Overclocking with Arctic Freezer Pro 7 - Upgrade?

[SteveCliff]

Damn my impatience

I failed and went and bought one of the new Thermaltake 120 Extreme's along with a Scythe 120mm fan to go with it.

Cross fingers it works well!!!

[rabbid]

Interesting about the Akasas, I looked at a 960E on this frostytech site a while back and promptly cancelled my order for it The 865 tho and the AMD equivalent 876 are rated very highly, especially considering the prices. They must have a better layout/contact with fins than the arctic. For example the Akasa heatpipes are staggered and further apart which will help, also the fan has a higher top end cfm. I'm gonna order one anyway so I'll let u know!

[DoubleDs]

After doing a lot (far too much!) of reading, I think I might blow some cash on the TR 120. But even though I've pretty much decided on that - I now have to choose a fan!!!

Did you take advantage of this weeks offer from OCUK?

What fan are you using with yours? I've used Akasa fan's in the past and found them very quiet but still powerful?

I'm using the Sharkoon 2000 with my TR 120 EX

[JKL]

the 2 most important things to consider once you've decided on the brand & model of CPU cooler

1. Will it fit on your mobo with no obstrucions.
2. Will the assembled mobo + Cpu + cooler fit inside your case.

you can't rely on reviews that show xxx cooler mounted on xxx mobo unless your using the same case as the reviewer, and reviewers usually test on a bench
I use a Tuniq Tower, it fitted my mobo perfectly, but to get everything inside the case I had to remove one of my intake fans from the case side panel.
-

[SteveCliff]

Well, I got it all fitted but not 100% happy yet. I don't believe I've made a particuarly good job bodging the paste on and one of the cores is reading about the same as it was with the other cooler
The other cores are running better though, although not that much under load. I have some decent paste and cleaning liquid coming on Monday (thanks Scan!) so will take it off, give it a good clean and then try again and properly seat it with the apporpriate amount of paste on to see if that helps.
Hopefully it's not the cooler that's slightly out ...

DoubleD - yep, although I don't use them a lot I did drive up to OC's as they had it on special

[JKL]

If your using Arctic Silver 5 it takes a week or two to achieve optimal (lowest) temps.

[IAmATeaf]

How tight is the cooler sitting on the CPU, there have been reports of it being a loose fit and people have place either a washer or a piece of cardboard under the X mounting bracket to get it to sit tighter. The other thing to try is and I'm assuming that you've got a tower case, lay the case on it's side and see if the temps improve, this would sort of prove that the cooler isn't mounted tight enough.

[SteveCliff]

JKL:
Yep, it's Arctic Silver 5 I have coming. Going to try and follow there guidelines on the web site for quad-cores (although a single thin line does sound a little odd - but I guess they should probably know what they are doing!).

IAmATeaf:
Even when fully tightened up I can still twist the cooler fairly easily but will have another closer check again after I clean and re-fit it. Thanks for tips!