Quiet heatsink+fan for Athlon 64X2

nihalf · Post by **nihalf** » Sun May 13, 2007 8:03 am

Hi,
I built a new machine for the first time a couple of months ago, and SPCR was my primary research resource. I made most of my purchases after reading what the SPCR review said about it. My machine is really quiet except for two things
a) The CPU fan (Stock fan supplied with the AMD Athlon 64 X2 5600+), and
b) The CD drive

Whats a quiet Heatsink+Fan for my CPU (Socket AM2)? I know the Scythe Ninja is well thought of here, but its a bit unwieldy, and i'm not sure that its compatible with the Socket AM2... Also, does anyone know if passive cooling is enough for my CPU? Dont want to wreck my baby because of an idiotic mistake...
Also, does anyone have any suggestions on the CD ROM drive?
Cheers guys...

Max Slowik · Post by **Max Slowik** » Sun May 13, 2007 9:29 am

Chances are you won't have any problems with a Ninja. What motherboard do you have?

What case, too?

For what it's worth, you probably can't damage a CPU by under-cooling it. Computers shut off well before they break.

kater · Post by **kater** » Sun May 13, 2007 11:44 am

My CPU (Manchester core 89 TDO, OC'ed) runs pretty cool with a fanless Ninja - yours (65W TDP) will run even cooler as it produces less heat. I have two 120mm fans in the Ninja's vicinity, running at 5V, and that's perfectly enough. Naturally, Ninja Rev. B is AM2 compatible and whatever mobo you have, it'll fit. The mounting system on Rev. B for AM2 is not so tight as the original one, but that won't matter much

angelkiller · Post by **angelkiller** » Sun May 13, 2007 1:13 pm

And for your CD drive, NO drive will be quiet.

If you are spinning a CD a 48x, there is no way you can keep that thing quiet. But there is a solution. Simply spin the drive slower. A program called Nero Drivespeed (scroll down) was designed for this. I've read that 4x is enough for listening to music, and 8x is fast enough for movies. Just note that at these slower speeds, copying files will take longer.

nihalf · Post by **nihalf** » Sun May 13, 2007 2:51 pm

Ninja Rev. B - great I'll check it out. I'm on the Asus M2N32-Sli deluxe/Wireless mobo... and using the Antec P180B, both are awesome. And Nero Drivespeed... any idea what speed I'd need to run games? Think I could make do with the min Req. drivespeed provided on the boxes of most games??

BTW thanks for replying Max, Kater and Angelkiller, appreciate it much.

angelkiller · Post by **angelkiller** » Sun May 13, 2007 4:18 pm

As for the games, don't they just spin the disk to make sure you have a legit copy? I could be totally wrong. But when I play Battlefield 2, the disk only spins when the program loads up, and it stops long before the main menu. So during the actual gameplay all the data comes from the HDD.

In terms of speed, I think any speed will work, because the CD-Rom drive is only transfering data. So when you're listening to music, you want a continues data flow, with no hiccups. But when you're transferring data, the flow is not important. You just want the data, reguardless of how it is transferred. So setting you drive slower will just mean it will take longer to load whatever data is needed from the disk. And setting it faster will just reduce this time.

I hope I explained this well enough. I'll play around with it and report back.

Sylph-DS · Post by **Sylph-DS** » Mon May 14, 2007 2:49 am

For music, you don't need a lot of speed. And yes, most games play almost completely from HDD these days. But, still I'd say that depends on the game in question. So if you really want to use it as quiet as possible, you should just try the minimum or perhaps a little above it for a bit and see how it effects the speed at which the game runs. I wouldn't expect it to effect it much. But I don't think it's like what Angelkiller says either, otherwise they wouldn't have put in the requierment, even if only for installation.

angelkiller · Post by **angelkiller** » Mon May 14, 2007 12:55 pm

OK, I did some testing with Battlefield 2 to determine if CD-ROM speed had an effect with loading times. I set the speed with Nero Drivespeed, and timed how long my computer took to get to the login menu. My results are not very accurate, (I used an analog clock to measure!

) I was simply looking for a general conclusion. The only variables are negligible such as how long after the test started that I actually clicked on the icon.

So here goes!

Code: Select all

       Test 1     Test 2     Test 3     Test 4

48x     29s        17s        18s        17s

12x     22s        19s        20s        18s

So as you can see there is little performance difference between 48x and 12x. (For this particular game) I think the first test at 48x was so high because the game had to be loaded into the RAM, and this was only done once.

The acoustics is something else to consider. The drive I used was a Plextor PX-740a. At both speeds seek noises could be heard, and were equally audible. But at 12x the rotation speed was much less, and very close to zero. (The system is in my sig, the side panel was removed and was sitting on the floor next to my chair.) Again note that these aren't really expert results. This was just what I heard when I was paying attention.

So here you go, with BF2, there is no significant difference between drive speeds, but a considerable difference in noise. After finding this out, I just may leave my drive set at 12x!