Anyone using i7 with Windows 7?

[billyfromConsett]

I've recently upped my rig and gone on to an i7 860 Intel job, running Windows 7, 64bit. I picked the Asus P7P55D motherboard and 8Gb of ram.

Adobe CS4 seems to run fine and dandy (Photoshop 64bit flies!), though after some fighting with stability of the rig.

The biggest thing that I've done extra and made a decent difference is to ditch the standard Intel cooler on the i7 chip - it simply doesn't do much in keeping the chip cool. For instance, running a heavy stability testing app, Prime95 in blend mode, the chip was running at 78c. After I swapped out the cooler for a better air cooler, the Prime95 test runs at about 50c - and the idle temps are nearly as good - 32c versus 19c with the better cooler.

Windows 7 looks far better than Vista to me, and it can look even prettier if that's your thing - there are loads of cool themes and background pictures to add free from Microsoft's Windows 7 site.

Biggest negative about Windows 7 is that I've had splash out (£40) for Nero 9 Reloaded, to burn disks, rip audio CD's etc. But it's a good app and comes with a free backup app for documents (and recently completed movies) etc.

[Dave Watterson]

That's a useful tip, Billy. For those who don't like to think about what goes on inside a computer ... it is worth considering this point.

Computer chips (the bits that do the work) get hot and need to be cooled. When merely warm they run better and last much longer. They all come with some form of cooler - often an array of metal fins which help radiate heat away. Many have their own dedicated fans fixed onto them. A few have more elaborate cooling arrangements.

Billy - can you tell us more about replacing the cooler on your machine, including details of where you got the parts, please? You might also like to explain how to find out the temperature of the computer chips. Bear in mind that tech-types already know it, but the rest of us need a simpler explanation.

Cheers

Dave

[billyfromConsett]

No probs Dave.

I often look at the temperatures the CPU runs at when I'm building a new rig. I use an app called Core Temp - http://www.alcpu.com/CoreTemp You download the program and just run it.

It just runs in the background and shows you at the bottom right of the screen - the system tray - how hot the core(s) of the chip is running. We know that the computer chip will be happier, ie electicity will run better through it, probably with less crashes, if the temperature of the CPU is lower.

So getting a good case, with a couple of quiet fans built into it, will gently shift warm air out the case, and therefore allow the rig to just run cooler. Also Intel might have paired the new CPU's with an average (that's being kind to it) cooler to do the minimum, and maybe also put off people from overlclocking their chips too far, instead of buying a better chip at double the price.

High power apps such as Adobe Premiere CS4 and the like (I don't include Macs in this ramble!) are sometimes prone to being unstable, so people like us really want them to run crash-free; and not ruin 4 hours or more editing on a NLE timeline. So keeping those temps down in my view is a key action.

The cooler I bought is an "Arctic Cooling Freezer Extreme" and cost me £29. It is reasonably easy to fit, if you have some experience in building computers - http://www.ebuyer.com/product/176158

Over the years I have found, that if your computer CPU runs cool - ie under 65c during heavy load, it has the best chance of keeping us film-makers more relaxed people. As editing applications need to be stable - first, last and always.