Cooling a Core 2 Duo

[DanG]

What are my options? I have a pair of Zalman CNPS7000B on my 2 AMD systems, and the same HSF is goot for Socket 775. Will this cool a C2D enough? Right now under 100% load on both cores (folding) I'm sitting about 70°C, which is a little warm for my preference. I had to sacrifice a bit of airflow in my Sonata II by removing the front 120mm fan because my video card is so long.
I looked at the 7700 from Zalman, but concluded it was too big for the case on my last board, so I suspect it's going to be the same on this board.

Or is my load temp ok?

[muddocktor]

I wouldn't feel comfortable with temps that high. Are you checking the temp with Core Temp or are using something else?

[DanG]

Those were with PC Wizard 2006 (same guys who make cpuid). Thinking about it, I never double checked it with anywhere else, so I loaded asus probe 2 and also double checked in the bios. Probe shows 54° c, and the bios 50, which makes sense because it wasn't under load at the time.

Changing my first question, is 54° too hot?

[muddocktor]

Asus Probe is better than that app you were using, but for Core 2 Duo and AMD 64 there is even a better monitoring app called Core Temp. It actually reads the processor's temp diode on the processor itself, without using any of the board circuitry and is the most accurate measurement of your true processor temperature. You can download it from this link (http://www.thecoolest.zerobrains.com/CoreTemp/).

And no, I wouldn't worry too much about 54 C core temps, Dan.

[Leonardo]

I don't know if a Zalman 7000 would perform much better than the stock Intel cooler. In its day, the 7000 was very good, but we're talking 2003 technology.

54*C is no problem at all, even for continuous full operations. If you decide to overclock though, you won't have much thermal headroom. If you want to run at default CPU frequency, you don't need to make any changes.

[DanG]

Trying Core Temp right now.

Thanks for the info guys.

[ronbo]

muddocktor, thanks for that link to core temp :thumbsup: :thumbsup: 94. Great little program...