Hi guys. I have the above Asus Maximus Formula Mobo and I am looking for recommendations for a CPU cooler. I just completed my first OC and after running Prime 95 I got some temps under full load at a max of 63 degrees, but averaging around 60 degrees. I am running an E8400 at 9 X 387 for a modest speed of 3.48ghz. Although 63 degrees max isn't too bad under test, and running FSX it only reaches around 58 degrees, I would like to try and get it cooler. Perhaps I could get to 3.6ghz more comfortably.I went to my local Microcenter tonight in Dallas and was recommended an OCZ OCZTVEND2 120mm Rifle CPU Cooler - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16835202007 . When I took the computer back to get it installed, the installer said it was to big and would touch the heat sinks on the mobo. See pic below.http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/192766.jpgI wanted to see if anyone here is running the same motherboard and could make a recommendation. The installer also said I should get one that screws in and not clips on. I have a Antec 900 case and the mobo is mounted vertically. Due to this the guys said that the clips could come loose and become detached, causing an over heat. Understandable cuase some of these CPU coolers are pretty heavy. However they couldn't really make a recommendation I which one I should try, and they had a lot to choose from.Thanks in advance for any help.Sean

Hi Sean,I'm using the same board and processor. I use the Zalman cooler listed in my specs. I highly recommend it. My case is pretty big and I'm not well versed in the Antech cases though, so I don't know if the size would be an issue. As for effectiveness, it's outstanding. You can see my temps in the pics on my post in another thread here:http://forums.avsim.net/dcboard.php?az=sho..._id=43305&page=You'll notice that I'm running my FSB alot faster than yours is set.Under load, I'll see core temps no higher than about 53c and my CPU temp has never gone above 39C. The northbridge temp on the hottest of days never exceeds 68c under load. Normal is closer to 62c and about 53c at idle in a room that stays around 70f.Hope this helps.Regards,Jeff

Thanks Jeff. That cooler looks like it will be perfect. I didn't know that it was going to be that hard to find a good cooler when I bought that mobo, due to the heat sinks or pipes on the board. Is your mobo mounted vertically or horizontally? Any what paste are you using? The reason I ask about being vertical or not is because of the strenght of the clips and it coming loose while hanging sideways.BTW, we have almost the same system. I have the E8400, same mobo and same RAM, EVGA 8800 GTS 512, different HD's and cases. This is my first OC. I have never been brave enought to try it but thought that if I went in small steps I probably couldn't do any damage, that why I started at only 387 fsb and 1.21875 cpu volts. Perhaps I can try lowering the voltage a little and see if that will reduce temps.If you wouldn't mind looking at my settings to see how they look I would appreciate it since its my first time and we have the same processor, mobo, and ram.AI Overclock Timer (Manual)CPU Ratio Setting (Auto)FSB Freq (387)FSB Strap to North Bridge (Auto)PCIE Freq (Auto)DRAM FREQ (DDR2-930 mhz) ***See below for explanationDRAM Command rate (Auto)DRAM Timing Control (Manual)CAS# Latency (5 clocks)RAS# to CAS (5 clocks)RAS# precharge (5 clocks)RAS# active time (15 clocks)all other DRAM stuff on autoAI CLOCK TWISTER (Auto)Transaction Booster (Auto)CPU Voltage (1.21875 V)CPU PLL Voltgage (Auto)North Bridge Voltgage (Auto)DRAM Voltgage (Auto) Everything else down on Auto*** On the RAM setting I set it on DDR2-800 and when I change the FSB frequency it automatically changes the DRAM Frequency. I know the RAM is rated at 1066mhz, but if I set it to that then change the FSB freq then DRAM freq changes also. Should I set the FSB freq first then manually change the DRAM freq to 1066? I am not sure how to figure out the part about running 1:1. Like I said, I am new to OC'ing and still learing and researching. Since you have the same stuff I got you are the perfect one to ask. Thanks again for the CPU cooler suggestion. I cant wait to hear back and see what you thing about my settings and my other question about the CPU cooler being mounted vertically.Regards,SeanBTW, I can only imaging the performance you must be getting. I am running FSX REALLY well as it is since I used the FS-GS service, but even with my small OC, I am able to fly into denser places like LAX and such, with pretty much everything set to max with AI at 100%, and still not dip below 20 fps very often. Prior I would get into the mid to upper teens, which was still really flyable considering my settings. So I can only imagin when I get the OC upped a little more and cleaned up.

