I built a system for my son back on Christmas with an FX 8320 and a Zalman CNPS5x cooler, with a top 230mm fan, 140mm exhaust, and a 230mm front fan, side of the case is off and have a small box fan blowing in the case. The winter months have been fine, kept the side on and no overheating issues. The heat here is crazy hot this summer and was wondering if it would be worth my time to just get a single rad cooler and give up on the air cooling for this cpu. We don't have cental air so our computer room is really really warm. My question is this: If the ambient temperature of the room is still really high, will a water cooling solution do a lot better than the air cooler? Should I shell out 60 bucks and just get a water cooler and be done with it? What is the best single rad cooler, or should I go balls out and remove the top 230mm and put one up there. I also was wondering which software is the best for checking internal temps while in windows. Currently we are using Speccy from piraform, it seems to work ok, but not sure if it is the most accurate or not. Thanks for any help on the matter :-)
As far as your question about temperatures, water cooling of any kind will still be negatively affected by high ambients but; they will transfer heat faster giving lower operating temps. For AIO closed loop systems, which one to pick would largely depend on what kind of overclock you are attempting. If you are only going for a slight or no overclock nearly any 120mm cooler will give good results they start around 50$ USD. If you wanted to overclock more or just wanted very low temps a thick 120mm like a Corsair h80i would do; If you have the space 140mm single rads are very good (you can use your 140 exhaust to great effect here) Nzxt Kraken 40 or Corsair h90 will preform well. 140mm rads are around 80$ USD. For a little more money then the 140mm single rad you could get a 240mm or 280mm rad which would give you the best temps possible as well as allowing for a large overclock. These coolers are around 100 USD but sometimes there are sales the Corsair H105, H100i, Cooler Master Neptune 280L, and Nzxt Kraken 60 are all very good.
For Monitoring Temps and voltages I think Hardware Monitor is the best. While you are in windows and running programs I'm not sure, I use MSI Afterburners functions.
http://www.cpuid.com/softwares/hwmonitor.html
In all honesty the air cooler you have should be sufficient; unless your system is too loud or you really want to spend money on a AIO you should be good. Also worth noting If you decide to go with a AIO it might be worthwhile to get a Astek based system; as you can use them with a Nzxt G10 in the future, and that is awesome.
So do you think that it is just how hot the rooms is as to why the temps get so high?? Like 70C!!!! Had it shut off one time, but it is easily over 80 degrees in the room so that is my question about ambient temps... Will a water cooler solve that issue, because tonight playing BF4 the temps got up to 70... :-( Not sure how to bring that down in such a hot room...
Those are some crazy high temps for a non overclocked system, I would check the thermal paste; it does go bad after awhile. If you can, get some good stuff like Arctic Sliver 5, Shin Etsu, or TUNIQ. I would just get whatever is cheapest, they are all within like 2c of each other. Oh and be careful many Thermal compounds are conductive so just make sure to apply them correctly. If you are still seeing super high temps like that a better cooler will help, a water cooler more-so as they can transfer heat faster and are set up to push hot air out of your case. With AMD getting that paste on correctly is harder IMO the stupid 2 clip thing makes the cooler smear the paste which in turn creates air bubbles, gaps, and poor contact.
Bottom line a better cooler means lower temps, but thermal compound is 5$ USD a tube if that is the issue do that!