Heavy OC on Nehalem cooling - Overclock.net

USlatin · 07-03-09

I have been quite out of the loop lately so here goes it:

I am thinking about testing out a server MoBo to see if it has some room in the BIOS to OC a pair of Xeons. I expect that if the MoBo let's me play a little :crossing fingers: that the cheaper Nehalems should OC similarly to the 920 i7's... of course I am being optimistic about the MoBo's BIOS letting me do it to begin with... but... IF it lets me, what would I need to use for air cooling?

As far as I know they run super cold. What is the threshold temp on the Nehalems? And what HSF manages to keep it cool with voltages necessary for say... 3.8GHz?

I would LOVE to use a copper Zalaman 110mm not just cause they look cool, but also because thanks to their fin design they manage to do a lot of cooling without the fan and even with the fan spinning at max speed they are uber quiet. I know they are far from best... but, if these chips run cool then maybe that is all I'll need...??? A little lapping might help a bit.

r34p3rex · 07-03-09

Most server motherboards do not have overclocking options - sorry! you'll have to wait for the x58 skulltrail platform to be released to be able to overclock

as for heat, most xeons run with very low vcore - just look at the w3520! 4.0ghz at 1.1v or so

USlatin · 07-03-09

guess u didn't read my whole post... I know this... but I am still gunna give it a try, u never know.

worst come to worst I'll return it.

forget I said dual CPUs, what about a single 920?

r34p3rex · 07-03-09

i believe the threshold temp is about 90-95C tops. don't quote me on that though, i'd try to stay under 90C at all costs. what do you mean a single 920? i thought you were looking at xeon chips?

USlatin · 07-03-09

do me a favor, please read my first post.

what I was trying to ask for, amongst a lot of unnecessary info that I added on there was if a Zalaman 110mm HSF would cut it.

Chunky_Chimp · 07-03-09

Quote:

Originally Posted by USlatin

I would LOVE to use a copper Zalaman 110mm not just cause they look cool, but also because thanks to their fin design they manage to do a lot of cooling without the fan and even with the fan spinning at max speed they are uber quiet. I know they are far from best... but, if these chips run cool then maybe that is all I'll need...??? A little lapping might help a bit.

There would be barely any difference between stock and that Zalman, it's much better suited for dual-cores. For less money you could get a Dark Knight or MUGEN 2 and you'd get much better results.

USlatin · 07-03-09

Really? I guess that is an exxageration unless they changed stock cooling cause I had one of those and it was great, nothing like my Tuniq which is still not as good as the current best HSFs out there but...

SO Nehalem's don't run as cool as I thought? I thought they ran cooler far cooler than say a Q6600... ?

Chunky_Chimp · 07-03-09

Nope. Core i7s run substantially hotter than Core 2 Quads; upper 50s/lower 60s Celsius load temps are considered normal with a good cooler.

redalert · 07-03-09

Quote:

Originally Posted by USlatin

Really? I guess that is an exxageration unless they changed stock cooling cause I had one of those and it was great, nothing like my Tuniq which is still not as good as the current best HSFs out there but...

SO Nehalem's don't run as cool as I thought? I thought they ran cooler far cooler than say a Q6600... ?

the only way they run cool is if you disable hyperthreading and even then they still run much hotter than any of the 775 quads. I upgraded from Q9450 and the temp difference between the two is very noticeable even with my Megahalem or my TRUE on my 920.