MedievalNerd

Push or pull fan is not impacted by which connector it goes to (3 or 4). From what I understand the 4 pin one is the one that registers the fan speed, so only 1 fan is being monitored. But both fans will receive the same amount of current, regardless of the number of pins. So you dont' need to worry which fan is plug where, you should just make sure they are linked. (which you are already doing) Great, thanks for the help. I think I'm ready to order the parts now. Do you think I will see a noticeable difference with the second fan? Don't expect it to change drasticly, but you could easily see 2 - 5 Celcius in difference. (depends on the cooler & fans)

Push or pull fan is not impacted by which connector it goes to (3 or 4). From what I understand the 4 pin one is the one that registers the fan speed, so only 1 fan is being monitored. But both fans will receive the same amount of current, regardless of the number of pins. So you dont' need to worry which fan is plug where, you should just make sure they are linked. (which you are already doing)

I didn't disable my cores. Enable multicore from I understand is similar to unpark cores. Makes all cores run at 100% all the time. Would this decrease the lifespan of the cpu? What do you mean when you say pump? I don't have liquid cooling. I use EVGA precision for fan curve I use the aggressive fan profile. Oh, my bad. I didnt' even read your CPU model properly. :/ Just saw this: Processor 1 ID = 0 Number of cores 6 (max 8) Number of threads 12 (max 16) And assumed you had a 5960X with 2 cores disabled. Also, yeah, sorry for the pump reference, I seem to assume many things theses days. You clearly said in your initial post you were running on air! Pretty sure getting read of CPU Stepping would have 'some' effect on the lifespan of the CPU, it's probably similar to not having adaptive voltage. But I mean if you are within safe limits, I can't see that as something to be concerned with. I personally can't have my Core on adaptive voltage, my 5820k just doesn't play nice with it. I leave it on fixed at 1.312, same with the cache voltage, which I keep at 1.163~. But I do leave stepping on, so when I'm browsing they tend to all stay pretty much at 1.2Ghz each. You'll get really low idle temps this way. If noise is something that bothers you I tend to setup my fan profiles in 2 or 3 plateaus. Idle, moderate, full. After a while I was able to see the average temperatures of my components, and just set the temperature cutoff in locations that makes it so that it doesn't jump between plateaus, but rather stays there once it reaches it. This avoids hearing you fans go up/down, which I find more distracting than having your fans full blast at all times. You cant' get used to it, but that's all more about personal taste. For noise it's really just about experimenting how hot your component gets, and see how much fan speed it needs to be able to sustain it. Or whichever you that gets you to a comfortable setting that doesn't make you go crazy. In the end as long as you aren't holding back the fan speed when you are near/on full load, then it's going to be fine. I'm not very familiar with HW Monitor, I prefer to use Aida64 with AI Suite III and Precision X. That way I can peek at my system performance at all times. I highly recommend it! One of the best thing is with something like this you can tell right away if you get a bottleneck somewhere. Can you get more out of it at your current voltage? Is your core set to 1.36? or 1.42?

Why did you disable two of your cores? Also, I havent noticed this setting you speak of, give it a whirl! For any stuff you aren't 100% sure might as well toggle it and see if you get any improvements. I think fans and pump going at 100% on boot is normal, I get the very same behavior regardless of my fan profile. At idle, I keep my front fans at 1000 rpm, rear fans at 900rpm. For watching movies and browsing I tend to keep my pump at 1900rpm (out of 4500). Arr you using AI SUITE 3 for fan control? That's what I use and found it really easy to work with to build fan curves.

Considering how, still today, quite a few games are very heavy on a single thread, it's definitely worth it. Maybe not get 'more' FPS on the high end, but you'll surely see much less FPS drops, as Waco said. (assuming that they are CPU related.) Although not necessarily fun, you can actually measure the gains you are getting by running the benchmarks of your favorite games before and after the OC.

