1366 i7 passive cooler

sporty8 · Post by **sporty8** » Sun Nov 30, 2008 7:37 am

Hi,

I'm looking for a passive cooler for new 1366 CORE I7 QUAD processors.
Are there any out? Are any old ones compatible?

Thanks,
Sporty

thejamppa · Post by **thejamppa** » Sun Nov 30, 2008 7:49 am

Not yet, certainly anyway.... You probably have to wait next year. New Nehalems are 130 W TDP so they're pretty hot. Q1 next year will come new patch of Nehalems with 95W TDP those could be cooled passively or pseudo passively I think. Q1 avaibility of LGA 1366 coolers also increase dramatically. And Thermalright probably releases new LGA 1366 version of TRUE and HR01-series before Christmas.

But so far there is no really a passive coolers for Nehalems yet.

I would rather use silent fan for Nehalems than try running it passively just in case if you want to jump with 130W TDP Nehalem's.

Edit: I forgot a thing about Ninja making my suggestion foolish so I removed it.

sporty8 · Post by **sporty8** » Sun Nov 30, 2008 8:50 am

Thanks.

I'm in urgent need of a powerful PC, but don't really know what to do.

First I wanted to get a QX9770 (or QX9650), but now after i7 got released, they seem a better choice. You have any suggestion regarding it? Is it too soon for i7?

sNNooPY · Post by **sNNooPY** » Sun Nov 30, 2008 8:59 am

sporty8 wrote:Thanks.

I'm in urgent need of a powerful PC, but don't really know what to do.

First I wanted to get a QX9770 (or QX9650), but now after i7 got released, they seem a better choice. You have any suggestion regarding it? Is it too soon for i7?

define powerful? because QX9770 is just ridiculously expensive and IMHO not worth it.
i7 also. You'll be paying a premium price for something that's overkill right now. Especially with it's prices and the price of DDR3 memory.

thejamppa · Post by **thejamppa** » Sun Nov 30, 2008 9:00 am

I'd say wait past Christmas. In January prices drop. If You can't well... it seems LGA 775 isn't fading away for sometimes so going for Intels current Quad would probably keep you very satisfied.

However if you really want to go Nehalem's, I suggest you look Noctua's tower cooler. They have now LGA1366 version which offers two fans and so foth with excellent attachment system.

Single fan is though more than enough and its very effective and when fan is rp'ming less than 900 RPM's its effectively silent as SPCR review stated.

Silent cooling might still be better than passive cooling, at least for now Nehalem's. I am sure you won't hear difference easily.

echn111 · Post by **echn111** » Sun Nov 30, 2008 9:52 am

I've been using the Thermalright HR-01 Plus (w/1366 adaptor) with the Thermalright air duct connected to the rear case outlet for my new i920.

Results are good so far. I've currently got it 'undervolted' to 1.18 vcore, but overclocked to 3.6Ghz, and it seems prime95 stable so far (4 hour stress test). Temps do not exceed 64c. This is with a low rpm fan attached to the heatsink, case fans running at 800-850 rpm and a 1Ghz overclock.

I'll be experimenting with various fan, overclock, and voltage settings over the next few days and am looking to remove the heatsink fan to go passive. But based on what I've seen, I'm fairly confident that if you only keep a low overclock like 3Ghz or less you could easily go passive right away, only relying on the air duct and case airflow.

sporty8 · Post by **sporty8** » Sun Nov 30, 2008 10:11 am

sNNooPY wrote:
sporty8 wrote:Thanks.

I'm in urgent need of a powerful PC, but don't really know what to do.

First I wanted to get a QX9770 (or QX9650), but now after i7 got released, they seem a better choice. You have any suggestion regarding it? Is it too soon for i7?
define powerful? because QX9770 is just ridiculously expensive and IMHO not worth it.
i7 also. You'll be paying a premium price for something that's overkill right now. Especially with it's prices and the price of DDR3 memory.

