Hi all,

I am so stoked, upgrading my e4300 today to Q6600

Ok, I have the Intel HSF that came with the e4300... and I'm looking to get OC to only about 3.0 ghz on the Q6600 (this is a business PC , so safety is more important than squeezing out all the juice on the CPU).

Am I just wasting ~$35 on a 3rd party heat sink fan - will the Intel one do the job just fine? Are there other benefits, to a 3rd party fan, that I'm not aware of?

If I were to buy one, I guess it would be the XIGMATEK HDT-S1283 (based on reviews here).

I need to order ASAP, so I would really appreciate some advice. Thanks!!


PS - some of the newer intel CPUs come pre-greased... but I'm assuming that I should put down a fresh (and very thin) coat of thermal grease when I install - correct?

FYI - My specs

Giga DS3 revision 3.3

e4300 @ stock (1 program I have HATES overclocks, even mild ones - I'm hoping the q6600 OC does not have the issue)

6GB 800 ram (timings on the worst ram is 5-5-5-15)

Vista 64 bit

yada, yada, yada

well besides a third party looking better than the stock HSF, a Q6600 OCed to 3GHz would run much cooler with a third party HSF than the stock one. Probably a third party HSF will keep it about 10c+ cooler.

INtel cpu's come pregreased? Um no. On their stock heat sink sure, not the processor.

As far as overclocking on a stock hsf, no problem. However if you have to crank the voltage up too much it will be what limits the overclock.

The rep of the stock hsf really suffered back in the p4 days when the stock hsf just couldn't cool the rediculously power hungrey processors of those days.

So yeah, really there is no need for a third party, I know I used water cooling vs a zalman 9700 and there were no temp differences at all.

So if it comes down to it, try out the stock, do some tests yourself, if you don't like it you can always buy a third party, just my 2cents.

Firstly clean off any old grease properly, and yes a very thin coat of something like arctic silver. Yes you will need a propper HSF especially for a 6 series CPU even at 3Ghz or get one of a QX9650 which is the best stock cooler I have ever seen but make sure you have enough room near the ram slots cos that fan is WIDE.

i tried mine at 2.8 with stock cooling. It went up to 65C under prime test. It should be fine at 3.0. i can not tell for sure as not two cpus are the same. We may also have different room temperatures and air flows. So give it a try with stock cooling and watch how high temp goes up under prime test. If it is not more than 71 C for Go stepping after at least one hour prime test, you are good to go.

Thanks, everyone. I'm leaning towards getting a 3rd party HSF. For $35, could be a safe play. I also noticed that my e4300 would only get to 2.7 stable with the Intel stock HSF. Could be the chip, or could be the HSF... but everyone else seems to blow past 3.0 without an issue.

1 follow-up question... I only apply the thermal grease between the HSF and the chip, not the chip and the MOBO... correct?? (It's been a while for me). Or is it both sides?

No its just between the HSF and CPU. And get something like Artic Silver 5 and make sure its a thin amount over the CPU.

Final question - when I OC the CPU... do I lose all the benefit of GO stepping... meaning, the power management won't throttle down (since I'm manually setting voltage)?

So lets say I manually set the voltage at 1.325... all 4 cores will stay at 1.325 100% of the time, even when they are idle?

Do not EVER put a thermal compound between the cpu and mobo. The DES (dynamic energy saver) is largely mobo dependant, I know the X38 gigbyte boards had an issue with it thats why I got the X48.

No, You don't lose GO gains from OCing.

Is the Q6600 OEM or RETAIL.
The reaon is you said you had the Cooler off the E4300.

No way that is going to let you OC the Q6600.
The E4300 is a low power unit and as a result, it's HeatSink/Fan are likely going to be less powerful than the stock Q6600 ones.

I don't know the details of each Stock Cooler that ships with Intel CPUs, I do know that they don't ship the same one with all of their current chips.

Not all stock Intel coolers are created equal. Although they all look alike at first glance, there are several different models that are specific to the processors with which they're packaged. If you're proposing to use the cooler that was packaged with your E4300 on an OEM Q6600, it won't cool as well as the stock Intel cooler that comes with a retail box Q6600.

In other words, you'll be using a stock Intel cooler designed for a Dual Core with 2MB cache on a Quad Core with 8MB cache. You might anticipate that your results may not be as good as you're expecting.

Comp

I use the ridiculously cheap coolermaster hyper TX 2 for an e2160, and from all benchies i have seen its better than intel stock, and really very VERY cheap (in the UK it was £5)

This might help

Best Thermal Paste Application Methods

The Q6600 arrived and came with an Intel HSF (paid $220). I already have some cheap Radio shack thermal compound. However, I ordered a HSF fan and artic 5 compound yesterday... so now I must wait... complete torture :-(

I hope it arrives before friday... having the Q6600 sit on my coffee table for a full weekend is cruel, very cruel.

Thanks everyone!! This thread has been VERY helpful.