hunter315 said:
You traded the stock heatsink which is loud and kinda marginal for a low profile heatsink that is quiet and very marginal. The GeminiII M4 simply lacks the surface area to be able to handle your system, which is why the idle temps are so high. Frostytech has it in their list, it sits at 26.5C compared to the stock AM2 heatsink which is only 17C above ambient on the same thermal load(we'll ignore the 20dBA sound difference...) Move up to a real heatsink, it looks like your case is wide enough for one.
http://www.frostytech.com/articleview.cfm?articleid=276...
It also appears you have no intake/exhaust fans in that case from that picture, you should at least get a rear fan, the heatsink does nothing if it keeps sitting in its own hot air.
Thanks for the feedback! I'm really trying to not continuously purchase more components for this pc. The current heat sink is specifically for quiet operation, but it was very highly rated, and there wasn't a wide variety of heatsinks that would fit in my system and still ventilate properly.
There is an opening on the opposite side of the case to blow the air out, so a horizontal fan is out of the question, i'd just be blowing hot air onto my graphics card. Also the quiet operation on my current heatsink is beautiful, I can't hear the thing unless its running at 100%. I'd prefer to not have to replace the heatsink again.
Update: I went and took your advice to get an exhaust fan online, Its about a 15 dollar Cooler Master JetFlo 120mm fan. Should help some, since I think some of the problem is the case heating up. Thanks for the help!