Originally posted by Thunder
Really? 
I don't know, I've got a heat sink/fan on my CPU thats rated for 1.6GHz Athlons.. the CPU runs at a steady 51 degrees - goes up to 55 during gameplay and the sides on the case are off anyway. I get the feeling that's way to hot...
well when you asked about a cooling method, i wanted to know if you wanted to use fans, water, freon, etc.
Shrike: Watercooling is a good idea, i was going to suggest that, but it often requires massive modification of your entire system. Also, there's no point watercooling just the processor. if you've going to set up teh entire watercooling system, then may as well have it cooling your graphics card and hard drive at the same time, and even your power supply.
If you're looking on overclocking, then i'd say definately go with Pentium processors though, since Athlon aren't made for clocking.
Read more about optimum processor temperature, as well as a test of two athlons and two pentiums (Athlon T-bird, P3, P4, Athlon MP) here:
http://www6.tomshardware.com/cpu/01q3/010917/heatvideo-01.htmlit's very interesting, i suggest you read
If you're really concerned about the temperature, then why not invest in a freon cooled system, as i mentioned earlier. They're not very common, but they run so cold, ther's not a slight chance of the processor overheating. My friend has a freon cooled system... here's how it boots (it's incredible):
1) Press the power button to start the system up. nothing starts... instead, a little digital display displays the current processor temperature.
2) There's a little whirring noise, and the temperature on the display starts dropping at a incredibly fast pace... there's a change of about 10 degrees every second (farenheit).
3) When it hits a certain (preset) temperature the system actually starts up...
of course the system monitors the temperature of the processor, and adjusts the temperature accordingly. it's incredibly cold though... in theory, if you placed a can of beer in a fridge that was that cold... it would be frozen solid in like 3.6 seconds.
... no chance of overheating whatsoever
oh, and If you're not familiar with the watercooling concept, basically it's just pretty much pumping water continuously through a processor (of course it's got a special case and all
... it's also a special kind of water, with special chemicals and stuff