I personally haven't really seen substantial benefits when OC'ing my RAM. I'd focus more on getting your core ratio up, and once that's high enough and stable, move to trying to OC your cache ratio. I've seen marginal improvements to increasing it, but nothing astounding. Cheers,

This might be of help, but it's a bit old I think. http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=36561735&postcount=114 As hornybluecow said, I think that Intel 'forced' Motherboard manufacturers to update their bios to remove non-k overclocking.

Isn't 1.382 on the core a little high for the i7-6700k? Perhaps a bit of apple & oranges, but I try to keep my 5820k on the very low end of 1.3xx. (Currently using 1.312V)

I took a look at the stats of the Helix 140PWM and the 2 latest models of Bitfenix. The non-PWM version is much lower in terms of RPM. So you do save a bit of noise output, but you have a significant loss in Static/Air Pressure which is something worth considering for radiator usage. Not worth it IMHO, considering a PWM fan can be regulated to run low when the system is idle, so you get massive decrease in noise output. as I mentioned in my above post, my system idles at 30db, it's barely noticeable 4 feet away. On the other hand the PWM version of Bitfenix seems to be quite the beast! It's got an even higher static/air pressure than the Helix 140PWM. And it gets apparently an extra 30-ish CFM in airflow, with about 0.5 mmH20 in air pressure. With a measly 0.4 increase in db output! I'm impressed! And one could say that the Bitfenix fans look a bit snazzier than Swiftech fans, and they come in all black where switchech are black & white. All that for an extra 2.45$ USD. I have to say that the pricing of these fans is rather competitive to Noctua, they have their 140mm PWM fans at 24.95$. Bit Fenix Pro PWM Costs : 16.95$ USD (as per performance-pcs.com) (LINK) Helix 140PWM Costs: 14.50$ USD (as per performance-pcs.com) (LINK) Here are the Helix 140 PWM stats: Speed range 700+/- 25% ~ 1800+/- 10% RPM Airflow range 35 ~ 90 CFM Static pressure range 0.25 ~ 2.29 mmH20 Noise level range <8.3 ~ <28.8 dB/A And here are the Bitfenix Pro 140mm stats: Dimensions (mm) 140x140x25mm Current (A) 0.18A

With all my fans at 100% my system outputs 41db, and only 30db at idle. Pretty darn good considering I have 6 of the Helix 1800rpm fans in my case. With an extra NF-F12 & NF-A14.

Swiftech Helix 140PWM fans are pretty good. Have a high static pressure and go all the way to 1800RPM. If you live in the US they usually go for 15$ or so each.

Just a obvious tip, when you opened your PSU is was rather dusty in there mate. You might want to spray your case at regular intervals with compressed air. Clear the rad, PSU, GPU and the intake/outake grills. If you have caked dust in any of those areas it'll hamper cooling.

If the pump doesn't vibrate at all, it's probably not working. I've had horrible experience with AIO coolers, specifically with the pump. Not with Corsair, but with Swiftech, I went through 3 H240X in 6 months. All of them had the pump die on me. And let me tell you, as someone else mentioned, it gets hot very, very fast when the pump is dead. My lazy google-fu says that you can't get to BIOS without a CPU installed, so your best bet at this point is to try booting with your stock cooler installed. And just to touch back on your heating concerns from your GPU. If it's a blower type shroud, you shouldn't really be concerned of your GPU temps in terms of affecting your motherboard. Might see the mobo itself get warmer (heat transfer through the PCI-E slot) but the vast majority of the hot air is going to be blow outside the case.

If it can act as a point of reference, for everyday use I stay at 4.5Ghz @ 1.312V on the core, and my Cache clock at 4.0Ghz @ 1.165V. Are you using fixed Voltage or Adaptive? If you are using a high voltage and can get away with Adaptive it's the best. Since when you aren't pushing your system, it'll keep the voltage low. What's are your VRM & PCH temps like btw?

I'm using a custom layout with AIDA64, everything I've ever wanted! lol