Overclocking (Main Thread)

I’m pretty sure my cooling setup is totally toast..

temps are bouncing around between 44 and 59 while I'm sitting at 2500... which, I guess, tells me there's just way too much hot air trapped around the cooler and one lonely little 80mm fan probably isn't enough to clear everything out of the case🙄

dustypilot23 said:I’m pretty sure my cooling setup is absolute garbage...

temps are bouncing all over the place between 44 and 59 while I'm sitting at 2500 MHz. To me, that's a dead giveaway that too much hot air is just getting trapped around the cooler. One pathetic little 80mm fan can't possibly vent it all out of the case fast enough.🙄

My Zalman with Arctic 5 paste keeps me steady at 45 max at 2450 MHz.🙂

Mr.Ex.President said:I'm running a Zalman with Arctic 5 paste and my temps stay at 45 (max) at 2450MHz.🙂

Nice try, Mr. President. But I’ve said it loud and clear—in basically every major US paper except maybe the local rag—that any Zalman (even the 7000-Cu) isn't meant for AMD. It's better suited for a Pentium 4. The surface area on an AMD chip is just too small for those heat conduits to actually do their job.

@ dustypilot23
So, looks like gut feeling was right after all. You clearly have a cooling issue. My AMD hits 50C at 2.7GHz while cranking Prime95, but once I drop it to 2.6, the max temp sits at 44C. I didn't spend three weeks scouring international OC forums for nothing before pulling the trigger on this cooler. If I hadn't done the legwork, I probably would've fallen for the Zalman hype too, whether it was the Al-Cu or even the Swifteka V-462.

brightgull15 said:Look, I’ve said it a thousand times in every damn forum and paper out there—any Zalman cooler, even the heavy-duty 7000-Cu, is a total waste on an AMD chip. It’s built for Pentium 4. The surface area on an AMD processor is just way too small. The heat-conduit can't pull enough heat away fast enough to make it worth it.

I have no clue what you're even getting at here.😕

My rig sits right on the floor under my desk where there's basically zero airflow... it's completely enclosed... room temp is sitting around 77 F, and my CPU stays between 100-113 F (maxing out at 113 F) while running at 2460 Mhz...

I'm perfectly happy with those numbers.🙂

man, what's even the point of talking about thermal paste...
it's not like I'm actually applying it myself 😬

..but I remember one time I put down a bit more and ran some slightly better tests 🙂

..and as for the cooling setup... how much did that end up costing you? because I think I spent way more 🙂

dustypilot23 said:And about the cooling setup... how much did you drop on it? Because I paid way more than you probably did. 🙂

Look, I wasn't trying to start some stupid argument over whose gear is better... I was just making a point.🙂

Anyway, it set me back $100, and honestly, that's exactly what it's worth...

Mr.Ex.President said:Look, I wasn't really trying to get into some kind of argument with you about whose setup is better or whatever,... I was just saying🙂

Anyway, it cost me $100, and honestly, I think it's worth it...

I mean, I basically just threw that into Google😁
just ask it how much the cooling ended up costing😁

dustypilot23 said:That’s exactly what I told my buddy over at Google.😁

Just ask him how much he dropped on cooling alone.😁 😉

Seriously,😬
how much?

..I guess I see he actually went ahead and pulled the grease out of his Mustang, so he managed to get it out 😳 😬 😳

Let's not start getting all worked up over nothing, alright?

Look, I consider myself a hardcore O'clocker, so naturally, I dropped a cool 500 bucks on a massive heatsink.

Hey everyone, sorry for throwing an off-topic question out there, but I figured you all would be the best group to ask. So...🙂I recently picked up a retail Athlon 2600 XP, an Asus A7N8X-X motherboard, and some DDR memory, though that's not really the point here. The real issue is: why on earth are the temperatures reported by the BIOS so different from what I'm seeing in software like PC PROBE or Aida 32????
We're talking about a 10-degree difference.
To give you some context, while idling, Aida shows my CPU at 51 C and the motherboard at 27 C. When I start running something more demanding, it climbs up to about 58-60 C.
Thanks in advance for any insight, and again, sorry for the off-topic post. 👋

brightgull15 said:I mean, we probably shouldn't start acting all high and mighty, right?

Since I consider myself a hardcore O'clocker, I guess I dropped a cool 500 bucks on my cooling setup just to match that energy.

and because of that, you get a way better clock 😉 👍

..and by that logic, I guess I have much better speakers too 🔉 😬

Frank Grant said:Hey guys, sorry to throw an off-topic question out there, but I figured you all would probably be my best bet for an answer. So, basically🙂I recently picked up an Athlon 2600 XP box, an Asus A7N8X-X motherboard, and some DDR memory, though that’s kind of beside the point. The thing is, why are the temperatures shown in the BIOS so different from what I'm seeing in programs like PC PROBE or Aida 32????
I'm seeing about a 10 degree difference.
Anyway, when I'm just idling, Aida shows the CPU at 51 C and the motherboard at 27 C. When I start running something a bit more demanding, it climbs up to around 58-60 C.
Thanks for any help, and sorry again for the off-topic post. 👋

well maybe they aren't actually varying that much (it might just be the stock cooler combined with pretty mediocre airflow in the case, I guess)

And why on earth is Everest (Aida) showing me this:

Sensor:
Motherboard -- 66 Degrees
CPU -- 70 Degrees

But then, under the overclock section, the sensor info says:
Motherboard -- 66 Degrees
CPU -- 77 Degrees

How does a 4-degree difference in CPU temperature even happen when I'm using the exact same program? 😕

To make matters worse, my BIOS shows the CPU temp at 86 degrees. Someone is definitely lying to me here! 😁

Look, I did some digging into this once. Apparently, there’s a whole mess of formulas out there trying to calculate the delta between what the BIOS reports and what something like Asus Probe or other hardware monitors show. Most of those math equations are way too damn complicated to be worth my time. At the end of the day, neither the BIOS nor the software is giving you the real truth anyway.

@ dustypilot23
I heard you picked up an Antec Lansing 2.1 setup—is it actually any good? What kind of RMS are we talking about here?

I did a bit of digging through some international tech forums, and I think I might have stumbled upon a potential answer here.
This info comes directly from the official Asus website.

"Both temperature readings are actually accurate. Once you enable HT mode, instructions from both logical processors run simultaneously using shared execution resources. This boosts CPU utilization and allows the processor to crank through more tasks in less time—essentially maximizing its overall efficiency. And, when you're maximizing that efficiency and utilization, it’s quite likely to result in lower CPU temperatures as well."

dustypilot23 said:well, they might not actually fluctuate much (just using a stock cooler with poor case airflow and that's basically it)

I find that hard to believe... I mean, what kind of airflow would you even need then??? Even when I pull a single fan out of my tower, the temperature drops by at least 2 or 3 degrees.

Frank Grant said:This is straight from the official Asus pages.

"Both temperature readings are accurate. Once HT mode is toggled on, instructions from both logical processors run at the same time... blah, blah, blahblahblah

Man, forget about HT. You're rocking an X-X board for an athlon =; you don't even have dual-channel DDR support, let alone some hyperthreading magic.

Good grief, the more I dig into this, the less sense it makes! I’ve been scouring all the tech forums, looking for a reason why there's such a massive discrepancy between what the BIOS reports and what PCMag shows for temperature readings, but I can't find a single decent explanation anywhere.
So, which one am I actually supposed to trust? The BIOS or the software? 😕

Look, forget all that noise. All that matters is if your rig actually works when you need it to (doesn't freeze up, doesn't crash, etc.)