[SOLVED] Cooling for i7 7700k

dcf

Oct 12, 2019
4
1
15
My case: SilentiumPC Gladius M35W (1 intake fan 120mm, 1 out fan 120mm)
My fan: be quiet! Dark Rock 3 (not pro)
My thermal paste: Thermal Grizzly
Ambient temperature: ~22 degrees Celcius

I am currently trying to OC my 7700k and when I get to 4,7GHZ with 1.3V, my temps in OCCT (with AVX on) can get up to 95 degrees celcius.
Is there a way for me to improve cooling, aside from de-lidding my CPU or switching to water cooling? I am sure that fan is sitting correctly on top of my CPU and that there was no excessive amount of thermal paste applied - it's also pretty "fresh" (applied it like 1-2 years ago).
I've also cleaned the inside of my case 2 weeks ago (including case fans, cpu fan etc)
 
Last edited:
Solution
1)What do you have Load Line Calibration set to? Unless you are running LN2, or are liquid cooling the motherboard's VRMs, you shouldn't be going over the medium setting.
People tend to crank it to the high and extreme settings - this is a common mistake that drives more voltage through the cpu than necessary = more heat.

2)You're overclocking, but the setup isn't accommodated for it. Cooling performance is only going to be as good as the weakest link = your current case cooling.
You're not going to get far on just 1 intake and 1 exhaust.
-Add another front intake and a top exhaust fan.
-Remove the power supply shroud(if possible). This increases gpu temps, which will in turn, affect cpu temps also.

3)How many games is 'plenty'? Is...

Phaaze88

Titan
Ambassador
1)Don't test with OCCT, it's far too hard on cpus. The ones around the green 100 are closest to how Intel tests it's own cpus and what you should be testing with.
oX3R8bU.jpg


2)Disable AVX in the stress tests, as it's not widely used anyway.
 
  • Like
Reactions: RodroX

Solidjake

Notable
Sep 6, 2019
308
61
890
If you de-lid your 7700k you will drop a lot of temp. I used the thermaltake grizzly conductonaut between the die and cover, then arctic silver 5 (at that time). At 4.6ghz it doesn't go past 65C under normal loads with an EVO 212 cooler.
 
My own 7700K hits ~74C on all core (via MCE) Prime95/small FFTs with Noctua NH-D15 single fan at default core voltage of 1.248V at 4.7 GHz (still in Balanced Mode, using XTU to crank up max turbo speeds for 1,2,3 or 4 core loads to 4.7 GHz...

(4.8 GHz not stable at default core voltage, and temps raised to 83C wtih .05V core V boost, so stuck with 4.7 GHz, so, about 2/3rds of an 8700K)
 
Last edited:

dcf

Oct 12, 2019
4
1
15
1)Don't test with OCCT, it's far too hard on cpus. The ones around the green 100 are closest to how Intel tests it's own cpus and what you should be testing with.
oX3R8bU.jpg


2)Disable AVX in the stress tests, as it's not widely used anyway.

  1. It's actually hitting 100 degrees Celcius when running intel burn test
  2. From what I've heard there are plenty modern games that use AVX - Battlefield V and Overwatch for example
 

Phaaze88

Titan
Ambassador
1)What do you have Load Line Calibration set to? Unless you are running LN2, or are liquid cooling the motherboard's VRMs, you shouldn't be going over the medium setting.
People tend to crank it to the high and extreme settings - this is a common mistake that drives more voltage through the cpu than necessary = more heat.

2)You're overclocking, but the setup isn't accommodated for it. Cooling performance is only going to be as good as the weakest link = your current case cooling.
You're not going to get far on just 1 intake and 1 exhaust.
-Add another front intake and a top exhaust fan.
-Remove the power supply shroud(if possible). This increases gpu temps, which will in turn, affect cpu temps also.

3)How many games is 'plenty'? Is it for the entire duration of the game, or during specific times?
 
