Heat Sink Compound / Paste

Heat sinks operate by conducting heat from the processor to the heat sink and then radiating it to the air. The better the transfer of heat between the two surfaces (the CPU and the heat sink metal) the better the cooling. Some processors come with heat sinks glued to them directly, ensuring a good transfer of heat between the processor and the heat sink.

Heat sinks that are attached using clips normally sit rather loosely on top of the processor. It may feel like it is attached securely, but there will be a gap between the CPU and the heat sink, and that gap of air them makes for poor heat transfer, even if it is very small. Air is a poor conductor of heat compared to most liquids or solids. To improve the thermal connection between the processor and heat sink, a special chemical called heat sink compound should be used. A thin layer of this is spread between the two, which greatly improves heat transfer and the cooling of the processor.

Heat sink compound is typically a white paste made from zinc oxide in a silicone base. Very little of the substance is needed, just enough to fill the gap between the CPU and heat sink. Using more will not make it work better, it will just make a big mess when you press the heat sink down onto the CPU, much like putting too much strawberry jam in your PB&J sandwich. :^) The use of this compound is strongly recommended for those who want to cool their processors properly. See the Heat Sink Installation Procedure for instructions on how to use it properly.

Tip: The easiest place to get this compound in North America is at Radio Shack, which sells it for about $3 a tube. A single tube is enough for a good dozen processor treatments.

Note: Some processors come from the manufacturer with the heat sink glued or similarly permanently attached to the chip already. These heat sinks do not require heat sink compound. (This does not always apply to chips you get from a systems vendor.)

Warning: Do not put strawberry jam on your processor. :^)

Intel officially launches dual-core Atom N570 processor

Intel has announced the release of its second dual-core Atom chip for netbooks. The Atom N570 is a slight variation of the N550 dual core chip offering higher clock speeds without any major change in power consumption. Specifically, the dual-core processor runs at 1.66GHz instead of 1.5GHz and includes 1MB of L2 cache while drawing just 8.5 watts of power.

Besides the bump in frequency, Intel is also adding two new features: the Atom N570 is the first low-power Atom processor to support virtualization and the amount of RAM supported has doubled from 2GB to 4GB. Interestingly enough, though, it looks like the new chip might not support Hyper-Threading. While the Atom N550 has 2 cores and 4 threads listed, Intel's N570 product page says the chip has 2 core and 2 threads.

The Intel N570 processor is already shipping in Acer Aspire One AOD255E and HP Mini 110 netbooks, and will arrive in other systems from Asus, Samsung and Lenovo later this month. It can also be found on SeaMicro's newest ultra-dense, ultra-low power Atom-based server solution, the SM10000-64, which holds as many as 256 Atom N570 processors.

Core i7-2600K processor Overclocking Settings

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We decided to gradually increase the default multiplier, starting with the 34x default, but stay with the default Turbo Boost ratios, as described on the previous page. This means that our Core i7-2600K processor accelerates by four 100 MHz speed bins as long as the power limit allows. So, we went all the way from 34+4 to 46+4.

We also moved the power limits up to 300 W for our overclocking project, because we wanted to check out the limits based on Intel’s boxed cooler. The unit that comes with the K-series processors can be considered at least solid and, will probably be used by most users buying a K-series processor.

However, our extreme power limit paired with this cooler certainly doesn’t protect our system from crashing at high clock speeds. This is because the cooler inevitably hits its thermal limits and because the power unit won’t govern clock speeds at our effectively unlimited power limit. The cooler bundled with the K-series processor is adequate for reasonable overclocking. Hardcore users might want to shop for a more powerful device, though.

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These are the voltages we selected for our overclocking project:

Clock Speed	CPU-Z Voltage		BIOS Voltage
	4-Core	1-Core
3.5 GHz 4-Core; 3.8 GHz 1-Core	1.176 V	1.224 V	1.25 V
3.7 GHz 4-Core; 4.0 GHz 1-Core	1.236 V	1.224 V	1.305 V
3.9 GHz 4-Core; 4.2 GHz 1-Core	1.26 V	1.224 V	1.345 V
4.0 GHz 4-Core; 4.3 GHz 1-Core	1.26 V	1.224 V	1.35 V
4.1 GHz 4-Core; 4.4 GHz 1-Core	1.272 V	1.224 V	1.35 V
4.2 GHz 4-Core; 4.5 GHz 1-Core	1.272 V	1.224 V	1.35 V
4.3 GHz 4-Core; 4.6 GHz 1-Core	1.284 V	1.224 V	1.355 V
4.4 GHz 4-Core; 4.7 GHz 1-Core	1.272 V	1.224 V	1.365 V*
4.5 GHz 4-Core; 4.8 GHz 1-Core	1.32 V	1.272 V	1.365 V*
4.6 GHz 4-Core; 4.9 GHz 1-Core	1.332 V	1.284 V	1.37 V*

We used Gigabyte’s P67A-UD5 motherboard for our overclocking testing and left the voltage settings on Auto mode for almost all clock speeds except 4.4, 4.5, and 4.6 GHz (*).

This was the fastest reliable setting on our Core i7-2600K sample. Multiplier 45x with up to four speed bins in Turbo Boost mode for a single core. The voltage reading isn’t accurate, though.

All Sandy Bridge processors currently switch to 16x (1600 MHz) when idle.

One final note: the Core i7-2600K processor always managed to maintain one multiplier above the configured default setting, which means that you will only see a difference of three (instead of four) speed bins in all benchmark charts.

Core i7 940XM Comes In Q3 10

Intel is preparing to launch yet another extreme mobile processor, something to top the current performance king the Core i7 Extreme 920XM. This CPU is an upgrade for Calpella high end performance notebook and it comes in Q3 2010.

The clock speed stops at 2.13GHz but this quad core automatically overclocks all the way to 3.33GHz. This will only happen if it doesn’t get that hot. TDP remains at high 55W and this quad core still supports the quite useless Hyperthreading.

This Clarksfield 45nm CPU comes with 8MB cache and 1333MHz DDR3 support. The only ironic thing about this CPU is that 2.66 GHz Dual-Core Core i7 620M that will overclock to 3.33GHz might easily end up as fast as the much more expensive Core i7 Extreme 940XM that will launch soon.

Source: fudzilla.com