I am hoping to upgrade my cpu/mobo/ram soon. It is currently the weak point in my gaming (and only) rig. I currently have a socket 775 with and E7200 as well as a Radeon HD 7850 (bought the video card in preparation for a new cpu). The problem that I am having is that my computer is currently keeping my entire room incredibly warm. I would imagine that this is because the cpu is at or near max whenever I am gaming in attempts to keep up with the 7850, but it also heats up my room when not gaming. Now, do note that I recently aquired this computer (but added the 7850 myself) so it is possible that there is something going on in the hardware that I am not aware of. I assume that getting a better cpu heatsink wouldn't solve this problem as it would dissipate the same amount of heat as it currently is doing, it would just do it quicker and more efficiently.
So what I really want to know is what option should I be looking at for a cool running cpu? My main thought is that it would be best to get a cpu which is much more powerful than I need in order to keep the demand on it low and hopefully the temperatures as well. My room being this hot all the time is pretty annoying. Could it be some other source?
I guess you have measured (or simply noticed) that your room temperature is higher than other parts of your home.
The reason is most likely your CPU. You can try just feeling how much your heat your PC is generating, it doesn't have to be much incase your room is small.
Another reason could be that the sunlight at its hottest is directed against your room and heating it up.
To get the room cooler, create drag by opening a window and and the door (or another window).
When you're getting a new CPU look at the reported TDP (thermal design power). If it's low it generates less heat.
If you're serious about getting low temps you could be patient and wait for Haswell and see if they will have low TDPs, or maby details can be found already? Another way is to undervolt your CPU, and thereby sacrifising performance for lower temps.
A more efficient CPU heatsink will not dissipate less heat energy but rather more, because that's what heatsinks do, they transfer the heat of the CPU to the ambient fluid medium, the air in your room.
In my experience, in most cases where the computer is really heating up the room, it's because the power supply is crap or overloaded. Doesn't the power supply feel hot to the touch? Well, it shouldn't, it should feel lukewarm at most. When the PSU is running hot, it's probably because either it's a very cheap unsafe design, or because it's terribly inefficient, or because it's way overloaded.
case airflow, ambient room temperature, any build up of dust within the machine, how many pci devices, the psu itself (some of them bake, i have had a dodgy one in the past)
My current pc was built around dealing with noise / heat
I have the antec 1100 case which has a nice big quiet fan at the top of the case, i have this paired with a h80i watercooler.
The fans on the h80i pump act as an intake for cold air and the fan at the top of the case acts as my outake for the hot.. obviously this will not help me much in the summer though so I will have to either underclock or set back to stock to compensate.
both of these paired together do a very good job at dealing with the internal heat of the case,
my room temp is average for the uk, usually 17.5C to 19c (please note: AVERAGE)
I have the same graphics card as you 7850 (mine are the xfx 1gb versions) and the primary can get as hot as 55c under full load after a couple of hours of gaming.
My situation is slightly worse than yours as i have two in crossfire, not only does this add extra heat to the inside of the case it is also quite funny as the primary card blows all of its hot air onto the seconday card and the crossfire cable is 2mm too short to seperate the cards further to the next available pcie 16 slot... hilarious.
I have a 550 watt Antec PSU, so it should be relatively decent in design and have enough power to spare with my set up. Also, the outputted heat from the PSU does seem very warm during gaming sessions, but it is a top mounted PSU, so it is intaking all of the heat given off by the rest of the compnents (I didn't pick the case and really don't like top mounted PSUs, but this is how it is).
The problem isn't that the cpu or any other part are getting unreasonably hot, it is just that the heat that is generated is too much over long periods of time. It builds up in my room. I don't need a solution for keeping the cpu cool, I need a cpu that doesn't generate much heat in the first place. My assumption is taht this would be best achieved by hvaing a cpu that is much more powerful than I need, so that it doesn't have to do much work in order to keep up with my video card. I'm hoping that a 8350 would help things.