Ok Sean, here we go. I'm going to answer the easy ones first.My mobo is is mounted vertically and I've seen no issues with the cooler's stability. I had my system built by a custom builder and it shipped with the cooler attached. If UPS couldn't break it, I don't think you will. :) I did have to replace the cooler because the fan was slightly mis-aligned but the cooler is very securely attached. For the paste, I used ARCTIC COOLING, MX-2 High-Performance Thermal Compound, Non-Electrical Conductive. You don't need alot. I recommend that you do a google search for the proper way to apply it. I could explain it but, it makes much more sense if you see pictures. I don't have any available. I understand how you feel about overclocking. This was my first too.This mobo makes it easy. Make sure you read the manual as it explains the safety features and how to recover if the oc fails. Nice thing is if it hangs, just reboot and it will start up with default settings. Ok, now, I don't generally like to give oc settings because, no matter how similar our systems, no two systems work exactly the same. I can't stress enough that you need to do research on overclocking to learn it properly. All of these settings are, or may be, interdependent. The thread that I mentioned with my pics goes into some detail about my OC. Please read that in it's entirety. Most all my RAM settings are there as well. Nick N is the resident expert in these things so, I recommend you read everything he's posted on the subject as well.Lastly, for the legal stuff, these settings work for ME on MY system. I can't guarantee that you will see the same results. I'm not responsible if something goes wrong. With that said, here we go.AI Overclock Timer (Manual)CPU Ratio Setting 8.5FSB Freq 450FSB Strap to North Bridge 333MHzPCIE Freq (Auto) or 100. Auto should be fine.DRAM FREQ With the strap set to 333, you should see three choices, 901MHz, 1081MHz, and 1441MHz. 1081MHz will give you the 5:6 ratio I have.DRAM Command rate (Auto) or 2TNow we can look at the timings. First though, is to get your overclock stable at the stock timings so leave them at 5-5-5-15 for now. At those timings I've had those sticks up past 1200MHz.A 450MHz FSB with an 8.5 multiplier will give you 3.825 GHz. The closer you get to that 450MHz FSB, the better the 5:6 ratio will perform. If you use 9 instead of 8.5 you'll see 4.05 GHZ but, FS9 on my system gets cranky if I go above about 3.95GHz. Once you get the hang of this stuff, you can fiddle around with different settings to see what works best for you. DRAM Timing Control (Manual)CAS# Latency (5 clocks)RAS# to CAS (5 clocks)RAS# precharge (5 clocks) (15 clocks)My timing and subtimings info is in those pics too (memset). You can set the RAS# precharge to 3 and the RAS# active time to 13 but, you'll need more juice so, you'll see the settings below that I use. At 5-5-3-13, your best stable RAM speed will be about 1100MHz.AI CLOCK TWISTER StrongTransaction Booster DisabledRelax Level 0CPU Voltage (1.32v-1.45v) mine is set to about 1.42 but, I recommend that you use just what's necessary for a stable overclock. Don't go above 1.45v though. See, this is where the learning part comes in because your fsb speed, ram speeds and timings will all have an impact on what you need here. Start at 1.32v and work your way up as needed. It's all trial and error. CPU PLL Voltgage (Auto)North Bridge Voltgage 1.59v-1.61v Again, no more than you need. NB Temp should be the thing you watch out for here. Don't let it get higher than 70c for sure. You shouldn't need more than 1.61v. DRAM Voltgage 2.12 No more than about 2.14 in the BIOS though or you'll pass the 2.2v recommended voltage.all other DRAM stuff on autoA couple of tips. If you get a BSOD, your RAM speed and/or timings are the issue. Dial the FSB back a bit. If you can't post, Pull the FSB back a bit and/or boost the vCORE a bit. If your OS wont load and/or you get error messages about windows files being corrupt, your RAM timings may be a bit too tight for the speed. DON'T try to repair the file when it asks you. Just reboot and dial it back a bit.I have no doubt that, far from answering all your questions, I've confused the heck out of you. This is why I say you really need to study everything you can get your hands on about this subject. No one can say with 100% certainty what will or won't work on any system but their own. Do a search for NickN in the forum and read everything. He's forgotten more about this stuff than I've learned. Another nice resource is here:http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/index.php?I'm happy to help if you have more questions. If I don't know the answer, I'll find you someone who does.For what it's worth, I researched and studied everything I could for a solid 6 mos before I started doing this. I can't speak to FSX performance as I use only FS9. I have FSX somewhere but haven't bothered to load it on this system. FS9 screams though. With all my add-ons, if I run unlimited frames, I see a consistent 60-70 FPS.Best Regards,Jeff*EDIT* The most important thing. Don't do ANY of this until you get that cooler installed!