I'm doing some heavy multitasking that involves a lot of pure brute force (calculating & collecting data in huge databases). So basically, every small bit of performance counts.

Anyway, all-in-all a really smooth system produces me more benefits (and profit) than the costs are, so considering that the cost is basically not an object.

thejamppa wrote:I'd say wait past Christmas. In January prices drop. If You can't well... it seems LGA 775 isn't fading away for sometimes so going for Intels current Quad would probably keep you very satisfied.

However if you really want to go Nehalem's, I suggest you look Noctua's tower cooler. They have now LGA1366 version which offers two fans and so foth with excellent attachment system.

Single fan is though more than enough and its very effective and when fan is rp'ming less than 900 RPM's its effectively silent as SPCR review stated.

Silent cooling might still be better than passive cooling, at least for now Nehalem's. I am sure you won't hear difference easily.

Sadly I can't wait additional month. During that time I would lose a lot more $ than I would pay for the system.

echn111 wrote:I've been using the Thermalright HR-01 Plus (w/1366 adaptor) with the Thermalright air duct connected to the rear case outlet for my new i920.

Results are good so far. I've currently got it 'undervolted' to 1.18 vcore, but overclocked to 3.6Ghz, and it seems prime95 stable so far (4 hour stress test). Temps do not exceed 64c. This is with a low rpm fan attached to the heatsink, case fans running at 800-850 rpm and a 1Ghz overclock.

I'll be experimenting with various fan, overclock, and voltage settings over the next few days and am looking to remove the heatsink fan to go passive. But based on what I've seen, I'm fairly confident that if you only keep a low overclock like 3Ghz or less you could easily go passive right away, only relying on the air duct and case airflow.

Interesting news. Please report further results ...

echn111 · Post by **echn111** » Sun Nov 30, 2008 12:34 pm

Ok decided to disconnect my Thermalright HR-01 Plus fan and see what happens.

So what we have is: the heatsink (with air duct) running passive, using only case airflow. Case is closed (no cheating). Case fans are at 800-850rpm. P920i is overclocked from 2.66Ghz to 3.6Ghz. Prime95 stressing all four cores.

Although the stress run is now over an hour long, the temps have been stable since 5 minutes within the stress run and look to be around 7c higher than without the active fan. (i.e. between 68c and 71c, with 71c being the absolute max).

Here is a pic of the results from around 10 minutes ago:

Here's the setup. As you can see the heatsink fan is disconnected, but it's also blocking the case airflow as well. If I were to remove it completely, I'm sure temps would improve slightly.

sporty8 · Post by **sporty8** » Sun Nov 30, 2008 2:46 pm

Interesting ... Thanks a lot.

Aris · Post by **Aris** » Sun Nov 30, 2008 3:31 pm

the real core i7 doesnt get released till next year, on a LGA 1156 socket, codenamed "Havendale". these current ones are just the high end over priced version for people with too much money. So unless your one of those people, wait till fall of next year.

echn111 · Post by **echn111** » Sun Nov 30, 2008 5:04 pm

Aris wrote:the real core i7 doesnt get released till next year, on a LGA 1156 socket, codenamed "Havendale". these current ones are just the high end over priced version for people with too much money. So unless your one of those people, wait till fall of next year.

Not sure what you're talking about. Not only is it wrong, but it can potentially mislead people, as well as being completely irrelevant to the OP's question, and completely unhelpful except as a blatant troll.

Anyway, I'm fairly certain my i7 920 is a "real" i7. And it's certainly a lot cheaper than the QX9770.

Aris · Post by **Aris** » Sun Nov 30, 2008 11:58 pm

dont get your panties in a bunch cause your one of "those" people with too much money that i refered to.

sporty8 · Post by **sporty8** » Mon Dec 01, 2008 6:15 am

Aris, did you miss the point in my post where I mentioned that I need it urgently and for serious work (that needs a lot of pure brute force CPU power).

