Zalman 9700 heatsink with i7 core

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Elantos

New Member
Hey,
I've recently built myself a new rig. I'm using an i7 920 core with a Zalman 9700LED heat sink. However, when I run the thing under load, the temperature rises up to above 75 C and was still rising so I stopped it. The fan is also turned right up. What could be causing this? The cpu is also not OC'd so I wasn't expecting it to go that high :s.
 
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Elantos

New Member
I did indeed, to the cpu and the base of the heatsink. It was just a thin layer though, do you think i might need more on? Just that it's a pain to put on and take off.
I think I forgot to mention this was under prime 95 load. Idol, it runs around 45 C.
 
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Elantos

New Member
StrangleHold said:
Have you got the fan facing the front of the case, the fan is a puller.
Click to expand...

Ahhhhh, yes, thanks for that. The fan was facing the wrong way. How embarasing. I've swapped it round now. There's a small improvement, it's peeking at around 72 degrees C. I'mstill thinking this is a littl too high though, but I guess I rarely have it under so much load.
 
Jet

Jet

VIP Member
with prime95, 72C is decent. The i7 is a beast and cranks out the heat--but it can take up to 100C (not that I'd run it that high, but up to 80C or so is good).
 
StrangleHold

StrangleHold

Moderator
Staff member
The 9700 has a pretty good finish so you just need about a small rice size amount of compound in the middle of the CPU. Just mentioned that because you said, I put it on the heatsink and CPU.
 
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Elantos

New Member
StrangleHold said:
The 9700 has a pretty good finish so you just need about a small rice size amount of compound in the middle of the CPU. Just mentioned that because you said, I put it on the heatsink and CPU.
Click to expand...

That's what I use to do with other heat sinks, but the instruction manual said spread it on both. They had a pot of thermal paste and supplied a brush with it so I thought I might as well go along with it...

Just a thought, I have some artic cooling silver based thermal paste left over from my previous heat sink. But I noticed that the Zalman paste is zinc oxide based. Which is better? Or is there no real difference?
 
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