Intel i7 950 on Stock Cooler - Or on Glacialtech Igloo 6100 Silent(E)?

[Ithaca]

Dear guys!

I'm in the middle of building a new PC with an i7 950 CPU.

I've currently got two coolers available for my build: The Intel stock i7 920/930/950 cooler, or a Glacialtech Igloo 6100 Silent (E).

I do not plan on OC'ing the CPU (yet), and when I do, I realize that I will need a new cooler - But until then, I would really like to know if the Glacialtech Igloo I have lying around is any better than the stock cooler?

Both will work, but which will work best?

/ Ithaca

 

[DXRick]

Neither. Get a good one now, or you will have to remove the motherboard to do it later.

I just did an i7-950 build with the Zalman CNPS 10x Quiet cooler. I was playing Oblivion and my motherboard started beeping (having set the BIOS to alert me when the temps exceeded 70C). I exited the game, and sure enough, the temp was at 70C. So, I cranked the fan to max and added another to blow on the memory area.

According to THG's cooler charts, that Zalman is much cooler than the stock one, and it still over heated. Since then, my temps never exceed 55C (10C hotter than THG's charts claim). It's still very quiet tho, because the max speed of the fan is still pretty low.

 

[Ithaca]

Neither. Get a good one now, or you will have to remove the motherboard to do it later.

I just did an i7-950 build with the Zalman CNPS 10x Quiet cooler. I was playing Oblivion and my motherboard started beeping (having set the BIOS to alert me when the temps exceeded 70C). I exited the game, and sure enough, the temp was at 70C. So, I cranked the fan to max and added another to blow on the memory area.

According to THG's cooler charts, that Zalman is much cooler than the stock one, and it still over heated. Since then, my temps never exceed 55C (10C hotter than THG's charts claim). It's still very quiet tho, because the max speed of the fan is still pretty low.

Would the stock cooler or the other one be that bad? I would've suspected that it would at least work without OC'ing the 950 - otherwise, Intel probably wouldn't ship it. It's just a thought.

Well, I suppose I will have to buy something else then. Other opinions would be appreciated.

 

[Ithaca]

OK. I figured I should buy a better cooler, just because of the simple fact that it has been hard obtaining any proper information about either of the coolers I had lying around.

I ended up with this one:

ZALMAN CNPS9900 LED

Comments?

 

[daship]

The 950 is HOTTTTTer then the sun. Either cooler you use is going to run plenty hot. If your building it new, why on earth did you not buy a sandy bridge motherboard and CPU? A 2500k would have been cheaper, faster, and 100% cooler then a 950, and you could of overclocked it to 4.0 or more on the stock cooler.

 

[Ithaca]

The 950 is HOTTTTTer then the sun. Either cooler you use is going to run plenty hot. If your building it new, why on earth did you not buy a sandy bridge motherboard and CPU? A 2500k would have been cheaper, faster, and 100% cooler then a 950, and you could of overclocked it to 4.0 or more on the stock cooler.

@Daship:

Simple Reasons:

1. I do not plan to OC in the near future. Read my post.
If it becomes neccesary, I will OC with what I have at that moment.

2. A 2500K is not cheaper in Denmark. I checked.
It's about 30/40 EUR more. Besides, I was able to buy the 950 from my brother (never used, never even opened the box) at half price.

3. A motherboard with proper features for the 2500K socket (1155) would cost me more than double the amount of the same motherboard with a 1366 socket. Do not ask me why - Danish prices make no sense.

In conclusion: I've saved a lot of cash with this configuration altogether, and I'm not enough of an OC/Gaming enthusiast to justify spending even more money.

I've ended up buying another HSF anyway - but it won't arrive for another couple of days. I might run the rig on the stock cooler for now, then replace it when the new one arrives.

 

[daship]

Bummer that sucks.

I just recently built a 950 for a customer, and then a 2600k for me. The 950 was dissapointing because even with a H50 cooler I wasnt able to overclock it at all. My 2600k is running cool on a $20 cooler @ 4.5GHz.

 

[Ithaca]

Bummer that sucks.

I just recently built a 950 for a customer, and then a 2600k for me. The 950 was dissapointing because even with a H50 cooler I wasnt able to overclock it at all. My 2600k is running cool on a $20 cooler @ 4.5GHz.

I don't know if it sucks - I'm currently on an E6600, so I'll experience a huge speed-boost anyway ;-)

I've read that the 2500K/2600K's are great OC'ers, so I'm not really surprised

 

[majin ssj eric]

Nothing wrong with an i7 950. Still one of the best processors out there....

 

[DXRick]

ZALMAN CNPS9900 LED: Excellent choice. The mere fact that the stock cooler runs at 75C under load in the tests done by THG concerns me. I think that is still too hot. Why would 70C be considered too hot for the old P4 3.0 Northwood processor I had before, but not too hot for newer processors? They are still made out of silicon.

I tried to use the stock one on my last P4 build, but during gaming the temps would go up faster than the cooler could handle (above 70C). I replaced it with a Zalman, which kept it at 45C and was very quiet. So, even though Intel should include a cooler that is good enough, my last experience proved otherwise, and I decided to not even try the stock one in my latest i7-950 build. I also wanted it to be quiet!

That other cooler looks smaller than the stock one, and I doubt it is any better.

I should add that on my past build I also had to add an extra fan to blow on the memory, because the Intel Active Monitor had a temp sensor in that area too, and it was also over heating. I tried to not do this in my new build, but found that the same thing was still happening in the memory area. When the CPU hit 70C, the memory area hit 65C. So, I rigged another fan to blow on the memory. Now my CPU can hit 55C, but the memory area stays around 45C.

 

[Ithaca]

I've finally finished building my new rig with the i7 950 and the Zalman CNPS9900 LED (what an incredible bitch that cooler was to install!).


I'm idling at 38*C, and full load is somewhere around 60-64*C depending on which core is measured. This is at stock speeds.

I'm not sure if this is the correct temperatures for this cooler, or if I've done anything wrong, but I'm happy with it for now.

 

[DXRick]

Play with the fan speed on the cooler?

 

[abdussamad]

ZALMAN CNPS9900 LED: Excellent choice. The mere fact that the stock cooler runs at 75C under load in the tests done by THG concerns me. I think that is still too hot. Why would 70C be considered too hot for the old P4 3.0 Northwood processor I had before, but not too hot for newer processors? They are still made out of silicon.

Not all of the older P4s would shut down or throttle back automatically if they ran too hot. Modern chips shut down to prevent damage and they don't do it at 70C. It happens around 100C from what I have read.

 

[Ithaca]

Play with the fan speed on the cooler?

Not yet. I've just let it run on BIOS defaults for now - Figured that was the best way of obtaining a "standard" reading. I'm positive that it's not on 2000RPM though. It's just not loud enough for that