So it's either i7 or one of previous QX9xxx, which basically cost the same ... Only difference is that I would need to get a different motherboard that I'll have to switch later anyway ...

P.s.: As I also mentioned, it'll actually be an investment for me that will pay off in like few months. A few days ago I lost a couple grands only because the PC freezed for a few seconds ... just at the worst possible time ...

Hellspawn · Post by **Hellspawn** » Tue Dec 02, 2008 8:11 am

echn111 wrote:
Aris wrote:the real core i7 doesnt get released till next year, on a LGA 1156 socket, codenamed "Havendale". these current ones are just the high end over priced version for people with too much money. So unless your one of those people, wait till fall of next year.
Not sure what you're talking about. Not only is it wrong, but it can potentially mislead people, as well as being completely irrelevant to the OP's question, and completely unhelpful except as a blatant troll.

Anyway, I'm fairly certain my i7 920 is a "real" i7. And it's certainly a lot cheaper than the QX9770.

exactly, and those that bought with MS cashback at 30% in the last few days paid a pretty sweet price for a mobo, ddr3 and the processor. Get 4 months from now prices near launch.

That being said I just pulled the trigger on the 920/6gb ddr3 and the p6t mobo. It will cost about 100 to upgrade from my current system once I sell the items in my sig that I'm replacing.

Couldn't pass it up.

ekerazha · Post by **ekerazha** » Sun Dec 07, 2008 10:08 am

Aris wrote:the real core i7 doesnt get released till next year, on a LGA 1156 socket, codenamed "Havendale". these current ones are just the high end over priced version for people with too much money. So unless your one of those people, wait till fall of next year.

Havendale is a low-end Nehalem based CPU (no QPI bus, no triple channel etc.), probably it won't even named "Core i7" (maybe "i5" or "i6").

Aris · Post by **Aris** » Sun Dec 07, 2008 11:49 am

ekerazha wrote:
Aris wrote:the real core i7 doesnt get released till next year, on a LGA 1156 socket, codenamed "Havendale". these current ones are just the high end over priced version for people with too much money. So unless your one of those people, wait till fall of next year.
Havendale is a low-end Nehalem based CPU (no QPI bus, no triple channel etc.), probably it won't even named "Core i7" (maybe "i5" or "i6").

Havendale(LGA1156) is the future equivolant of current C2D's and C2Q's on LGA775.
Bloomfield (LGA1366) is the equivolant of current Extream Edition processors. IE: overclockers with too much money to spend.

Reviews have proved the tripple channel DDR3 does basically nothing over dual channel DDR3.

ekerazha · Post by **ekerazha** » Mon Dec 08, 2008 2:02 am

Aris wrote: Havendale(LGA1156) is the future equivolant of current C2D's and C2Q's on LGA775.
Bloomfield (LGA1366) is the equivolant of current Extream Edition processors. IE: overclockers with too much money to spend.

Not really. Only Core i7 965 is an Extreme Edition CPU (with an Extreme Edition price).

Reviews have proved the tripple channel DDR3 does basically nothing over dual channel DDR3.

You need memory intensive (VERY intensive) applications. And Havendale also lacks the QPI bus.

Bakkone · Post by **Bakkone** » Tue Dec 09, 2008 6:36 am

This board is about helping people to get quiet systems. This board is NOT about difference in income and/or whatever people do with their panties nor their money.

Looking forward to more testing. Im looking into the 920 but I want a quiet system and was wondering if it was possible... seems so.

kittle · Post by **kittle** » Fri Dec 12, 2008 4:42 pm

sporty8 wrote:Aris, did you miss the point in my post where I mentioned that I need it urgently and for serious work (that needs a lot of pure brute force CPU power).

So it's either i7 or one of previous QX9xxx, which basically cost the same ... Only difference is that I would need to get a different motherboard that I'll have to switch later anyway ...

