Run i7 without CPU HSF

1. Without HSF, even with so many fans, would kill the CPU soon...as the HSF is in direct contact with the CPU and hence dissipates the heat soon before it causes any damage to the CPU...
You can try undervolting the CPU to reduce the heat...but still you would need a HSF...

2. Prime 95 would be very suitable for CPU stress test...

1. The i7s have a 130W TDP, which is pretty high and hence even with a HSF, their temps hit 100 degrees or more under load...So I would say you are taking a chance...

2. Prime 2004 is actually based on the Prime95...It has slightly better GUI...

Do post your findings about a running a HSF-less i7...

And I think another problem that you would face - CPU stability under load as high temps could cause BSOD and it might even shutdown without warning...

But as heat increases, intel's cutoff mechanism would come in and may underclock the CPU to reduce the heat...

^ Hmm...true...wouldnt want to kill an i7

It might be possible if it was heavily undervolted and underclocked, but even then I think you'd need at least a tall HS. Your friend's P4 is what you could call a real air (only) cooled cpu, though I do think your friend underclocked and undervolted that one. Besides why take the risk on an I7, your friend's P4 has already lost most of its value now, and it dying could have little consequence.

I hit 81C just encoding video. You must be talking about the non-existent E0 stepping that nobody has.

No. Seriously why do you want to run with no heat sink? I fail to see any logic behind it.

Because the noise of stock HSF upsets me a lot and a good and QUIET aftermarket HSF is very expensive which I am not willing to pay for. ^^;

....poor student here ;P

Am i missing something here? Are you trying to run with a heatsink but not CPU fan or no heatsink at all? I was getting the impression that you wanted to do the latter which doesn't make sense.

this is retarded, why not just slow the fan down in the bios or even with speedfan or something? do you have ADD? How can a stock intel fan be that loud to where it bothers you so much your willing to unplug it but you claim you have a bunch of other (bigger) fans in your pc. just not seeing the logic here.

^ and WC doesn't do that much better.

^ they mean hot against other processors, don't forget the old c0's would get to 80-90C quite often.

Me thinks I need to get a new heatsink for my i7, my nero's currently getting 67C at Prime95 load, and it's at stock speeds

OK. I will get a cheaper case with a good aftermarket HSF.

Bigger fans are usually very quiet; they run at merely 19dB for HAF932, so the noise from the CPU HSF can be heard clearly especially when I am sleeping.
As to the speed control, I set it to run at full speed all the time in order to make my CPU as cool as possible. IMO, the performance of CPU is more important than the noise level of HSF.


Thank you, guys.