nforce 4 with xp-120

Thunder · Post by **Thunder** » Sat Feb 05, 2005 7:06 pm

I’m planning on building an Athlon 64/ nforce 4 systemin the next few months. I want to use a thermalright xp-120 CPU cooler and a fanless Northbridge cooler like the Zalman.
Unfortunately I don’t think that is possible with any of the motherboards.
I have them ranked in order of preference

1ASUS "A8V-E Deluxe"

2GIGABYTE "GA-K8NF-9"

3CHAINTECH

also these two look like they might work but I dont like them much

SOLTEK "SL-K890Pro-939"

MSI "K8N Neo4 Platinum"

Most of the boards have NB fans which I would replace with the Zalman ZM-NB47J but becuse of the north bridge placement the heatsink would either hit the xp-120 or the graphics card

Will the xp-120 be impossible?
Any suggestions, alternate mobo, or heat sink ideas would be appreciated.

Audiophiliac · Post by **Audiophiliac** » Sun Feb 06, 2005 10:29 pm

I am about finished with my build using the K8N Neo4. I havent fired it up yet so I cant comment on how it works, but everything about it so far has been great! MSI Packages it really well and thinks enough to include RAID/SATA floppies for OS installs. Quality company. I was going to get the XP120 but according to THermalright, it would only fit with "slight bending of some capacitors"...that doesn't sound good to me, so I went with the XP90. It barely fits without getting in the way of one of the memory slots. The 120 would probably be way to big. I also put the Zalman NB47 on it and it barely clears the GPU card by a hair. But overall everything fits perfectly. I would look into it unless Asus gets their nForce 4 Ultra (non-SLI) board out.

Josd · Post by **Josd** » Mon Feb 07, 2005 11:17 am

I have build two systems now with the following config:

Case: Antec SLK3700BQE with 2x Nexus 120mm case fans
Mainboard: Asus A8N-SLI (nForce4)
CPU: AMD64 3200+/3500+
CPU cooler: Thermalright XP-120 (XP-90)
Cooler fan: Nexus 120mm
Harddisk: 1-4 Hitachi 250GB SATA
PSU: Enermax Noisetaker 470W
Video: Asus X300 extreme (passive cooling) / Powercolor X800XL + Zalman VF700-AlCu

On both systems I replaced the noisy NB fan with a Zalman NB47J.

The first system with the 3200+, XP-120 and Asus X300 runs for 3 weeks now without problems. My room temperature is 21C. The CPU idle temperature is 33/34C and under load no more than 46C. The drives are 32C for the lower drive and 34 for the upper one.
The nF4 chip runs hot (estimate 50C) but does not overheat due to the airflow.
This system was overclocked to 2.6 Ghz without problems.

The other system has a 3500+, XP-90 and a PowerColor X800XL. This system has 4 Hitachi drives. The drives are 32C for the lower drive and 34 for the upper one. The CPU idle temp is 34C.
I replaced the stock VGA cooler with a Zalman VF700-AlCu. The heatsink touches the NB cooler, but the flexible VGA cooler fins bend enough to make it fit without any problems. A side effect is that the VGA cooler generates additional airflow for the NB cooler.

Both systems run without problems problems for some time now.

The CPU temperatures are readouts of the ASUS probe monitor. The disk temperatures are readouts of HDtune 2.1 SMART monitor.

Next week I will assemble 3 more systems with a similar config, one being my new rig. I am really looking forward to it.

Kheoinn · Post by **Kheoinn** » Mon Feb 07, 2005 1:52 pm

Why do you not like the Soltek board? Are there features of Nforce4 that you would want over the K8T890? I'm planning on getting the Soltek soon, as it looks like it has space for the XP-120 and has a cool running North Bridge with a passive heatsink on it.

Thunder · Post by **Thunder** » Mon Feb 07, 2005 2:33 pm

Be sure post how the Soltec is when you get it all set up.

Why do I not like the soltec?
Well last time I built a system I bought a cheap off brand mobo I was disappointed, so I guess I don’t want to take any chances.