P.s.: As I also mentioned, it'll actually be an investment for me that will pay off in like few months. A few days ago I lost a couple grands only because the PC freezed for a few seconds ... just at the worst possible time ...

Mabye something like this would work better for you?
http://www.supermicro.com/products/moth ... 8ST3-F.cfm

or
http://www.supermicro.com/products/moth ... /X7DWE.cfm
2x quad core xeon CPU with 12mb on board cache?

decidedly NOT cheap.. I priced out a dual socket system a whle back at $6k USD

not sure if you can get those boards in your area. but I find they are rock solid stable even under abuse.

or if you want to go totally nutz:
http://www.supermicro.com/products/moth ... /X7QCE.cfm
4 socket xeon board with support for 6-core CPUs - potential 24-cores.

echn111 · Post by **echn111** » Mon Dec 15, 2008 4:05 pm

Well I didn't really get a chance to experiment too much with the i920 as I actually needed to use my PC (the only thing I did was to properly enable all 8 threads).

But I can report that after almost two weeks of my system being run almost continously 24/7, with cooling being the aformentioned semi-passive setup, both the X58 board and the new chip appear to be extremely stable. That's quite important - when new technology comes out, stability is sometimes a bit suspect.

But so far I've been impressed with the nehalem launch so far. It's a very powerful computing solution, at a remarkably affordable price given the computing power you get, and, most importantly, it appears very stable so far. (hopefully I'm not speaking too soon, and my PC may yet blow up, but so far so good). And, based on what I've seen, I'd recommend this solution to other people requiring raw computing power at reasonable noise levels.

p.s. Considering how far I was able to overclock this chip while undervolting it and while cooling it semi-passively using air cooling alone, I take the reported 130w TDP of the 920i with a bit of a grain of salt. It almost looks like a deliberately underclocked CPU that was really designed to run a lot faster.

STi · Post by **STi** » Thu Dec 25, 2008 8:11 am

How about some water?

gyurxi551 · Post by **gyurxi551** » Thu Feb 12, 2009 5:24 am

wrote:Ok decided to disconnect my Thermalright HR-01 Plus fan and see what happens.

So what we have is: the heatsink (with air duct) running passive, using only case airflow. Case is closed (no cheating). Case fans are at 800-850rpm. P920i is overclocked from 2.66Ghz to 3.6Ghz. Prime95 stressing all four cores.

Although the stress run is now over an hour long, the temps have been stable since 5 minutes within the stress run and look to be around 7c higher than without the active fan. (i.e. between 68c and 71c, with 71c being the absolute max).

Here is a pic of the results from around 10 minutes ago:

Here's the setup. As you can see the heatsink fan is disconnected, but it's also blocking the case airflow as well. If I were to remove it completely, I'm sure temps would improve slightly.

Thanks! I'm going to buy Nehalem and want make it a '0dB noise PC'.
CPU: INTEL Core i7-920 2.66Ghz 1366 BOX
MAINB.: GIGABYTE GA-EX58-UD4
PSU: FSP 400 ZEN -passive cooler without fan homepage
VGA.: GIGABYTE GV-R455D3-512I HD4550 512MB PCIE (passive cooler)

CPU cooler: based upon echn111's test Thermalright HR-01 Plus
CASSIS: AEROCOOL Hi-Tech 7 Pro with 40cm fan

The fan is so slow (cos of 40cm) that has no noise. I'll turn off Thermaltake fan. The only fan is the fan of mainboard. Hope not too loud.

