So, I'm a noob when it comes to
OC and WC, but I'm bouncing around the net one day and I come across Spode's, where he's talking about the experiments he and SurlyJoe did with direct-die a while back. I'm looking at the numbers and I'm thinking, 'this sounds like a Good Thing'. Being of questionable sanity and a geek to the extreme I figure I'll jump right in.
So, I build my own direct-die water block. The initial results were, to say the least, disappointing. I had better luck with my stock
HSF. After much work and refinement, I finally come up with a water block that will let me
OC my 3200+ Barton to about 2.5 Ghz (202 FSB and 12.5 multiplier) with the VCore at 2.0v. This is pushing my system to the ragged edge of stability. Here're my observations and questions:
Mobo temp when running CPU burn hovers around 3C above ambient (measured this with my RadioShack thermal meter; dunno how accurate it is, but seems pretty close). CPU runs about 30C above water temp (CPU temp measured by socket thermister and read by MBM, water temp measured by CrapShack meter). I think I can get more performance out of the chip, but I can't keep it cool enough, and experience shows that when MBM gets a reading of 60C or better on the CPU, the system is getting ready to lock up.
Doing the math on power consumption vs clock frequency vs temp rise, I'm supposedly getting about .25C/W out of this setup. Does this seem reasonable? The numbers I've seen on other sites would seem to indicate that a good water block can get into the .15C/W - .2C/W, without the associated headaches of direct-die. However, we all know about benchmarks and how you have to be carefull in comparing the measurements and drawing conclusions from them. Is it reasonable to have to push the 3200+ to 2.0V to get 2.5 Ghz out of it? 120W is a LOT of power, and does the temp rise I'm measuring seem reasonable?
I'm also measuring a drop of about 1C across my radiator (Ford Escort Heater Core). This doesn't seem like enough. Is it?