Cooling my Q9450

[colt1911]

I have a Zalman 9700 on it for the moment and temps aren't bad but I believe there is room for improvement. Current Idle temps are 37C , 43C , 39C, and 24C at room temp of 24C. The fourth core has always been lower than the rest for some reason. What can cooler would you recommend? Also is there a good way for a person who has never used a water cooling system and knows nothing about them to get started with? Unless I bought a new case and if I go water cooling it would have to be a external unit. Please advise and thanks.

[Kelainefes]

Hey there and welcome.
The fourth core is so much cooler than the others because a)it has a faulty sensor, or b)the cooler base is not even or c)the cooler itself is not seated properly.
What are your load temps? You can find out using the torture test in Prime 95.
Also do you plan on overclocking your CPU? How much? You got a maximum budget?
What case do you have?

[Clunk]

Welcome to the forums

It's normal/common for there to be one or two cores lower than the rest and not an awful lot you can do about it.

I would recommend the Thermalright Ultra Extreme if your budget allows it, and a good quality fan.

The best way to get into watercooling is to read up. Decide what you want from the cooling and then buy accordingly. There's no point in buying super high end stuff unless you are going for large overclocks. On the other hand, you might want total silence, and end up with a passive unit.

You can buy pre built external units, or you could buy a small case and put all the watercooling gear in that.

[GSte]

Those temps look okay, mine are 39, 44, 44, 40 with an Ultra 120 extreme.......

[Kelainefes]

I thought the difference in temp between core 4 and the other 3 was more than usual, isn't that the case?
I mean, 24C with a room temp of 24C sounds strange to me.

[GSte]

Apart from that fourth one I meant sorry!

[supershanks]

it's not unusual for a sensor to stick on Idle with 45nm CPU's. That's what your core4 might have. When load is applied how is it ??

If you look at Realtemp there is a a test button to check the sensitivity of the sensors


I'd try the test or your CPU. If like mine you get a low score on core 4 , then that's life. Investing in new cooling on the basis of idle temps is most probably a waste of money., you need to be looking at load temps instead.

luck

[colt1911]

Thanks for all your replies and the nice welcome to the forum. Yes I do plan to overclock but nothing I would consider extreme. At the moment I have my Q9450 at 3.2 with everything on auto except my memory voltage . I run the test that Supershanks recommended and post the results for you to have a look at.

[colt1911]

Supershanks I was going to post my printscreen of Real Temp but I guess me being a new member I don't have that option.

[Clunk]

Won't it let you post it?