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Just buy the cheaper 955 and spend the money you save on a better cooler. It appears I got a pretty decent (understatement) 955 from TigerDirect for $119 on sale the other day. It's probably a down binned 970 but I'm not complaining!



stuff inside the box is in the sig. I used some Arctic Silver I had laying around from the 20th century. Nothin' fancy. Just good cooling. Dunno if it will hold up on prime95 for 20+ hours, we'll see. Doesn't seem to have any issues early on here. 4 GHz on air is nothing to sneeze at.

Cheers,
Todd

Very Nice.. I'm still trying to figure out how to properly OC these days.. It's no longer just a matter of changing multipliers or Bus speeds.. Using the AMD tool I've got my CPU running at 3.8ghz vs. the 3.4 stock..

eGo

eGoCeNTRoNiX wrote:Very Nice.. I'm still trying to figure out how to properly OC these days.. It's no longer just a matter of changing multipliers or Bus speeds.. Using the AMD tool I've got my CPU running at 3.8ghz vs. the 3.4 stock..

eGo

eGo,

All I did was up the multi and vcore in the BIOS. That and I tick the RAM voltage just a notch. ( 1.5v to 1.6v). You can try backing it down later too. that goes for the vcore as well.

I don't use those windows based, software OCers. I'm convinced that a major part of OCing is proper application of the thermal paste and getting a nice "grip" with the fan/hs. I still apply the paste the old fashioned way which is some paste about the size of a grain of rice and spread it around on the cpu with my finger wrapped in a piece of saran wrap. Then I try to get the HS mounted with as little movement as possible. After that is it's connect everything back up and cross your fingerz ! LOL

Cheers,
Todd

VidmanII wrote:spread it around on the cpu with my finger wrapped in a piece of saran wrap.

I use a razor blade

eGo

eGoCeNTRoNiX wrote:I use a razor blade

eGo

My hand's not that steady anymore. I'd be afraid I'd cut myself !

isn't this the right way .just a glob and squeeze the cooler down on top.
what you talking about speed the paste with plastic wrap or a razor blade. id kill my shick quantro razer if i did any such thing and i been using that shaver for over a year now.sure it was free from shick but not seen any free offers on the forum for a while

I'm waiting for the "sarcasm" tags or the I'm just kidding post..

eGo

Supposedly a blob in the middle is effective from a test I saw some time ago, but I feel better (especially with some of the less viscous pastes that are out) spreading a thin coat with my finger on both surfaces. I then twist them together until they they are so stuck together that you could hold the motherboard upside down without a mount & still stick together.

The new Intel Sandy bridge is unaccommodating to any overclocking except for in software as of yet. Fortunately, that's not so with AMD yet. I have found that v-core & buss speed are still the defining factors in a good overclock. Maybe a tweak to a couple other settings, but frequently, you'll hear about it in reviews if it needs it.

I have been seriously eyeing the 995 for my next upgrade

normalicy wrote:Supposedly a blob in the middle is effective from a test I saw some time ago, but I feel better (especially with some of the less viscous pastes that are out) spreading a thin coat with my finger on both surfaces. I then twist them together until they they are so stuck together that you could hold the motherboard upside down without a mount & still stick together.

The new Intel Sandy bridge is unaccommodating to any overclocking except for in software as of yet. Fortunately, that's not so with AMD yet. I have found that v-core & buss speed are still the defining factors in a good overclock. Maybe a tweak to a couple other settings, but frequently, you'll hear about it in reviews if it needs it.

I have been seriously eyeing the 995 for my next upgrade

Yep, I've seen sites saying to just blob it in the middle too. Strange. I kind of do a swirl pattern with my finger with it ending up being " a little thicker" towards the center, but not much. Somebody had a picture a few years back of a guy who looked like he had thrown it on there with a soup spoon. LOL, it was a mess.

BTW, still chugging along here this morning with prime95 @ 4.017GHz. 16 hours now. That's plenty for me. 24hrs is cruel and unusual punishment. :-) It survived overnight and my kid messin' with it early this morning before school. Close enough.

Very Nice Got me itching to go back into my bios and goof around..

eGo