Silence vs. performance question

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natethegreat
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Silence vs. performance question

Post by natethegreat » Sun May 21, 2006 4:17 pm

Since this seemed like the best forum to get a response from F@H regulars, I am going to post my question here (please move my thread if not appropriate for this forum). I have been folding for a bit over a year for Team #198 (AnandTech) and folding is what brought me to this great website! I was very irritated at the ammount of noise comming from my folder so I did some research on this site and bought a new power supply and heatsink for my computer. Later on I completed my first custom build armed with knowledge from SPCR and other sites. This brings me to my problem: While both computers are modestly quiet, they are nowhere near "silent". So my question is do SPCR folders sacrifice performance to gain silence or do you run full speed ahead and just try to achieve the best level of silence possible under full load? I would like my 24/7 rigs to be more quiet but I also don't want to loose any performance from them :lol:

My two 24/7 folders in question are:
X2 3800+ / SI-120 | Coolermaster RealPower 550w | 4x CoolerMaster TLF-S12-EB 120mm Fans | Antec P180 case

XP 3200+ / Thermalright SI-97 | Seasonic SuperSilencer 400w | 1 Vantec Stealth 92mm and 1 SilenX 92mm | Hp Pavillion case

These are the main sources of noise that I am dealing with right now, any help or insight would be much appreciated :D

Zyzzyx
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Post by Zyzzyx » Sun May 21, 2006 10:11 pm

For my two functional systems, I went for silence first (OK, I did overclock my XP-M, but its still using a 5v fan). Once they're silent, then I run F@H as a bonus.

Should the chance come that I could build a small folding farm (say, 6 node) I would still concentrate on silence first. Well, maybe. If I was to build it and make it pretty, keep it in the house somewhere; yeah, it'd be silence first. If I was just going to stuff it in the garage or basement, then I probably wouldn't care (though just knowing it was noisy would bug me).

nici
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Post by nici » Sun May 21, 2006 10:25 pm

I haven´t had many problems keeping my CPU coolers inaudible, an A64 3500+ was cooled by a zalman 7700 modded with a nexus fan at 5-6V, the current 3700+ is cooled by the reserator, and the AXP T-Bred system is cooled with an Aerocool HT-101 ducted to a 92mm nexus at 6-7V or so..

I have had much more problems keeping GPUs inaudible than CPUs folding 24/7.. And HDDs, they are by far the hardest components to silence without compromising reliability.

You should be able to run both of those CPU coolers at 6V on full load no probs.

I hope im making some sense, i suffer from lack of sleep at the moment. A very long moment that is.

jaganath
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Post by jaganath » Mon May 22, 2006 1:31 am

My two 24/7 folders in question are:
X2 3800+ / SI-120 | Coolermaster RealPower 550w | 4x CoolerMaster TLF-S12-EB 120mm Fans | Antec P180 case

XP 3200+ / Thermalright SI-97 | Seasonic SuperSilencer 400w | 1 Vantec Stealth 92mm and 1 SilenX 92mm | Hp Pavillion case
At first glance, the power supply in your X2 3800 rig appears to be oversized, unless you have a very power hungry graphics card or something. A Seasonic S12-380 would definitely be quieter and more efficient. Also, you can probably get rid of two of the CM 120mm fans and still have good cooling.

IIRC the XP 3200 runs quite hot, so not sure what to do about that. Is it possible to undervolt through BIOS?

natethegreat
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Post by natethegreat » Mon May 22, 2006 1:09 pm

Thanks for the feedback everyone!
At first glance, the power supply in your X2 3800 rig appears to be oversized, unless you have a very power hungry graphics card or something. A Seasonic S12-380 would definitely be quieter and more efficient. Also, you can probably get rid of two of the CM 120mm fans and still have good cooling.[/i]
I should have mentioned that I have a 30% overclock going on the X2 so it needs a pretty healthy blast of air to keep it cool. I use a Zalman fan controller and keep all of the fans except the cpu fan at the lowest setting. The powersupply was origionally going to run an SLI setup but that plan has been put on hold for now. I have a 7800 GT installed with a zalman VF-900 keeping it cooled. As far as an S12 380 being more efficient, I don't know, by a few points maybe - if you look at this chart the Coolermaster does a pretty good job at 90-150w. http://www.silentpcreview.com/article276-page1.html

The general impression I'm getting is that I shouldn't be making excuses for my not loud but not quiet folders :lol:

peteamer
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Post by peteamer » Mon May 22, 2006 11:31 pm

What temps are you getting and where?...



Pete

dukla2000
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Post by dukla2000 » Tue May 23, 2006 12:14 am

I run a 27% overclock (254 HTT), but most of the time CnQ is engaged so cooling is a doddle and near silence is hardly a challenge. Obviously folding @ 1270MHz is a compromise, but I know 2286MHz is available "on tap" (and 24 hour Prime stable) if I need it for real work!

natethegreat
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Post by natethegreat » Fri May 26, 2006 4:13 pm

Sorry I haven't kept up with thread, I have been pretty busy lately :oops:
What temps are you getting and where?...
Here is a pic showing some temps at points of interest: http://img137.imageshack.us/my.php?image=rig6da4fq.jpg

I do not let my cpu temp get above 40° because of an issue with my boards temp reporting (short story is that the board (DFI LP NF4 Expert) has been accused of undereporting temps on the cpu by an average of 10° C).

Putz
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Post by Putz » Tue Jun 06, 2006 9:33 pm

Don't take this as an official recommendation, but just another data point for reference: I've had a Palomino XP 2000+ folding 100% and running at over 80 degrees Celsius for almost three years... no problems yet.

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