Assembling PC, need advice

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alexo
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Assembling PC, need advice

Post by alexo » Fri Aug 19, 2005 7:38 pm

Hello,

I am assembling a PC to replace my current horribly outdated machine.

On one hand, I am planning to overclock but, on the other hand, I do want it to be as cool and quiet as possible.
Yes, I am painfully aware of the "fast, cool, quiet: pick any two" rule - even before taking my budget into consideration but I'd like to reach some reasonable trade-off.

I already got some components and would appreciate your advice regarding the rest. I prefer to get the parts from Canada, either locally in the GTA or shipped from out of province (positive experience with NCIX) but I could order from the states if push comes to shove (USPS only! Die UPS, die!)


What I already have:

CPU: Athlon 64 3500+ Venice

RAM: 2x512 OCZ EL PC3200 Gold VX (loves overvolting)

Motherboard: DFI Lanparty UT NF4 Ultra-D

Graphics Card: ATI Radeon X800-XL PCIe

Sound card: Creative Audigy 2 ZS

DVD Writer: BenQ DW1640 (Biege bezel)


What I am yet to get:

Hard drive: Considering a 200MB Samsung P-120 SATA (as per SPCR recommendation)
(Currently have a 60GB Deskstar 120GXP ATA/100 that will go in the kids' machine)

Case: Considering an Antec SLK3000B (can only find it in black - see DVD Writer above, bummer). The P180 is too big and pricy for my needs.

PSU: Considering a SeaSonic S12-500 (as per SPCR recommendation)

Video capture card: Either a Hauppauge PVR-150, an NVTV or one based on ATI's Theater 550

Alternative suggestions are welcome but please provide a reason.


What I will probably need:

Alternative cooling: The stock Athlon HSF, the NF4 NorthBridge HSF and the ATI HSF are probably too noisy and inefficient.
The current SPCR favourites seem to be the ThermalRight XP-120 with either the Nexus or GLobe (could not find in Canada) fans, Zalman VF700 for the graphic card and god-knows-what for the NorthBridge.
Really need yoiur help here, folks.

One concern is that the current oversized cooling solutions may not fit together on my board (pic.).


Hope I did not miss anything.

Waiting for your input.

Best wishes,
Alex.

vertigo
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Post by vertigo » Sat Aug 20, 2005 1:18 am

If you plan to use a fanned heatsink, the XP/90 is preferable to the XP/120 because when the case fan exhausts more air than the cpu makes hot, the case temperature stays very cool. [Mod: I think the logic used here is flawed. The same amount of heat still needs to be "offloaded" from the CPU, no matter what the HSF is!]

If you want to go fanless (and I wouldn't) there are better heatsinks available (than the XP/120). There are plenty threads about fanless heatsinks, just look around.

alexo
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Post by alexo » Sat Aug 20, 2005 10:00 am

vertigo wrote:If you plan to use a fanned heatsink, the XP/90 is preferable to the XP/120 because when the case fan exhausts more air than the cpu makes hot, the case temperature stays very cool. [Mod: I think the logic used here is flawed. The same amount of heat still needs to be "offloaded" from the CPU, no matter what the HSF is!]
I sort of missed it as well. Care to run it by me again?
vertigo wrote:If you want to go fanless (and I wouldn't) there are better heatsinks available (than the XP/120). There are plenty threads about fanless heatsinks, just look around.
No, I wouldn't want to go fanless for an overclocked system.

Thanks.

More advice, people?

MikeC
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Post by MikeC » Sat Aug 20, 2005 10:22 am

You don't really need a S12-500, a 430 will do fine & is cheaper & quieter... but the 500 has built-in PCIe 6-pin connectors if you need them. The 430 may ship with an adapter now, not sure.

Many HSF combos will work fine for your CPU. It's fairly cool-running.

teknerd
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Post by teknerd » Sat Aug 20, 2005 11:46 am

Well i just built a setup using very similar components (same mobo but an athlon 3000+) so i can tell you it can very easily be made quiet.
1) Go for the XP-120 with a 120mm nexus, it will be very powerful cooling and very quiet.
2) Don't bother trying to replace the chipset fan, its very difficult to do on a DFI Nf4. Personally i found that DFI's chipset fan wasn't nearly as bad as many others, especially if you make use of the fan control functions available in the BIOS. I'm not sure if you have poked around in there, but the CPU and chipset fans can be programmed to not turn on until a certain temp and then to ramp up slowly. Personally, on my friends computer, i set the chipset fan to turn on at about 35 degrees and not to go to full load until 50 or so.
3) good choice for the video card cooling
4) As Mike pointed out, There's no real reason to get the 500 over the 430, especially if money is an issue (the 500W is about 40-50 bucks more expensive). Get the 430 and use an adapter to convert 2 of the molexes into a PCI-E connector.
5) go with the PVR-150 for the TV Tuner, they totally kick ass.
6) the slk-3000b is a great case, especially if you're on a budget.
7) good choice on the hard drive

Hope this helps and good luck

vertigo
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Post by vertigo » Sat Aug 20, 2005 1:19 pm

Mod: I think the logic used here is flawed. The same amount of heat still needs to be "offloaded" from the CPU, no matter what the HSF is!
Allow me to explain. Let's think of two extremes, whereby I will make my point.