Oh, one other point. Change one setting at a time. Remember the phrase "trial and error". If you change everything at once and it doesn't work, you wont have a clue why.Ok, I'm done for the night. I'm getting a headache. :-lol Jeff

WARNING, WARNING (WILL ROBINSON): I have that board too AND I COULD NEVER GET THAT COOLER TO FIT between the cooling vents surrounding the CPU -- No way no how. I have no idea how Jeff did it but I had to send the Zalman back to Tigerdirect and get the one I have now listed in my specs - and it's a firggin' champ! 4.1 ghz OC with a fully closed case and a hot, hot GPU, and temps never over 67 or 68 c. And it was only 50 bucks plus shipping.If you're building this box yourself, I HIGHLY recommend that you stay away from the Zalman. You'll save yourself a week in aggravation and mail order return time.

I know Chuck had some problems getting it hooked up but, I can assure you it fits. I didn't have the ability to get a pic of it when he was working on his system and it's kind of tough now the way my system sits in my desk but, at least you can see it in place.Regards,Jeffhttp://forums.avsim.net/user_files/192774.jpg

Hey guys thats for the replies. Sorry for the long time it took me to respond. Jeff, thank you for taking the time to post you setup in detail. I went to my local retailer today, and actually ended up getting the XigmaTek HDT-S1283 http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductRevie...N82E16835233003 , and had it installed for $10.00. It seems to be working really good so far. Im running a Prime95 and so far the temps are 15 degrees cooler than they were with the stock cooler. Prior, I was around 60-63 degrees in the test and now 40 - 42 degrees. So thats a pretty good savings of about 20 degrees. Although I am only at 3.48ghz. My goal, for now any way, is to get to a stable 9 X 400, 3.6ghz. If I can do that and keep temps in the area of 55 or less and be stable, I am done until I either get an E8600 or wait a few more years until the next best thing.Jeff, I do have a question regarding the mobo settings. You mention that you set the FSB Strap to North Bridge to 333. I have mine set on auto. Now, considering I am trying to get to 9 X 400, should I manually set mine to 333 also? I do not really have a good understanding of the FSB Strap setting, or the math formual you use to get the 5:6 ratio. I looked in the Asus manual, but it doesn't really explain the FSB Strap, just what the setting options were.Also, I haven't changed any voltages, they are all set to auto, with the exception of the CPU Voltage I have at 1.2v and the DRAM I set to 2.1v. All others are on auto. Is there a need to mess with the ones set to auto as long as I am stable and temps aren't a problem?One last thing. How do you monitor your North Bridge temps? I noticed that you said that it shouldn't let it get past 70 degrees. I no you can see the temps in BIOS, but while running a prime95 and using real temp I cant see those temps. DO you set the mobo overheat protections? I noticed that you can set them so that the mobo will auto shut down for CPU, NB and OPT_Temp. Seems like it would be a good idea to set them all to 70 degrees, but I haven't touched them so far.THanks again for all your help. Hopefully I will get this set a I can quit pestering you, lol.Regards,Sean

Glad to hear you found a decent cooler Sean. Those temps seem fine. Part of the reason my temps are as low as they are is that I have a bunch of fans in my case so, you should be ok with what you're seeing. 3.6GHz on your system will be a nice overclock. I think most folks would agree that you will see the biggest performance boost up to about 3.6GHZ. Beyond that, the additional performance is less noticeable. Adjusting the strap setting is the way you set your system to maximize the throughput of your memory. The divider is the ratio between the FSB and the RAM speed. Basically, a 1:1 divider means that if your FSB is set to 400MHz, your memory will be running at 800MHz. Remember, your RAM is dual channel thus, 400x2=800. With a 5:6 divider you can have the same FSB but your ram will run a bit faster than the bus speed. So, you would have 400x1.2(5:6)=480MHz. 480x2=960MHz for your RAM speed. With a 400MHz FSB and a 333MHz strap setting, your first two choices for the DRAM FREQ will be 800 and 960.I suggest that you set the FSB to NB strap at 333MHZ and your RAM at 960. You may have a difficult time running that bus speed with the vCORE at 1.21v. Like I mentioned earlier, you may need to push the voltage up a bit. Go ahead and set the FSB and NB as above and reboot. If it doesn't post, go back into the BIOS and bump the vCORE up a little at a time. I'd suggest that once your system boots to your OS stable, go back to the BIOS and push the vCORE one more step. Off the top of my head, 1.35v seems about right for a 400MHz FSB. 2.1v on the DRAM should be ok but, you can push that a bit if you need to. I think you'll be fine at 2.1v though.To monitor the temps of the NB I use PCProbe, which should have been included with your MB. You can monitor a bunch of settings with that. You could also download Everest which will also monitor the NB temp. Do a google search for it. It's free for the trial version and works very well. I always like to have a couple of programs to crosscheck the readings. With PcProbe, you'll see that some of the numbers won't read the same as they're set in the BIOS. Your vCORE will read a bit lower and your DRAM will read a bit higher. I won't get into the reasons why. That's a whole new subject. In your BIOS, yes, I would set the temp thresholds down to at least 80c which I think Nick said was the thermal limit on that NB. FYI, I have never seen it hit 70c but, that's my system. If you need some more help, just ask. It's no bother at all. It may take me a bit to get back to you but, I will get back to you.Take your time and have fun. Be careful though. You may find that overclocking and tweaking becomes addictive. I know I did.Best Regards,Jeff

