NZFF

Following on from my other thread on the micro ATX build, I mentioned I was going to change it up a bit and ordered a CPU Cooler for my current rig.

So I Ordered a Noctua NH-D14 last weekend and it arrived today, I'd heard that it was a big air cooler and one of the top few for air cooling. Well the size of it is huge, but it fits nicely into my HAF X, and was very easy to install (first time I've had to do anything more than reseat ram on a computer). No hiccups with installing it or attaching all the connections to the motherboard again. Booted up, very small amount of noise with the side panel off and silent with it on. Very happy with it and I went straight to check the CPU temps as soon as I was able to.

With the stock I7 2600k cooler, it was hovering around 45 degrees idle, and under full load it was peaking around 85 degrees.
With the Noctua, it was hovering around 25 degrees idle, and under full load only just hit 51 degrees.

So after that I decided I can overclock it a bit. I've NEVER done any sort of overclocking before, to be honest I've looked at some things on how to do it and found all the acronyms and abbreviations to be overwhelming and that's about as far as I got. That was until I found this guide (http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1578110) which is based on the same motherboard and BIOS I had to navigate. I've followed it to a T, and was done with it in an hour. Now I've still not done any stability tests which I will do tomorrow, but I've ran it in wPrime and watched the temps.

So now I believe I have a 4.9GHZ CPU, at idle it sits around 35 degrees and under 100% load only just gets over 70 degrees. Results are here for the wPrime result http://www.wprime.net/Scores/17279/View and from memory it took about 3 minutes 30 before I overclocked to do that.

Hopefully these pics help with the finer details, any insight if I've done well or something to be aware of?

Wow a nice overclock there Peppermint. Be nice to see how it stacks up in stability tests.

Well I was about to come on here and post that I've had no problems with it yet, no BSOD, no sudden crashes etc though still haven't done a proper stress/stability test. However when I booted this morning I came in to find it sitting on the boot screen with a message 'Overclocking failed, press F1 to go to the BIOS menu'. I was a little surprised by this but have gotten past it and booted windows, ran wPrime and CPUZ again and it would appear that it's been downclocked to 4.8ghz (auto down clock or is this the failed 4.9 clock?). Who knows.

A quick google search brought up some results that it's entirely possible my EVGA precision could caus that error message too, which I have been using to put a very slight OC on the video card.

Been the longest of times since I played FSX aswell, but I started again the other day to see how much of a difference the CPU OC would make, and it's night and day. Before I would struggle to get 15 frames in heavy weather in an averagely detailed plane. Now I'm able to fly in the same heavy weather, with autogen bumped up a bit in the PMDG 737 and don't often drop below 30fps. Also a big improvement in Arma 2, I can now use scopes with grass in view without dropped to single digit frames!


Edit - Haven't had the same issue after a few reboots so I'm going to assume it was something to do with evga precision.

Edit 2- Something I've only just picked up on today, the big fan on the cooler actually extends a bit below the bottom of the radiators, I knew that by reading reviews on the cooler beforehand. What I wasn't expecting though was the effect it's had on cooling the video card, it's running about 8 degrees cooler than it was before I had the cooler installed which I'm really surprised and pleased about. It used to idle at 35 degrees, now it's idling at 28, haven't checked it under load yet but I'm sure it's cooler than it was before. Guess this is an added bonus! $180 well spent.