy
Dual 30" Dell Panels
Coolermaster 110 Chassis
9500 Zalman Cooler

Then I will add a Gigabyte iRAM too for my swap file.

I may add things like an AGEIA Physx card too

This is just a day-to-day workstation (I have other boxes like a Exchange server, DNS server) and my daddeh Fileserver - 8*320GB SATA drives...

[aidanjt]

wich way do you all have your sink orientated and wiich way up are your MB's?
aidanjt were there any pickys on th review ?

There were a few, none of the full setup though... However, how I would orientate the Zalman depends on your PSU and case, if you have one of those PSUs with 1 120mm fan sucking air from the bottom I'd point the exhaust air into that, else I'd point the exhaust out the back of the case, if you have a rear 120mm fan that would be best.

David, do you know when the Core 2 series desktop chips are coming out?.. I've nawed away my fingernails in anticipation. The lappy users are getting all the conroe fun

[emul8]

Thanks David I can see you like to play
The only conroe chips i have seen for sale were on ebay!
and the AGEIA Physx card sounds interesting
wich way does your sink point?

Thanks aidanjt my rear fan is only 80mm thats coz i like my Cooler Master ATC-201B-BXT
It seems a bit risky pointing all that heat sttraight into my new Tagen easycon?

[arthurleung]

There were a few, none of the full setup though... However, how I would orientate the Zalman depends on your PSU and case, if you have one of those PSUs with 1 120mm fan sucking air from the bottom I'd point the exhaust air into that, else I'd point the exhaust out the back of the case, if you have a rear 120mm fan that would be best.

David, do you know when the Core 2 series desktop chips are coming out?.. I've nawed away my fingernails in anticipation. The lappy users are getting all the conroe fun

I tried both orientation and find that they make no difference. Exhaust from the PSU is hotter when I point the heatsink towards the PSU though.

[aidanjt]

Thanks aidanjt my rear fan is only 80mm thats coz i like my Cooler Master ATC-201B-BXT
It seems a bit risky pointing all that heat sttraight into my new Tagen easycon?

Not at all, if you try to exhaust the air out the back of the case the CPU will hog the air from your PSU.. pointing exhaust air from the Zalman into the PSU will accellerate airflow into the PSU.. more air means more cooling for the PSU, even if it's still warm air.. of course you could try both ways and test for voltage fluxuations on your PSU when you're running Prime95 or some such heavy load program.

the ATC-201 is a lovely case btw

[emul8]

Well i ordered one from scan today tad late so i won't get it till monday
I definitely think it will work better pointing up or down.
If it was to point forward or backward water would collect in the loop of the heat pipe IMO.

[DR]

... I am on Conroe now...

[aidanjt]

Dave, you are a git lol.. I want a job like yours.

[arthurleung]

Well i ordered one from scan today tad late so i won't get it till monday
I definitely think it will work better pointing up or down.
If it was to point forward or backward water would collect in the loop of the heat pipe IMO.

I have tried upright position (8), sideway vertical position (=) and sideway horizontal (oo). No effect on temperature whatsoever. Really in those tubes gravity is not great enough to affect much. moreover if gravity helps the liquid going one way, it will mess with the liquid going another way.

But please do let us know how your overclocking goes. I REALLY think that my IHS is broken or the HSF is really not up to par, else I would have gone a lot higher than 4Ghz.

[emul8]

... I am on Conroe now...

Maybe you could post some bench marks ?

... I have tried upright position (8), sideway vertical position (=) and sideway horizontal (oo). No effect on temperature whatsoever. Really in those tubes gravity is not great enough to affect much. moreover if gravity helps the liquid going one way, it will mess with the liquid going another way.

But please do let us know how your overclocking goes. I REALLY think that my IHS is broken or the HSF is really not up to par, else I would have gone a lot higher than 4Ghz....

It would be nice to know just how these heatpipes work i mean i thought it was distilled water that evaporated up a tube then condenced back to the heat source or were gravity takes it IMO IMBR!

When i get everything puring away i will post some bench marks

I thought as a general rule of thumb the cieling on air cooling was around the 4 ghz mark ?

[DR]

I did have a 2.93 installed but I decided to install one of my 2.6s - reason i took out the 2.93 and running the 2.6is that I wanted to try higher FSB's and the same overall sort of clocks