Urgent upgrade from stock CPU fan.

[Hameister]

I agree, for a mid-tower case the Scout is one of the better air flow chassis, as is the HAF 922.

 

[Jasy19]

I ordered the Vortex Plus, and I am also going to modify my case slightly by adding some vent holes on the side panels. I'd much rather attempt to make it have better ventilation rather than buy a new case.

 

[Hameister]

Gotcha on the case, if your mods are well implemented, that will work as well.

Have you researched that Vortex Plus? Do you think it will be any better than the stock HSF? They look much the same, and I know nothing about the Vortex Plus.

 

[Der-PC-Mann]

Got to be honest, buying that processor was a mistake, unless you absolutely need all those cores and stuff. Sell it, and go get something that'll solve all your problems: an FX-4100 - this is what I'd do anyway. Mine's at 4.2GHz, overclocked, with amazing temps, maxing at 55c ish. And yes, absolutely you need the proper case. You've put a formula car thing engine into a Mini... basically. Also, this CPU has so far annihilated anything I throw at it, including many modern games maxed. I also have good airflow with fancy fans, etc, and those things, while costly, are important. I guess you have learned a valuable lesson here, about prioritizing.

BTW, what Hameister said about advice on the Internet made me laff, and I absolutely agree with it... I read the most inane stuff online sometimes. xD

 

[Jasy19]

It was a pre-built computer. But I don't see why it was a mistake, it is definitely a great processor, albeit having huge voltages causing all the heat in the first place.
But yes, I am loving the 8 cores as I do lots of music editing in my spare time, haven't overloaded my CPU once.

Annoyingly, I got the Vortex Plus yesterday. Opened it all up and the retention bars provided had one of the side "Square's" broken. I tried to see if they were even the right size and it seemed they were slightly too long for the, presumably AM3 bracket as shown in my pictures. So I don't really know what to think of that. Contacted the seller about returns for a broken product. But wondering myself if soldering the damn thing back on would work? Though my guess is solder wouldn't be strong enough, though I'm sure it has a heat resistance of 90C at minimum, not exactly of high intelligence about these things though.

Also, I have since made some ventilation holes on both sides of my case, I can post some pictures sometime to see what I've done, but it's dropped my temps by at least 5C. I'm still around the 65C-70C on max load.

 

[aPanzerIV]

A person can find very solid, and informative advice on Internet forums. Then again, I also see advice such as post #4, which is completely misleading, and inaccurate, no matter how well intended.

There are some excellent HSF with top mounted fans. That is no criteria for determining quality. A vertically mounted fan is no guarantee that it is of high quality, or that it needs thermal paste.

Now Jasy19, you can follow the advice in post 4, or we can continue with a proper methodical approach to correcting your problem. Which will it be, because you can't do both.

If you'd like to continue, and you have no idea what HSF you have, just take a couple of good clear photos, so I can see what it is, and how it's mounted.

Here's a video that shows the stock FX 8120 HSF...see if this one is yours, or Google yourself some photos to verify.

Bulldozer Build: AMD FX-8120 Bulldozer 8 core - YouTube

I was not saying that all top mounted fans are crap. I am saying that it is a rare occurrence these days that a 3rd party fan be top mounted, thus, if you have a top mounted fan in your computer, it is highly likely that is a stock cooler, which a lot of the time are incapable of keeping processors within their thermal limits. This can be fixed sometimes with better thermal paste and sometimes it requires a better heatsink. I say it might require a better heatsink because I have noticed the diminishing quality of the stock heatsinks that come with the amd and intel products I buy, and considering the 8150 is a 125 watt processor, it does require more than most stock cooling can provide. I am not saying that side mounted coolers are better in any way, and I have had many side mounted coolers utterly fail at their intended purpose. Example: I have an E7500 with the stock cooler. I have arctic silver 5 on it, with 2 fans in my case, with the stock cooler the processor tops out at 58C Celsius, that is perfectly fine for that processor, but the same heatsink is used on the core 2 quad, which is a 95 watt processor, and because I am already using arctic silver 5, there is no other option for better cooling than to upgrade the heatsink. I strongly recommend upgrading the cooling in any computer because no matter how long you plan on keeping it, it ensures more reliable and prolonged operation.