Should I delid?

[Sledgestone]

I have been thinking about delidding for a while now, but I can't really decide if it's worth it.

 

Running an i5 8600k at 4.8Ghz with 1.28v at the moment. Case is a Fractal Design define S with 3 intake fans and 1 exhaust. Cpu cooler is a Noctua nh-d15.

Temperatures on the highest core is 70 degrees while playing Pubg. Cpu package is 66 degrees.

 

I'm getting max temperatures of 74 degrees while running Prime95 26.6 and Realbench stresstest. This is with an ambient temp of 20-21 degrees and might climb up to 23-24 during summer.

 

I had better temps before I changed my motherboard from Asus z370-p to a Asrock fatality k6. Roughly 5 degrees less. First I thought that it was just that the cooler was mounted incorrectly or that the thermal paste was bad, but I've remounted and re pasted several times without any change.

 

It would be nice to reach 5Ghz, but I fear that temps would be too high. Before the motherboard change I could do 5Ghz at 1.38v at around 82 degrees in prime95,. but now it would be much higher.

 

So what do you think? Should I delid or not?

[Swes]

You only need to delid if you start getting close to thermal limit around 100C the CPU will sit at 80-90 happily all day so its up to you if its worth it. I wouldn't recommend anyone deliding anything less than a high core skylake unless its for fun/benchmarking. you wont notice the performance uplift of a 100-200Mhz daily use for things like games. I'm not saying you shouldnt but understand you are doing it for fun/being able to say you are running 5GHz which isnt a bad reason but if you are worried about trying to improve performance its not really going to help much.

 

 

Delidding makes sense for the high core since you can start squeezing out nearly 30-50% more rendering speed out of a the processor if its something like the 7980XE which is massive improvement and helps add value to the purchase. 

 

 

edit: If getting 3000 cinebench was worth 2 grand, getting 4500 by paying someone like silicon lottery ~$100 to delid (insured of course) so you can run mid 4s all core is an absolute steal....

[Sledgestone]

I guess that I’ll put the delidding on hold for now. What about the temperatures I’m having? Are they normal for my cooling solution? Because I’ve seen people state much lower temps with the noctua nh d15 at higher voltages. 

 

One thing that that bothers me is that I’m having almost the same temps while gaming and when I’m stress testing. Is that how it should be?

[Z3R0 CHANC3]

Every chip is a little different, every build is different.  People with lower temps may simply have a better airflow solution or a case that allows different air flow.  Or even different thermal paste, though that's not going to have a huge impact, based on modern thermal paste's performance.

 

I would also suggest comparing temperature deltas, not absolute temperature.  When you just look at the peak temperature without knowing ambient, it's not comparing apples to apples.

[Xx_DonutEater_xX]

3 hours ago, Sledgestone said:

I guess that I’ll put the delidding on hold for now. What about the temperatures I’m having? Are they normal for my cooling solution? Because I’ve seen people state much lower temps with the noctua nh d15 at higher voltages. 

 

One thing that that bothers me is that I’m having almost the same temps while gaming and when I’m stress testing. Is that how it should be?

Your temps are perfectly fine. About 70c is desirable. And while stress testing, even 74c is not a big deal, so yeah. You have good temps.

[Sledgestone]

Just wanted to add an update. I replaced my old fans with 4 Corsair ML140 basic edition and added another exhaust in the top as well as an intake at the bottom. So now I have 4 intakes and 2 exhausts. 

 

Ran Prime95 with the side and front panel off after mounting the new fans. CPU temp dropped from 74 to 63 and GPU from 75 to 64. Got really excited, but then I put the side and front back on.. Temps went up to 71. 

 

How is that possible? Almost everyone says that if I have proper airflow, temps wouldn’t differ much? If anything they should be lower with the case closed. 

 

Could my case just have that bad airflow? Just cleaned the case, so there’s no dust. No cables are restricting the air either. 

[Z3R0 CHANC3]

Well you still have positive pressure, assuming the fans all running at the same speeds.  With the panels off there's no positive pressure and no restrictions to flow.  Well, less restriction anyway.

 

And the fans in the front push air front to back, right?  With the side panel off most of the air flows to the back and slightly off to the side.  With the side panel on, that air has to turn 90 degrees to get out the top, which reduces flow.  The exhaust fans help a little but not a lot.  Some of that air probably just swirls around in the lower part of the back of the case and doesn't really go anywhere.

 

Another thing I noticed is that video cards suck air in the fans, through the fins, and out the side.   If it's mounted horizontally that blows hot air against the side panel and not out of the case as it does with the side panel off.

 

What I'd like to see in a case is all intake from the bottom with a vertical GPU mount and the psu mounted vertically as well to block bottom to top airflow.  I don't know if any have been made, the Evolv Shift kinda does this, but quite ineffectively, since the most you can do on the bottom is push/pull on a 120mm AIO.

[Z3R0 CHANC3]

71c is still fine though 

[NineEyeRon]

On 1/11/2019 at 5:44 PM, Sledgestone said:

So what do you think? Should I delid or not?

Can you afford a new CPU if this one doesnt work after?

 

If you can I would buy before you delid so you can just swap it in.

 

OCing is one thing, delidding is a whole other "ball game".

[Z3R0 CHANC3]

The S2 case wasn't a particularly cool running case either and none of the Fractal Design cases that I've seen Steve review scored well for thermals.  The Meshify series especially ran hot, which really surprised me.

[Sledgestone]

 

1 minute ago, Z3R0 CHANC3 said:

The S2 case wasn't a particularly cool running case either and none of the Fractal Design cases that I've seen Steve review scored well for thermals.  The Meshify series especially ran hot, which really surprised me.

 

I’ve come to the conclusion that the Define S just have bad airflow because it’s meant to be a silent case. I’ve read several other who has the same problem as me with airflow. 

 

Now however I have a whole different problem. All of the sudden my overclock became really unstable. Crashing both in RealBench and Prime. I think that the problem is because of my newly added fans. I have a 3 way splitter from my motherboards fan header and I think that it must be overloaded or something. 

 

When it’s plugged in RealBench crashes almost immediately with Luxmark instability. Without the three front fans nothing crashes. How is that possible?

[Z3R0 CHANC3]

I don't know.  I wouldn't expect 3 fans to exceed motherboard fan header power.  You'd have to check the mobo manual, and then look at the fan specs.  Fan header probably has about 1A, so if your fans pull more than 330mA each you will exceed the motherboard capacity, which I imagine would cause other problems.

 

You could check by unplugging one of the fans.  You could also set the max fan speed to be slightly lower, a 10% fan speed reduction will drop power use by more than 10%.

[_Hustler_One_]

On 1/19/2019 at 9:22 AM, Sledgestone said:

Just wanted to add an update. I replaced my old fans with 4 Corsair ML140 basic edition and added another exhaust in the top as well as an intake at the bottom. So now I have 4 intakes and 2 exhausts. 

 

Ran Prime95 with the side and front panel off after mounting the new fans. CPU temp dropped from 74 to 63 and GPU from 75 to 64. Got really excited, but then I put the side and front back on.. Temps went up to 71. 

 

How is that possible? Almost everyone says that if I have proper airflow, temps wouldn’t differ much? If anything they should be lower with the case closed. 

 

Could my case just have that bad airflow? Just cleaned the case, so there’s no dust. No cables are restricting the air either. 

Yes, if taking side panel off drops the temps that much then it's an indicator that the case has bad airflow systems. When you put the side panel back on, and temps rises back again means there's like the access for the outside fresh air to enter your case is difficult to pass through.