Heatsink holes

December 12, 2010 5:14:56 AM

I've got a cooler master vertical heat sink, problem is the copper bottom has two holes in it that sit on top of the CPU (well on the edges of the cpu) where the universal intel mounts screw in, this didn't bother me with my 720 because it never got anywhere close to nuclear temps. But my 955 gets pretty hot so I was wondering if having these holes would cause it to have significant uneven cooling and eventually cause damage. I want to run this since I can just use my custom build rear fan sheet metal duct that sucks air right through it and out the back

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acer0169

CPUs Expert

December 12, 2010 8:59:23 AM

I wouldn't have thought so. Them holes might affect your cooling by 2% or 3%, but I don't think they would cause any major issues. I've taken apart old computers where their thermal paste has completely dried up and with time, some has crumbled away leaving huge holes where no contact is made and the temps weren't much higher than normal.

What cooler in particular are you using?

Strangely.. my old 720BE got very hot at 3.6GHz, idle temps around 45C. Now I've upgraded to a X6 1090T, my idle temps are between 35-40C at 4.0GHz!? I always thought because of this that the 720BE is a heat-machine.

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thecountrygoth

December 13, 2010 3:16:08 AM

Best answer selected by thecountrygoth.

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thecountrygoth

December 13, 2010 3:19:08 AM

acer0169 said:

I wouldn't have thought so. Them holes might affect your cooling by 2% or 3%, but I don't think they would cause any major issues. I've taken apart old computers where their thermal paste has completely dried up and with time, some has crumbled away leaving huge holes where no contact is made and the temps weren't much higher than normal.

What cooler in particular are you using?

Strangely.. my old 720BE got very hot at 3.6GHz, idle temps around 45C. Now I've upgraded to a X6 1090T, my idle temps are between 35-40C at 4.0GHz!? I always thought because of this that the 720BE is a heat-machine.

I only OC'd my 720 to 3.3 and at the stock 2.8 it would only reach maybe 105F at max load and at 3.3 maybe 115-120F, which is actually about the same as the 955 at it's stock 3.2.

I think this is a revision of what I have.

http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml...

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thecountrygoth

December 13, 2010 3:28:53 AM

MU_Engineer said:

The hot part of the CPU is the die. It's about the size of a penny and sits in the exact middle of the CPU. Having some screw holes out on the very edge of the heatsink base shouldn't affect much of anything as they don't overlie the CPU die. I think the difference in temps between the 720 and 955 is because the latter is a quad-core CPU and will thus put off more heat than the triple-core 720.

I've seated the heat sink, used the fan that came with the aftermarket heat sink, only shaved off a few degrees, added my scrap P4 fan on the front side of the heat sink, dual fans made the difference and is still quieter than the single fan on the stock heat sink. Went from about 129F max temp gaming to 120F, idles well under 100F now. Go custom $20 heat sink. Wish it idled like the 720 did, it was usually only 5-8 degrees warmer than the room without an OC.

Now I just need to step up my 460 to the 580 so I can shave an additional few degrees off by having all my 61C air shot straight out.

Thanks for the helpful reply

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