Zalman CNPS9700 NT, and spec Quad-core temperature

smas

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I just put together a system with a Q6600, GA-P35C-DS3R, 4Gig 4-4-4-12 DDR2/800, 8800GTS 640MB, and Raptor HD, stock Antec P180B fans (3), 720W power.

I first put an Asus Artic Square in it, and just by looking at the bios reported CPU temperature, it said 55C at first boot. I didn't let it run too long at that temperature. I figured I probably either didn't seat the cooler on the CPU properly, didn't apply thermal paste properly (Artic Silver 5), didn't use completely lint free cloth to wipe the surfaces, or all three.

So rather than remove and reseat, I figure I might as well protect my investment and get a better cooler, the one I like is the Zalman CNPS9700 NT.

So, will this cooler work with a non-nvidia chipset MB? Will it work with a C2Q processor, since it is only rated for C2D? Has anyone used this with a C2Q processor and if so what are the idle and load temperatures? The C2Q retail box manual says the internal temperature should not go above 38C, which seems pretty low!

thanks for the feedback!
 

Spanki

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My guess is that you didn't get a good mounting on the Arctic Square. I'd certainly try re-mounting it before spending more on another cooler (if for nothing else, to give you something to compare the new cooler to).

Keep in mind that the stock Intel heatsink can cool a quad (assuming you're not overclocking and adding voltage to the core) and that 'most' modern heatsinks (including the Arctic Square) will perform better than the stock Intel heatsink, so the answer to your question will depend largely on how much you plan to overclock it.
 

Spanki

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The C2Q retail box manual says the internal temperature should not go above 38C, which seems pretty low!

Sorry, I missed that before... and I think you must not be reading something correctly. I don't have a quad (or it's manual to reference), but maybe that's talking about ambient air temps or something?
 

Kronos76

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It would do just fine from what i have read, but to be sure, are you doing any OCing?

Take a look at this post, it may help! :lol:

http://forumz.tomshardware.com/hardware/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=241739&highlight=
 

smas

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I rechecked the manual, and the 38C recommended limit was for ambient internal temperature.

I ended up putting in a Zalman CNPS9700 NT and an additional case fan, and the bios reported CPU temperature is now varying from 24C to 31C under idle! The room/ambient temperature isn't much different from the first time. I could have reseated the Asus for comparison, but I admit to chickening out on putting pressure on the processor from multiple re-seats.
 

cb62fcni

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Use TAT or speedfan to check temps, bios is often highly unreliable when it comes to reported temps. The thermal envelope for the Q6600 can go up to and beyond 80C, so until you get into the 70's I wouldn't be overly concerned.
 

clue69less

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I rechecked the manual, and the 38C recommended limit was for ambient internal temperature.

I ended up putting in a Zalman CNPS9700 NT and an additional case fan, and the bios reported CPU temperature is now varying from 24C to 31C under idle! The room/ambient temperature isn't much different from the first time. I could have reseated the Asus for comparison, but I admit to chickening out on putting pressure on the processor from multiple re-seats.

I'm not surprised. The 9700 is an excellent cooler.
 

Major_Trouble

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Please use something else to monitor your core temp and let us know what you are using so we have a better base line than the BIOS (like Core-temp 0.94 or Speedfan 4.32).

The Quad core temp goes up to 100c at which point it hits its Tjunction. This is the point at which it starts to throttle slowing it up and stopping it from destroying itself. Toms had a great video a while back of Intel and AMD CPUs having there HSF removed and the Intel ones throttled with the game being run on the machine at the time coming to a halt. It's worth checking out. I won't say what happened to the AMD chips as I don't want to upset any fanbois. (I am not a Intel fanboi either - my last chip was AMD64 so there).

Remove the heatsink

The Tjunction for the dual core Conroes is 85c. Nvidia monitor and Speedfan monitor the core temps in a relation to to Tjunction temperature and don't know it has been moved for the quads and so read 15c to low (100-85=15).

Let us know what your temps are with one of these other base lines.
(Core Temp 0.94)
Ambient 22c
Idle core temps are about 50c
Load core temps are about 66c

I don't OC my quad...yet. I did want the 120 Ultra Extreme but they were not in stock at the time.
 

smas

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I just ran Speedfan 4.32 on my system, after running the system for a few hours.

Unsure about ambient temperature just inside the box, but room temperature is about 23C.

CPU load pretty low, under 25% on resource manager (I will get a better CPU load monitor).

Speedfan says core 0: 32C, core 1: 30C, core 2: 30C, core 3: 31C. I will try to stress it more and see what Speedfan says.
 

cb62fcni

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Sounds pretty darn good to me. Are you going to overclock? Sounds like you could easily bump it up a notch or two. Those babies really start cranking out heat when you get it close to 3Ghz though, so be careful.
 

Major_Trouble

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Yeah I know it's old but it does clearly show the throttling effect that the chip does when it gets to hot. Obviously this is to an extreme and the effect most people would see (if they had an overheating problem) occurs just before the game locks up.
 

Major_Trouble

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Like I said Speedfan 4.32 will measure your cores 15c too low as it thinks Tjunction is at 85c. The programme hasn't yet been updated for quads yet. Try running core temp 0.94 as well just for a comparison. It knows the correct value for Tjunction and displays it on the main window.

If you want to put your CPU on load try something like Orthos. That will put it under more strain than it's ever likely to get in real world usage.

Don't get to hung up on the temps though. As long as you below 85c by a nice margin when your stressing the CPU to the max don't worry to much. Obviously the more you are below it the greater your OC potential could be.

I would like cooler temps on mine but noise is also an issue for me. I am sure I could get my temps down some more with a 120 Ultra Extreme and some time spent lapping both the HS and CPU but I really don't need to OC this thing yet. It would be nice to know how far it could OC though. :wink:
 

Major_Trouble

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Don't think I will manage that with my current HSF. It's very quite though. I have not run into anything yet this quad can't chew up and spit out faster than it takes to get a coffee. So I don't feel the need to OC, generate more wasted heat and draw more power than it does now.
 

Kronos76

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I have to at least try, just a little, more then likely I will hold tight at 3Ghz but hey, I have to start somewhere :lol:

Sad to say, it has been so long since I did a new build for myself that I can’t wait to at least play around a little.