I'll kick this off by saying that I've been looking forward to this site and hope there are many contributions.
I've been running an AMD Phenom II 940 Black Edition (unlocked) for a couple of months. It resides in an MSI K9A2 Platinum with 4-8800GTs. The 940 was using the stock heat sink and I was able to overclock it to 3400mhz, 17.0x200.
Both articles raved about the Prolimatech Megahalems (what kind of name is that?). So I purchased one along with the AMD mounting plate and a Noctua NF-P12 fan. After installing them my 4-core folding temps dropped to 39c. Idle is 27c while case temp is 32.
I was pretty shocked at a 30c drop in temps! I have not been able to get the cpu temperature over 42c while playing with my clocking. It'll boot XP at over 3900mhz but I can't fold at more than 3600 (for now), so that's where I'm currently running.
If anyone is looking for a GOOD heat sink I'd highly recommend this one. It fits in a mid sized case (I don't think it'll fit in a micro) and clears everything in a K9A2 with room to spare.
It's true that changing heatsink reduce heat of CPU and sometime the noise.
I always thought that AMD heatsinks were better than Intel's ones.
I've already heard some very good feedback on this heatsink.
39°C is an awesome result, particularly with this kind of OC.
And what about the GPU temps ?
Because 4 GPU like this should heat your case hardly.
Why 8800 GTS and not 9800GX2 ?
You can almost double your production rate with this babies.
I clicked on the globe, Add a Weblink and inserted the link. I guess I messed that up.
I've also heard that the stock heat sink is better than the intel but the AMD chip is a 125w unit. I also noted that the base on the AMD heatsink is not very flat which doesn't help. The base on the Prolimatech is slightly convex by design and they claim that provides better contact (maybe it pushes the cpu surface in a bit).
From what I'm seeing on the Prolimatech heat sink it appears it is capable of handling a much heavier heat load than 125w. At idle it's cooler than the case temp sensor by several degrees.
My gpu temps are 76, 66, 64 and 74 while folding. I've done some mods to the case to let hot air out above the gpu cards and that has helped a bit but the biggest factor is a pressurized case. I have 4 120mm fans blowing in and 1 120mm fan exhausting, in line with the cpu heat sink exhaust. Exhaust hot air moves out at a pretty high velocity from every hole in the case so there is no place air to sit and get hotter (at least that is my scientific explanation ) It's also not that big compared to the Ultra 120 and others. It fits nicely in a 8" wide mid tower.
As for the 8800GT's vs anything else, I have 7 folding in 3 machines. The nice part about the 8800GT is it is now cheap. You can pick them up on ebay for $50-60, and I have been running several for a couple of years so they are paid for.
I know at some point that I'll have to replace them but I'll wait until the prices come down on the newer modes.
These are some good temps for your gpus.
Do not expect such low temps with 9800GX2.
The only one I have with its OEM cooler alomost hit 80°C with 1 120mm blowing on it and a second 120mm exhausting the hot air from the cooler.
Can you tell me, if you fold under Linux, how many PPD you get from your OCed Phenom II ?
At a very stable 3600mhz it's getting about 5350ppd, running notfreds under VMware Workstation on 4 cores. I'm struggling with 3700mhz, but when it runs it's over 5600ppd. I'm dropping back to 3600 (18x200) until I come up with a few more ideas. I know heat is not an issue. It may be memory as this mb/cpu combination does not do DDR2-1066 very well so I'm running at DDR2-800. I've also left a few other settings on Auto so need to investigate them more.
Wow very nice result with the 4 GPUs running.
That's pretty impressive, I thought that AMD CPU were less efficient for folding but you're convincing me to get an AMD boards to make 8 GPU folding easier than with an 775 board.
4 sticks or 2 sticks of RAM ?
RAM SPD correctly detected (voltage, timings...) ?
I never had an AMD cpu, well a recent AMD cpu (a K6-2 300 MHz isn't up to date right ? ) so I can't give you any tips.
I have the gpu's running Real Time priority and VMware running at Below Normal, on Windows XP Pro 32. The AMD is running 2 x 2gb of GSkill and it reads the SPD fine but I've read that the K9A2 doesn't do 1066 very easily. I have not been able to get it to work at 1066.
If you compare the I7 and 940 at equal clock speeds I'd guess that the I7 is faster but it's also a lot more expensive. Here's an interesting article that does some folding comparisons.
Nice, I'll look forward AMD for my next GPU based system.
i7 are astonishing, from performance to price tag of the whole configuration.
Have You changed a Vcore ?
Yes, I raised Vcore to 1.48.
I dropped the multiplier to 17.5 and raised the fsb to 210 so now running at 3674mhz for the last couple of hours. I'll let it run overnight at this level before doing any more. It's currently running 5662ppd on P2669.
TMPIN0 is 42c. I'm a bit confused on cpu temperatures on the 940/K9A2. CPUID HW Monitor shows 2 sets of temperatures, one is TMPIN0 & 2. As I understand it 0 is the cpu temp and 2 is the temp somewhere on the system board (case temp ?). It also shows Core 0-3 temperatures which are always the same. I've read that these are not the real core temp and that TMPIN0 is, and that there is only 1 temperature diode on the CPU, not 4 as in the Intel quads. The Core 0-3 temps also always show exactly 10c more than the TMPIN0 temperature.