Passive Cooling on an Intel Xeon CPU?

[ace5968]

Is it OK to cool an Intel Xeon E5 2667 v3 (LGA-2011) using a passive heatsink? Also i'll be using a 4U chassis so i need the cooler to be compatible with the chassis and use two of these CPUs. I'm not gonna overclock it because i'm going to use it for my workstation.

 

[Darkbreeze]

Well, aside from a small fsb overclock, or forcing the turbo full on, Xeons are locked chips and can't be overclocked anyhow. Personally, I wouldn't recommend using a passive cooler. In order to keep that 135w chip cool under loads, having a fan on them would be a good idea. Plus, any passive heat sink capable of keeping those chips cool is going to be both expensive and very large.

I don't know what you're doing that you need two processors that run two grand each, and run a total of 32 threads, but I'd certainly want to protect my investment if I was shelling out that kind of money.

 

[Unolocogringo]

If your passive heatsink is designed to dissipate 130 watts of heat ,YES
If not ,NO.
Most server designs used the chassis fans for cooling the cpu, memory, video cards etc... The case is designed to cool them without additional fans on each component.
If your case is designed so that the front intake fans are blowing through the CPU heat sinks ,Maybe as they are no longer passive.

 

[Darkbreeze]

^^^^^This too. Didn't even consider it might be a fanless active configuration.

 

[Darkbreeze]

I think I'll have to bow out of this one as rackmount server hardware is not one of my strengths and is a pretty specialized area.

 

[ace5968]

I couldn't believe finding a passive cpu cooler for a 135W intel xeon cpu could be that hard. Did you guys have any other suggestion for a quiet cpu cooler?

 

[Darkbreeze]

What is the model number of your chassis?

 

[ace5968]

What is the model number of your chassis?

Supermicro 7048GR-TR
If you need the specs, here's their website:
http://www.supermicro.com.tw/products/system/4U/7048/SYS-7048GR-TR.cfm

 

[Darkbreeze]

If I'm not being too presumptive, may I ask, what the intentions are for this machine? I'm just curious, and that's serious hardware.

 

[Darkbreeze]

If that's the unit you're buying, you are aware that it comes with active cpu cooling right?

According to that page it has

6. 4x Heavy Duty Fans, 2x Exhaust
Fans, and 2x Active Heatsink with
Optimal Fan Speed Control

Considering that active cooling is designed into the configuration, I'm not sure I'd want to change that. That kind of hardware is pretty well designed down to the last degree and changing things might not be the best idea. Again, it's not really my best area, but I have done some work with server level hardware and it's not generally as configurable as say, an enthusiast desktop platform.

 

[palladin9479]

When I get home I'll take a look at that design and see how it's cooling is handled. Most 19 inch rackmount stuff is designed in such a way that it pulls cold air from the front and / or sides and then channels it over hot internal components and out the back. That is what all those plastic covers are for inside, they divide up and channel the air over the CPU, VRMs, RAM and any storage controllers or special PCIe cards that are present. The PSU tends to have it's own air flow channel separate.

Anyhow, rackmount systems are engineered as single units, they aren't meant to be modified with third party components. Is this a system your purchasing / purchased or is it one that's from a previous project / system that's being re-utilized? It should already contain all the cooling components it needs.