Intel i7 CPU - FYI

All right so I've been reading up on overclocking and have come across a lot of i7 920 owners who have been complaining about the CPU's high temps in idle. Seems that their average temp reading for the CPU tends to be around 50-70C. Thing is my i7 920 is running at 36-38C idle and when I switch to turbo it hits a max of 45C. Granted I haven't seriously tested out its limits with a high-end game but I've found it extremely weird that I seem to not have the heat problems that everyone else is having. I got to thinking about what the problem could be.

I thought it might be my chassis configuration. My thermaltake v1000 blue has 4 fans that sit directly in front of the video card, processor, and MB. This does have something to do with it, but a lot of the newer chassis' have this config so I came to the conclusion that heat control depends on the mobo.

I have an ASUS P6T LGA 1366. It was specifically designed to deal with the i7 cores. I'm going to go ahead and say that I strongly believe this is the reason I don't have the high temp issue. My MB has silent cooling tech, one of which is a heat-pipe. This heat pipe is a fanless thermal solution that directs heat away from the CPU and out back to the IO ports. Bunched with the fans I have running, (even though one's not working at the moment still sitting at 38C) as well as the fact I've got the wires tied up all nice and out of the way, I'm pretty sure that my MB is the primary reason as to why I'm getting such nice low temps.

I don't think many people are aware of this so I thought I'd point it out for anyone building a new rig or someone who's having problems but can't figure out why. I haven't seen anyone that has my MB/CPU pairing yet. While Intel warns that their i7 CPUs tend to run hot, it seems ASUS has found a way to deal with it. Hope I helped someone :major

 

Good set up as I've had one for about 2 years now. (Actually upgraded to a 950 recently.)
1 problem might be using the stock Intel cooler and TIM. I changed my cooler out for a Zalman after about a month or so from building and discovered that the TIM did not cover the entire processor. Once I changed out coolers and applied some Arctic Silver, my temps dropped drastically to about your levels.

That would be a great rig for folding and depending on your video card could put some good PPD numbers up for the science.
Have some fun with it either way.:major

 

Even using the stock cooler I was able to OC my i7 930 to 3.4GHz and at full load it was only at 70C. I now have a Corsair H-50 pump and am OC'd to 3.8GHz with enough headroom to hit 4 if I wanted to. My box is hot as I have a GTX260 and GTX470 in there at %100 load 24/7 and my temps are great.

 

Haha thanks I'd like to think I did a good job for my first build. I'm actually using the stock cooler, but it's It looks like it's doing a good job for now. I'll see what happens when I do play a heavy game. For vid card,I put a gtx 460 in it. Got 6GB of RAM, running W7 Ultimate 64-bit. I love the way the whole system is working right now. Granted, still coming across W7 issues but I'm planning to throw Linux OS on there anyway so it should pan out. But yeah, I'd totally help out for the good of science! Just shoot me instructions. Btw, how's the 950?

Well you're wayyy ahead of me there lol. I've yet to mess with OCing seriously. I wanna first get a better fan control app because I don't really like PC Probe II. Right now I've got the thing running at 2.67ghz. I'll definitely ask you for suggestions when I go higher I thought there might be a correlation between the MB & CPU pairing. Haven't found too many ppl online using my MB so I can't know for sure =/ but it might be nice to know that there are MB's out there with thermal solutions. I'm happy with it in any case.Especially with the way cpu's are progressing. What mm fans are you using? And what chassis do you have?

 

950 is just as smooth as the 920 just a higher base clock.:-D I haven't maxed out the overclock yet. I'm still taking it up by gradual steps. So far just a 3.78 on it with temps at the mid to upper 60s C with a Corsair H50 cooler.
If you are running a stock clock on the CPU, I would suggest just folding on your GTX 460. That is a very good card for folding at the present time with a decent PPD (Points Per Day) and not as much temp problems and electric draw.
If you don't have your comp on 24/7, that will get you the max production for the usage. (augie and I do the whole 24/7 CPU and GPU folding with overclocking thrown in to max out our rigs and PPD.)
Stanford Uni has a download page HERE and straight forward install instructions HERE. You should download the GPU3 client which is the very first item on the download page.
You can check on folding user names HERE and receive a passkey HERE.
You should also have a password on your Windows user account. This keeps permissions from being a problem when folding.
If you have any specific problems, post in the folding subforum here and someone will get back to you on it.

 

Majorgeeks team number is 12072 if you want to fold here.
(Man, I need to have more coffee this AM. All these little details.:-o)

 

CoolerMaster Sniper case with a pair of 200mm input fans, front and side, and one 200mm blowing air out the top.

 

Hmm... nice case! Too bad it looks so bad-***... my wife would never go for something like that. It's also not very kid-proof, something necessary in my world! As it is, my case has a door to access the DVD drive and power/reset buttons, and I usually have to tape that door closed to keep my toddler from resetting the computer. She also messes with the fan controls which are on the front side.

 

Hehe, ya the case isn't for everybody with the side bump-outs but that's exactly what let's one manage their cabling very easily for a very clean look inside. I can see where a toddler would not be too friendly with that case.

 

Oh I'm a security freak. I've got 2 accounts set up. One is admin with password and the other is my second user acct I use when I download something questionable. That one also has a password. In short, no one's getting on this thing without my permission. lol....I don't mess with that. In my house, I'm the malware expert in charge.

I don't run it 24/7. I have it set so that it goes to sleep after 30 min of inactivity during the day and then it gets a nice shut down at night. It's usually off more than on at the moment. Good to know about that 950. I was considering getting that one but I found the 920 for a really good price that I couldn't say no to. I'll look into those links and set stuff up. Right now I'm having network problems and the PC's locked out of internet access. I have a feeling it's my dad's fault because he added another PC to the network last night and I'm pretty sure he messed something up. Right now, only things getting internet are 2 laptops on wireless and one of his PC's that's directly connected to the modem.

ouu cool. Just wondering for myself because right now I've only got 80mm's. Good to know in case they stop cutting it. Thanks

Oh dear lol. That's actually pretty funny! :-D Don't have to worry about kids in the house but now I'm kinda glad my case can be locked with a key haha.

 

That sounds handy. What case do you have?

 

Thermaltake Xaser III v1000 SuperTower Series in blue. It's pretty old...I saw a couple of them on ebay not too long ago, so you could try there and get one fairly cheap. The new ones have them too.

http://www.thermaltakeusa.com/Products.aspx?C=1303

And they look extra sweet!