Solution

dcf

Oct 12, 2019
4
1
15
1)What do you have Load Line Calibration set to? Unless you are running LN2, or are liquid cooling the motherboard's VRMs, you shouldn't be going over the medium setting.
People tend to crank it to the high and extreme settings - this is a common mistake that drives more voltage through the cpu than necessary = more heat.

2)You're overclocking, but the setup isn't accommodated for it. Cooling performance is only going to be as good as the weakest link = your current case cooling.
You're not going to get far on just 1 intake and 1 exhaust.
-Add another front intake and a top exhaust fan.
-Remove the power supply shroud(if possible). This increases gpu temps, which will in turn, affect cpu temps also.

3)How many games is 'plenty'? Is it for the entire duration of the game, or during specific times?

1) I set all of my voltages in override mode, so I doubt that LLC is doing anything in this case (to be honest I can't even find the llc setting in UEFI, maybe it'd appear if I'd switch to adaptive mode?). I noticed that the motherboard was setting everything way to high. Currently running 4.6Ghz at vcore 1.24V (mobo sets this to like 1.35V on auto, even for stock clocks), SA 1.010V, IO 1.010V, PCH 1.030V. I had to keep SA as low as possible and up the PCH because I started to get crackling on my usb audio card. It's running stable, even with AVX on these settings.

2) This seems like actually really good idea. Would you recommend also switching the fans that came with the case (they're 46.5 CFM, max 1600RPM) or would the improvements be too marginal? I am thinking about be quiet! Pure Wings 2 (CFM 51.4, 1500RPM) as the additional front and top fans. Are they good enough or would you recommend something different?

3) I don't have any precise data. From what I've heard the AVX instructions in games are mostly used for calculating physics which may be a bigger or lesser part of overall "duration". I could probably use AVX offset for those, but I am afraid that constant switching of frequency would negatively affetct the "perceived" performance of games (stuttering etc.) and it kind of makes the whole overclocking process a bit mundane if some of the games are going to run most of the time at lower clocks and not even take advantage of the OC.
 

Phaaze88

Titan
Ambassador
1)LLC is normally in the cpu power settings, or something similar. It appears on my motherboard's bios regardless of the voltage mode.
Auto mode typically runs higher settings than needed by default.

2)Changing the two you already have would be marginal improvements.
The be quiet! Pure Wings 2 would be good enough... unless someone else wouldn't mind chipping in a suggestion, because I've only ever really used Noctua fans...

3)AVX shouldn't be seen as a negative. This instruction set is faster than the standard x86, and AVX 512 is even faster still.
For example, AVX at 4.0ghz is faster than the standard x86 4.0ghz - and I don't know the offset where they even out in speed - but the trade-off is that it needs more voltage to run the same frequency = more heat.
If you're overclocking and looking for the lowest possible voltage to run your normal frequency OC, it would be impossible to do so without using the AVX offset; the OC would be rendered unstable during those scenarios.
AVX 512 is even faster than the other 2, but at the cost of even more power and heat.
The general offsets are 3 for AVX, and 5 for AVX 512(I don't think the 7700k has this instruction set...)

If you were, for example, looking to push a 5.0ghz OC without using the offset, I don't believe you'd be able to do it with your current level of cooling.
 

dcf

Oct 12, 2019
4
1
15
Thank you for your suggestions.

- I've installed additional top fan - Be Quiet! Silent Wings 3. I bought two of them but ended up only installing the top one because for some reason, additional one in front was causing problems with cooling (I think that's because it was blowing pretty much straight at PSU shroud causing the air to bounce back into the higher top fan, causing turbulence in air flow).

- I've re-seated and changed the thermal paste on my CPU cooler.

- Not sure if it's relevant, but my mobo had some spots of thermal paste on it - probably I wasn't cautious enough during last application of paste and had some on my hands while touching the mobo. I've cleaned the paste residues. I think they might have been causing some shorts because my problems with crackling audio went away.

- Found LLC in the UEFI and set it to 5.

In the end my temps went down by 7-10 degress celcius and I managed to achieve stable 4.7Ghz@1.32V without AVX offset. Couldn't go any higher without instabilities or overheating for now.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Phaaze88