What is the absolute best cooling solution / heat sink that is availble for the M17x-R3

I have an R3 with a 2920 that I can't get to stay cool enough to suit me no matter what I try. Is there a better heatsink available than what it came with? Computer originally had a 2760 in it. I've repasted several times, most recently with IC Diamond, to no avail. Using HWinfo to control the fans still doesn't keep it cool enough under benching / stress tests..........it will hold 3.5Ghz across all 4 cores for every day use but anything above that and it throttles, once to the point of thermal shut down.

I'm adding a 680m to the mix as soon as it arrives and I'd like to know that I can keep this thing cool enough for gaming.

Thanks!

 

What're your temps for a normal day? Cause what you describe sounds fishy. It might be worthwhile to see what a new CPU heatsink costs for the R3. The one you have may not be cooling properly anymore.

 

Sitting here at idle with nothing but Media Player open (not playing anything) idle is from 51C - 53C across the 4 cores. That's on stock fan settings, I figure I shouldn't need HWinfo fan controls for normal use. OC on the chip is a conservative 3.5Ghz across all 4 cores.

 

That's a bit high. My 920XM is around 49C-51C on average with only Firefox running, but my CPU usage is always at 10% on account of Dreamscene running. If I pause Dreamscene, they drop down to between 41C-47C. I'm on stock clocks with 5% turbo boost. I guess it also depends on the ambient temps. It's about 70F in my room right now, so that's gotta help cooling a bit.

 

I'd estimate that it's around 72 or so in this office right now. I have no programs open aside from HWinfo and Windows Media Player (which is paused). I am typing this on a different computer. With HWinfo custom fan profile active my temps are 41, 42, 39, 40 and core max is 42 across all 4 cores. Those seem reasonable considering task manager shows 1-3% usage on the CPU as it sits.

 

Very reasonable. I still think if you're hitting the thermal shutdown limit (100C, right?) when benching, it may be a heatsink issue. I was told a while back that the copper heatsink pipes are filled with nitrogen to facilitate heat transfer. In theory, if the Nitrogen leaked out of those pipes, then the CPU heatsink won't be able to cool as efficiently. But that all sits on the fact that the Nitrogen in the heatsink pipes has leaked out which I don't think there's any way to test that.

 

Yeah probably not. I was more hoping that someone knew of a better heat sink ala the 3 pipe available for the M18's or something along those lines. I could always just buy another stock heat sink and try it but I'd be irritated if it turned out to be a waste of money. It's only shut down once while running Heaven DX11 at 3.8Ghz on all 4 cores, but it starts throttling at 88c under a stress test even at 3.5Ghz. I can't for instance run wPrime 1024 without throttling and forget the 5min CPU stress test in Xtu, get maybe 25 - 35 seconds into that and it throttles.

 

Probably why Alienware never offered the Sandy Bridge XM CPUs as an option for R3. I just took a look at the R3's two pipe heatsink vs the m18x R2's three pipe heatsink. It's definitely do-able to adapt the three pipes and vent from the m18x's heatsink onto the CPU heatsink die for the R3. I've searched but haven't found any thread or websites where this has been done...yet.

 

I've seen that you can buy a 3 pipe heat sink for a R4, so it could fit a R3? I think one of the alienware reps was talking about it.

 

Thanks DDDenniZZZ, I'll look into it. Unfortunately I've not had a whole lot of luck trying to buy parts from AW/Dell. Luis had me email someone, who answered me a few days later and promptly tried to sell me exactly what I said in my email that I didn't want. When I said again that I didn't want it and asked for just a price on a heat sink he never responded. Thinking at this point I'll try and buy my parts from anyone other than Dell.

 

Oh dang, can always try a laptop cooler? Not as nice but at least its easy to use/buy? I was looking into them, but my temps don't go that high yet, so I won't bother.