Hows this for a new CPU Cooler & PCI Slot Fan?

[Blom89]

CPU Heatsink & Fan: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16835118090

And a PCI Slot cooler to give my GPU some extra cooling: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16835114024

I ordered both earlier. Should be here tomorrow.

[mrcrusty]

No. Return if possible, both suck.

Same price CPU cooler, superior.

Cheaper PCI slot cooler, superior.

But why would you need GPU cooling? The XFX 4850 has a great cooling system.

[Blom89]

No. Return if possible, both suck.

Same price CPU cooler, superior.

Cheaper PCI slot cooler, superior.

But why would you need GPU cooling? The XFX 4850 has a great cooling system.

You seem pretty tech savy based on your signature, what kind of performance increase might I see from overclocking the North Bridge?

Right now it's at a solid 2000MHz I believe. I heard the North Bridge is connected to Cache and memory performance.

My Shogun 2 performance is lacking severely in terms of frame rate, so I'm trying to eliminate heat as an issue.

I suspect it's a GPU bottleneck, but I hope I'm wrong.

[Blom89]

No. Return if possible, both suck.

Same price CPU cooler, superior.

Cheaper PCI slot cooler, superior.

But why would you need GPU cooling? The XFX 4850 has a great cooling system.

Well you were right Crusty. My Zalman broke on me the other day. The screw stripped and my CPU almost fried because of it.

I'm ordering the one you recommended now.

[Devilmaypoop]

Well you were right Crusty. My Zalman broke on me the other day. The screw stripped and my CPU almost fried because of it.

I'm ordering the one you recommended now.

I'd get a CoolerMaster Hyper 212+ rather. It's superior to all other cpu coolers in its price range.

[Blom89]

I'll look it up now.

[mrcrusty]

Depends on the game, but a good Northbridge overclock like mine may net around a 10% increase. It's weird, but the Phenom II NB/IMC is underpowered and underclocked. This causes a bottleneck, which negatively impacts performance. To fix the bottleneck, we overclock the NB. It's not a big deal on stock, but on overclocked systems, it does become a bigger issue.

You could also try unlocking extra cores on your CPU. For a game like Shogun 2, which is "supposed" to take advantage of 4 cores, it's probably better to try and unlock the cores than overclock the Northbridge.

What resolution are you playing on? The HD 4850 isn't a bad card, but it is a little outdated and will get stomped at higher resolutions.

Well, if you're worried it's a heat issue, that's simply to determine. How hot does it get when playing Shogun 2? Use a program like HWMonitor to detect heat.

[Blom89]

I unlocked the other 2 cores successfully but here's where things get wierd.

Firefox, Internet Explorer, Catalyst Control Center and Steam all launch, but then crash when all 4 cores are unlocked.

I tried 2 non-steam games and both ran beautifully with all 4 cores unlocked. (The games being Crysis 1 & Bad Company 2)

So I went ahead and disabled one of the 4 cores because I thought maybe 1 core was defective, leaving me with 3 cores and everything works again. No crashes with browsers and CCC works, as well as Steam.

All 4 cores can be unlocked and I get zero issues in games, but it seem's regular programs are having serious issues, especially Browsers.

Internet explorer gave me an error regarding Flash, while Firefox simply says it cant initialize due to an .ini file I believe and Steam gives no errors, just doesn't open.

Catalyst Control Center gives a default Windows Xp error, which then asks me if I wanna send the error report to Microsoft or don't send.

I googled the problem and found a few people with the exact same issue. Firefox crashing with 4 cores unlocked, yet games run fine.

I can also confirm there was activity on all 4 cores while gaming and even when at the desktop screen. I saw slight spikes in all 4 cores usage.

Not sure why Steam and firefox don't seem to like 4 cores.

I also set my clock speeds back to 3.2GHz before unlocking the other 2 cores.

As of right now, I'm sitting on 3 cores @ 3.2GHz w/ 38C idle temps. Temps in Bad Company 2 maxed out at 52C while Crysis 1 maxed out at 50C with 4 cores enabled.

Also, programs like GPU-Z, HWmonitor, MSI Afterburner all open up fine with 4 cores enabled.

It's just the programs I mentioned above that won't run when I have 4 cores unlocked.

[mrcrusty]

It's not stable. I'd read around to find a good guide on overclocking and unlocking the Phenom IIs if I were you. If you are still using the stock cooler, that is more than likely your culprit. Unlocking cores and getting them stable is very difficult on the stock cooler, especially when overclocking.

[Blom89]

Perhaps I need to up the voltage a bit to make up for the extra power draw with 4 cores unlocked.

[mrcrusty]

I'd be careful about doing that. Sure, it will help stablise the cores, but then you may have heat issues depending on the cooler which could just fry the CPU altogether.

[Blom89]

Took that a split second after alt tabbing out of Bad Company 2.

Frame rates are massively improved as well. I used to dip into the 40's when the action got intense. I've yet to see my FPS dip under 60 now.

Temps are literally the same as they were when I only had 2 cores (50c, give or take a little). And with my new cooler coming sometime tomorrow via UPS, temps should be even lower.

Just wish the last core would work. lol

[snuggans]

i think, unless your card is defective, that there is no heat issue unless you're over-clocking core & shader ridiculously high?

[Erax]

.. what resolution are you playing at?

Upgrading your 4850 to a 6850 for example would give you a huge boost, since you got a good processor.

[Blom89]

.. what resolution are you playing at?

Upgrading your 4850 to a 6850 for example would give you a huge boost, since you got a good processor.

That's actually going to be my next purchase.

The price is at a nice sweet spot and it's got double the memory bandwith, twice the pixel fill rate, DX11 support and about 200 more shader processors.

[mrcrusty]

Good upgrade. It's I'd say a little more than double the performance of a single 4850 (used to own dual 4850s), plus much more overclocking headroom if you're into it.

[Crazyeyesreaper]

Best CPU cooler for the Price

Coolermaster Hyper 212+

http://www.provantage.com/cooler-master-rr-b10-212p-gp~7COOL077.htm $25

grab 2 of these off jab tech make sure there open corner model you can select the model toward the bottom
http://www.jab-tech.com/YATE-LOON-12...2-pr-3009.html

total cost is about $38

performance review
http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum...review-11.html

Dual fan it beats a
Megahalems $70 dosent come with a fan must purchase seperate total Cost $75-80
Coolermaster V10 $129
Coolermaster V8 $50

Dang you devilmaypoop i took to long grabbing the links and you posted before me lol

[Crazyeyesreaper]

as for PCI slot fans there pretty much a worthless investment, save yourself the money.

[Blom89]

as for PCI slot fans there pretty much a worthless investment, save yourself the money.

Ya I recently removed the PCI slot fan and my GPU temps actually went even lower. lol

[Darkpriest667]

as for PCI slot fans there pretty much a worthless investment, save yourself the money.

agreed.. buy a case that has at least 3 fan ports on the case... some have as many as 10 so you can really cool your pc down with case fans.