Cool to see that Noctua NT-H1 worked out much better. What type/brand were you using before this?
At $2 I am almost thinking it was the cheap white stuff that I avoid like the plague, however maybe you got a good deal on a better type.
11 degrees reduction on the heavy use and 7 degrees on idle is pretty good!
At some point if I ever overclock my 2.6Ghz Athlon II x4 620 to 3.2Ghz, I might have to get a better compound. I already know that the 65w heatsink that I am using even though is fine with my existing 95w CPU would likely have to be upgraded, and possibly liquid cooled at 3.2 Ghz to keep the temp at less than 70C.
Current temps are very cool at idle with cpu idle at 780mhz around 35C with speed stepping "Cool n' Quiet" enabled, and then when running a game such as Driver San Francisco which pegs it at constant 2600mhz and 60 -> 75% CPU utilization it stays at around 54C. If it were 60C, I'd probably upgrade the heatsink to try to get it back into the low 50's.
Background room temp also directly impacts cooling and so this summer when its 100F outside and around 80F to 85F indoors, that will be a good test for my setup. Although when its too nice outside to be indoors, my computer is off anyways vs sweltering in the stuffy warm house.
* A few years ago when i was overclocking my Pentium D 3Ghz, I almost got a free small office cube refrigerator that worked ( but my wife said otherwise ). I was going to drill 2 holes into the front door and add barbed fittings and have a coil of rubber tubing inside the fridge, plus still have the door functional for sticking drinks inside to keep cool under my desk, and have clear rubber tubing from the door of the fridge to my computers CPU and liquid cooling pump. Had I done this, that probably would have been a very cool running CPU. At some point I may still want to do this, but right now I am not overclocking and temps are fine, although it would be nice to have chilled drinks within reach of computer when gaming!
