Cooling confusion (z9400 + Alpine Freezer Pro 7)

[nopast68]

Ok...I am totally confused. I have run a battery of tests on my CPU to get low temps. I have gone from the stock CPU to the Freezer Pro 7 with the stock Arctic thermal compound, to taking it completely off and using no compound, to adding Antec silver paste. I have tried different rpm for the fan from 45% to 60% to 75% (which make no temp change) under idle and under load.

After all of this.......I see almost no temp changes from the stock CPU. I have been at basically 36,29,40,41 (core 0-3). In doing all of these tests I have only seen 1 or 2 degrees celcius difference from the stock to the Freezer Pro 7 (with no thermal paste to using silver paste). Now.....under load it did seem as if it was cooler than the stock by about 5-7 celsius. Under load it gets up to mid to upper 40's.

How can this be...did I waste my money on a custom cpu cooler and thermal paste ($50)??. It looks real nice in my case but I'm wondering if I only need the stock cooler....even OC'd?????? Seems to make very little difference. I was expecting to see like 10-15c difference...hmmm.

BTW....I have over clocked it to 3.2ghz and it runs perfectly stable. OC'ing this didn't do anything to the temps. It's as if this CPU just runs at a certain temp no matter what u do...lol. I don't really think these temps are bad....but I don't want to waste my money either.

PS...I also used Real Temp and the temps match Speedfan.

PSS....running Prime95 for 4-5 hours made it around 50c.