CPU upgrade E6600, overclock to 3.5ghz on water

I've been running my D930 at 4.1 ghz... finally time for the upgrade to a Conroe.
I chose the 6600 as it is the cheapest currently available with the 4MB cache.
Otherwise the right choice would probably be the E4300 - the cheapest Conroe.

I blogged my Zalman Reserator V2 setup here. Only thing of note is I've got a small very quiet housefan blowing on it now which helped it by 5C or more. It used to be quite warm - now it stays much closer to room temp. The fan really helped.

FSB: 390
VCore: 1.5
Idle temp: 31C
Torture test CPU core temps: 56C
Northbridge temp during torture test: 41C



On water, motherboard temps are higher at idle and lower at load - I assume because
it is getting somewhat warmed water as it is second in the series after the CPU.

Use CoreTemp - The Asus MB utility under-reports CPU temps by 4C on my system at idle, and 6C at load. Coretemp is known to be more accurate, as it reports temps reported by the package. I believe the Asus utility is reporting a sensor on the motherboard somewhere.

I also use Prime95 for my torture testing. I use two instances of it, one bound to each core to make sure I get both cores to 100%.

I've had a bit of trouble with the Asus P5WDH Deluxe northbridge temps.
It has a complicated (but nifty) heatpipe cooler for the northbridge. It comes
with decorative covers on the heatsinks (Come on Asus - that's silly). After removing
those and fiddling with the seating, my northbridge temps got to something more reasonable
(hovering around 40C instead of 50C).

Still, with the new processor in hand I decided to do the job right this time and water cool not just the CPU but also the northbridge. I also decided to get the cover off the southbridge, clean it, and get a properly applied heatsink compound applied. Photos below...

Southbridge before (with silly cover):



Southbridge after cover removal:



Northbridge before (silly cover already removed):



Northbridge with heatpipe/heatsink removed and ready to go:



Final setup (those big air gaps will disappear once I hook it up to the pump again):