My first question: is there a any passive cooler to the mainboard chips?
Is enough a 400W powersupply to i7?
THX
(sorry for my English)

Googly_Eyes · Post by **Googly_Eyes** » Thu Feb 12, 2009 6:39 am

echn111 wrote:So what we have is: the heatsink (with air duct)

Where'd you get the ducting? Any reputable stores that sell it?

keylimesoda · Post by **keylimesoda** » Mon Jun 08, 2009 5:18 pm

Depending on the nature of your workloads, if you absolutely need performance, stability and low-heat, you may want to look at one of the Quad Core Xeon chips:

L7445

TDP: 50W
Cache: 12MB
Cores: 4

L7455

TDP: 65W
Cache 12MB
Cores: 6

Then pick yourself up some ECC RAM and you're golden. (Is cost an issue?)
Oh--I almost forgot to mention--you'll need a passive cooler (Google: dynatron h515)

Ven · Post by **Ven** » Thu Jun 11, 2009 4:02 pm

I'm getting i7 soon too. By looking at cooler reviews, I can tell you that i7 + passive = bad combination. Duct + exhaust case fan is not really a passive option as you have fan, hehe.
My recommendation - get a great tower heatsink (like Megahelms) and use 2 low-RPM fans in push-pull configuration. You may use ducts and other goodies that will help with decreasing temperature. This CPU needs some air to be moved. In this case more fans = less RPM needed to move required amount of air = quieter. There's high chance that you won't hear them over graphics card, PSU and HDDs.
Another option would be adding some water. Even then I wouldn't recommend going passive. There are fans that are really quiet and will move way more air than by natural convection.

megame · Post by **megame** » Fri Jun 19, 2009 1:09 am

Ven wrote: My recommendation - get a great tower heatsink (like Megahelms) and use 2 low-RPM fans in push-pull configuration. You may use ducts and other goodies that will help with decreasing temperature. This CPU needs some air to be moved. In this case more fans = less RPM needed to move required amount of air = quieter. There's high chance that you won't hear them over graphics card, PSU and HDDs.

I'd agree with that. I've got an i7 920 with an ifx-14 and 3*140mm yate loons on it. Even at 4 ghz and 1.30volts its fine at idle with the fans at 600rpm or so, which is quiet enough when surfing or watching movies or something not cpu intensive. Its quieter than my graphics card fan (hd4770) anyway...

When I want to game I can put the fans up to 1100rpm and its stable no problems... I do turn the fans up to max (1350rpm) if I'm video encoding or running benchmarks or something similar, but.. its an i7 at 4ghz...

rpgman1 · Post by **rpgman1** » Fri Jun 19, 2009 10:03 am

megame wrote:
Ven wrote: My recommendation - get a great tower heatsink (like Megahelms) and use 2 low-RPM fans in push-pull configuration. You may use ducts and other goodies that will help with decreasing temperature. This CPU needs some air to be moved. In this case more fans = less RPM needed to move required amount of air = quieter. There's high chance that you won't hear them over graphics card, PSU and HDDs.
I'd agree with that. I've got an i7 920 with an ifx-14 and 3*140mm yate loons on it. Even at 4 ghz and 1.30volts its fine at idle with the fans at 600rpm or so, which is quiet enough when surfing or watching movies or something not cpu intensive. Its quieter than my graphics card fan (hd4770) anyway...

When I want to game I can put the fans up to 1100rpm and its stable no problems... I do turn the fans up to max (1350rpm) if I'm video encoding or running benchmarks or something similar, but.. its an i7 at 4ghz...

I was wondering about getting the ifx-14 because my zalman 9700 will not cool my i7 920 well. At 4GHz, temps were hovering around 70*C on idle. How were you able to get 3 fans on there? The ifx-14 only has enough fan clips for two fans correct?

megame · Post by **megame** » Sat Jun 20, 2009 3:17 am

Yep only 2 fan clips. I used the clips to attach the fan at the two ends, then used some acrylic rod through the fan holes to mount the third fan... the rods droop a bit but it works ok...

megame · Post by **megame** » Sat Jun 20, 2009 3:18 am

and now with three posts I can post images:

LodeHacker · Post by **LodeHacker** » Sat Jun 20, 2009 3:25 am

Beautiful Julia!

1366 i7 passive cooler

1366 i7 passive cooler

Silent Power