Hardware Discussion Thread

**NaturalViolence** · (This post was last modified: 11-18-2013, 02:47 AM by NaturalViolence.)

@Xtreme2damax
What cooler do you have now for the i7 950?

As far as temperatures go:
1. Thermal tolerances are different from one microarchitecture to another. 80C may be too hot for one architecture but normal for another. Generally newer architectures like Haswell are designed to run a bit hotter.
2. You should focus more on thermal emission and dissipation than temperature. As temperature will be determined by both how much cooling you have and how high you decide to OC the chip. As well as a number of other more minor factors.
3. Haswell is a bit less efficient at dissipating heat because of the use of TIM instead of fluxless solder between the IHS and die. However its stock TDP is MUCH lower (83 W vs. 130 W) and that's at a higher clock rate (3.5 GHz vs. 3.0 GHz). So 83 watts at 3.5GHz vs. 130 watts at 3.0 GHz......yeah. And keep in mind to reach a 4.2GHz OC is a 40% OC on the i7 950 but only a 20% OC on the i7 4770K. The former will require a significant voltage increase while the latter will not. The result? Haswell should run much cooler with the same 4.2GHz overclock even with the TIM.

**Xtreme2damax** · 11-18-2013, 05:10 AM **#182**

I have two coolers, a Thermaltake Frio and a Cooler Master V8. I may have to get a new cooler because both need some kind of repair. Recently the fan control knobs broke off the Frio and the V8 needs a new screw for the bracket. I tried to resolder the fan control knobs back onto the Frio but I kind of suck at soldering and don't have proper equipment for fine soldering so I was unable to fix it.

**NaturalViolence** · 11-18-2013, 09:10 AM **#183**

You could probably easily rewire it to not use the fan speed knob at all. Just plug the fan straight into a 3 pin connector (+ and Gnd, only 2 wires are needed if I recall).

Contact cooler master to get the screws replaced. Both of those coolers are excellent and would be fine choices for OCing haswell.

**Xtreme2damax** · (This post was last modified: 11-18-2013, 10:16 AM by Xtreme2damax.)

Since the fan control knob is broke there are two wires exposed. How can I close the circuit, would electrical tape be sufficient enough or would there be a more proper way? It seems silly to leave the wires open even if it does work alright like that.

Looks like I could have my new hardware as soon as December or January at the latest, could have been sooner if I could find a buyer for my i7 950, GTX 460 and monitor. I suppose I could keep them for a spare build if I can find a decent LGA1366 motherboard somewhere. When I get the new board and cpu I am going to handle them with utmost care; I can't help but think I may have done something wrong that contributed to premature failure of my boards.

Btw does anyone have any tips for proper cable and wire management? I've been trying to use zip ties to tidy up cabling but cables and wires still seem to be all over. Not as clean as I've seem for some builds that have been posted here or on other forums.

**NaturalViolence** · 11-18-2013, 10:42 AM **#185**

Xtreme2damax Wrote:Since the fan control knob is broke there are two wires exposed. How can I close the circuit, would electrical tape be sufficient enough or would there be a more proper way? It seems silly to leave the wires open even if it does work alright like that.

Pictures?

Xtreme2damax Wrote:Looks like I could have my new hardware as soon as December or January at the latest, could have been sooner if I could find a buyer for my i7 950, GTX 460 and monitor. I suppose I could keep them for a spare build if I can find a decent LGA1366 motherboard somewhere. When I get the new board and cpu I am going to handle them with utmost care; I can't help but think I may have done something wrong that contributed to premature failure of my boards.

It could have just been your OC. Thankfully more modern Intel CPUs have everything integrated onto the die so you can't fuck up the chipset by overvolting it anymore.

Xtreme2damax Wrote:Btw does anyone have any tips for proper cable and wire management? I've been trying to use zip ties to tidy up cabling but cables and wires still seem to be all over. Not as clean as I've seem for some builds that have been posted here or on other forums.

Cable ties, a modular PSU, and a chasis with proper cable paths.

**Xtreme2damax** · (This post was last modified: 11-18-2013, 12:02 PM by Xtreme2damax.)

Can't get a good picture, crappy camera on a tablet. It's the red and black wires that were hooked to the knob. Btw will I get better performance with a Haswell i7 at stock clock than my first gen i7 950 @ 4.2 Ghz? If so I may not overclock my Haswell so I can get max longevity out of the new hardware.

**NaturalViolence** · 11-18-2013, 12:07 PM **#187**

Crappy picture > no picture

No picture, no help. Sorry.

**Xtreme2damax** · (This post was last modified: 11-19-2013, 09:48 AM by Xtreme2damax.)

Alright I will try to get some pictures whenever I can. I have to pull the heatsink/fan off again before I can take a picture. As for my second question about stock clock Haswell i7 performing better than my i7 950 @ 4.2 Ghz?

Edit:

Just acquired two computers that I've been working on. I got an old 2007 HP that used to be mine, then gave it to my mother, then it went to my sister and back to me. The other one is an Acer Aspire; my mother gave it to me after my father bought her another tower. My father replaced it because it was driving them crazy, the fans would start revving after it had been on a while and it was noisy as heck. When my mother gave it to me today I opened it up; I saw dust caked on the fan and heatsink. I unscrewed the fan from the heatsink, wiped the fan down, wiped the top of the heatsink down, then took the vacuum to them to get as much dust as I could. Wiped down what I could inside the case and wiped down the outside of the case. I am currently using it until I can replace the faulty motherboard in my PC which won't be until at least January. These are the specifications of the two computers I got..

Acer Aspire AX1420G-U5832
AMD Athlon II X4 645
Nvidia Geforce 6150SE
4GB DDR3 Ram
1TB Hard Drive
Windows 7 x64

HP Pavilion Slimline s7700n
AMD Athlon X2 3800+
Nvidia Geforce 6150LE
2GB DDR2 Ram
500GB Hard Drive (Not exactly sure on this)
Windows Vista Home Premium 32-bit

**AnyOldName3** · 11-19-2013, 10:36 AM **#189**

As for Haswell's performance, if it helps I can play the first two (and maybe more) galaxies of SMG1 at fullspeed without an overclock on my 4670K.

**NaturalViolence** · 11-19-2013, 10:40 AM **#190**

I only need a picture of the wiring and the knob thing. You shouldn't need to pull the heatsink off for that.

Xtreme2damax Wrote:As for my second question about stock clock Haswell i7 performing better than my i7 950 @ 4.2 Ghz?

As always "it depends on the application". Stock haswell will outperform your i7 950 @ 4.2GHz by at least 10% in dolphin.