Thanks Jeff for the help. While I was waiting to hear from you I did the following.I set the FSB to 400 (9 X 400), left the FSB Strap on Auto, and chose the 1066mhz setting for the RAM, and upped the CPU voltgage to 1.25 I think it was. I am runnging a prime95 (small FFTs) right now. It's been going for almost 3hrs and so far so good, temps haven't gone above 47 degrees. Now, after reading your part on the 5:6 divider and the way that was set up, perhaps I should go back and change mine. Right now in CPU-Z it says I am running 3:4 Ratio. Is the 3:4 ratio better or worse than the 5:6 ratio? This is where is gets confusing for me. If 3:4 is harder on the components or less stable then I will change to your suggestion of setting the FSB Strap manually to 333 and choose 960.Thanks Jeff.SeanEDIT : Perhaps I should up my CPU voltage as well to somewhere around what you said?EDIT 2: Jeff, I went back in and changed my FSB Strap to 333 and choose 961mhz for the RAM. Now CPU Z says 5:6 like you said it would. While I was in BIOS is set the FSB Strap to 400 just to see what RAM options it would give me and it said 800 or 1066 mhz. Would I be better off going this route and getting all the 1066 out of the RAM or is that pushing to much. I wont change anything until I hear back.

My guess is that the strap is setting to 400MHz with a 3:4. It's a little faster than 5:6. The best one is the one that works for you. I find that, as it pertains to FS, a 400MHz strap isn't as smooth as the 333MHZ but that's mine. You can experiment with each to see which one you find smoother. What you have set shouldn't be any harder on your system than what I recommended. All of the settings I mentioned are within the manufacturer specified limits so, you're not really compromising anything either way. Down the road, when you get into the timings, I think you would find that tighter timings will provide better graphics performance. Then you will probably want to come back to the 333MHz strap and 5:6 divider. If what you have now works for you, sit on it for a week or two and see how it holds up. These things have to "burn in" a bit, for lack of a better term. You may find that it works well for a few days and then it won't boot anymore. Then you'll need to look at maybe changing the settings again until you find something that is consistently stable.If Prime is running stable at your current vCORE, go ahead and leave it there. If you find that, when running several apps, that the system just reboots on its' own, or you start seeing CTD, then go ahead and bump the vCORE a bit. You're doin' fine.Regards, Jeff*EDIT* One thing I'd like you to do is run PCProbe and monitor what auto is setting the NB voltage to. On auto, I've seen it up as high as 1.74v when overclocking, and that's way too high. That's why I suggest you set that manually. 1.59v-1.60v should be fine where your setting everything now.

Thanks for the info. I am glad your up late :-) I guess your here in the US? Otherwise your up real early. I am going to look into the NB voltage right now. I will let you know how it goes.Sean

"Jeff, I went back in and changed my FSB Strap to 333 and choose 961mhz for the RAM. Now CPU Z says 5:6 like you said it would. While I was in BIOS is set the FSB Strap to 400 just to see what RAM options it would give me and it said 800 or 1066 mhz. Would I be better off going this route and getting all the 1066 out of the RAM or is that pushing to much. I wont change anything until I hear back."Not necessarily. I should point out that when I recommend a setting, it's with FS in mind. Flight sim is not like other "games", in that RAM speed is not the most important thing. The reason I use the 1066 memory is so that I know I have the overhead to tighten the timings. Timings have a bigger impact on graphics quality and reducing stutters than the RAM speed does. To a point. I've experimented with even tighter timings and a bit slower speed. If I pull the RAM speed back to about 900MHZ with a 400MHz strap, I can use timings of 4-4-3-10 with this memory. But, again, it doesn't perform quite as smooth as the 333 MHz strap. Your system could indeed be different though.Jeff*EDIT* One other thing I forgot to mention. :-roll If you have load line calibration enabled in the BIOS, you can probably keep the vCORE at around 1.32v and be stable. Sorry, I forget about that one sometimes.

I'm just up in Denver. I'm usually up pretty late though. I'll hang out for a bit until you're comfortable. Or until I get a headache. Whichever comes first. :-hah Jeff

Sean, I've been doing some more testing and I've found that where I had problems with lower NB voltages before, I'm having less of a problem with it now. You may want to dial it back to 1.45-1.47 and see how that works for you. I'm always trying new things so I thought I would share it with you.Jeff