Upgrades

I recently got a few upgrades for my PC. Nothing particuarly fancy, just some new coolers. I got an Artic Cooling Silencer 64 Ultra for my CPU and a Vantec Iceberq 5 for my graphics card. Why did I get them? Because I couldn't run my PC at load for very long, about 30-45 minutes, without it crashing. After a series of carefully devised tests I concluding that the problem was in the lack of adequate cooling. Even taking the side panel off didn't help.

Here are the results of my upgrades:

GPU

ATI Radeon X700

	Stock cooler	Vantec Iceberq 5 cooler
Idle	70°C	40°C
At load after 3 minutes	90°C	51°C

(Run at load using the Artifact scanner in ATI Tool)

CPU

AMD Athlon-64 3400+

	Stock cooler	Arctic Cooling Silencer 64 Ultra
Idle	43°C	44°C
At load after 3 minutes	55°C	52°C

(Run at load using Folding@Home)

As you can see the CPU upgrade didn't make much difference but the new graphics card cooler has made a huge imporvement (as well as adding more flashy lights!). And I can now run any of my games without my PC overheating and crashing.