#1. Imagine for now that the heatsink offloaded all the cpu heat produced in one second into one molecule of air. Yes, this is impossible. I am using extremes to make my point.

Now, imagine that that hot molecule convects out the case via the exhaust fan. It can't heat up any component in the PC now. That heat is gone.

#2. Imagine now that the heatsink offloads the heat evenly to each and every air molecule in the case. All the air in the case is getting hotter, but the exhaust fan can only remove a small portion of that air. So as the heatsink heats the air, only part of that heat will convect away, a large amount of it will remain.

This situation is unstable. The air in the case will just get hotter and hotter, without bound.

Okay, back to reality. A small volume of hot air can be completely convected away. A large volume can't be. In fact, the volume of air being exhausted needs to be more than the volume of air heated up, otherwise the heat can't convect away.

Now the XP/90 has the benefit that a 80/92 fan moves less air than a 120, which would mean that the (less) air moving over the heatsink would contain more heat. In fact, putting that 80/92 fan in a sucking configuration would mean that the hot air is nicely concentrated, and easily exhausted.

This is how it is that my PC when idle and loaded (a difference of 120W measured at the meter) does not cause the case temp to rise even 1 degree.

Also, because less air is coming off the heatsink than the case fan can exhaust, by using a partition I can (effectively) prevent any of that air going through the power supply. This is impossible with an XP/120 (unless you could duct the case fan straight to the XP/120, which you can't do anyhow because there is no space).

PS: Just a very quick summary in layman's terms. Using the XP/120 means the power supply must exhaust some of the air heated up by the cpu. With an XP/90, you can ensure the case fan effectively exhausts all that hot air, and the power supply runs cooler. Sure, the cpu will suffer by a degree or two, but it can afford the heat more than the power supply can.

vertigo
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Post by vertigo » Sat Aug 20, 2005 1:39 pm

Reading what I just wrote, it even sounds confusing to me, so let me nicely state the main points.

- The more air that moves through a heatsink, the cooler it becomes.
- That heat goes into a certain volume of air
- More than that volume of air must be exhausted, or the average air temperature will necessarily have risen.

- The power supply exhausts air and the case fan exhausts air
- The case fan doesn't mind hot air
- The power supply does mind hot air (it ramps up)
- By ensuring less air is heated up by the cpu than the case fan can exhaust, and by ensuring that that hot air is in the vicinity of the vacuum created by the case fan, that heat will convect away and not enter the power supply

So ultimately it is a method of having a cooler running power supply.

pdf27
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Post by pdf27 » Sat Aug 20, 2005 2:21 pm

vertigo wrote:Reading what I just wrote, it even sounds confusing to me, so let me nicely state the main points.

- The more air that moves through a heatsink, the cooler it becomes.
- That heat goes into a certain volume of air
- More than that volume of air must be exhausted, or the average air temperature will necessarily have risen.

- The power supply exhausts air and the case fan exhausts air
- The case fan doesn't mind hot air
- The power supply does mind hot air (it ramps up)
- By ensuring less air is heated up by the cpu than the case fan can exhaust, and by ensuring that that hot air is in the vicinity of the vacuum created by the case fan, that heat will convect away and not enter the power supply

So ultimately it is a method of having a cooler running power supply.
Umm... I'm still confused, but I think you're trying to pick a fight with the law of conservation of energy - which you're going to lose.
Unless you're ducting the air from the CPU out of the case, the case can be treated like a box with a heater in it and a fan to recirculate air around but not out. It doesn't matter how fast the air is swirling around, the same amount of heat is being dumped to the air and it will reach the same temperature. If you're blowing less air over the CPU heatsink, it will have to be hotter to make up the energy loss.

Your scenario might make some sense if the CPU fan was ducted directly to the case fan and nowhere else (the PC I'm using right now uses a similar arrangement), but in that case you'd only ever use a single fan.

vertigo
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Post by vertigo » Sat Aug 20, 2005 2:30 pm

Unless you're ducting the air from the CPU out of the case, the case can be treated like a box with a heater in it and a fan to recirculate air around but not out.
No, that's not true. The case fan exhausts air, so you can't treat it like a heater in a box without exhausts.

Edit: Removed defensiveness. It's something I need to work on.

I would trade a degree or two of cpu temperature for a cooler running power supply. It's just a choice of mine, that's all. I prefer the push-pull effect of the sucking cpu fan to a duct. A duct can't let hot air escape (the duct). The push-pull system can, but not when the pull pulls harder than the push.

alexo
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Post by alexo » Sat Aug 20, 2005 3:14 pm

Hello teknerd and Mike,
teknerd wrote:3) good choice for the video card cooling
No "choice" yet, trying to decide between Zalman VF700, Thermalright V1 and ArcticCooling ATI Silencer 5 but cannot find enough info.
MikeC wrote: You don't really need a S12-500, a 430 will do fine & is cheaper & quieter...
I was under the impression that the newer versions of the 430 and 500 use the same fan, so why would it be quieter?
Also, the DFI / OCZ combination that I have is only supported with a 480W+ PSU. Yea, I know, I ttried to tell them but they are anal about it.

MikeC
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Post by MikeC » Sat Aug 20, 2005 7:13 pm

alexo wrote:I was under the impression that the newer versions of the 430 and 500 use the same fan, so why would it be quieter?
Read the S12-500/600 and S12-430 reviews more carefully. They now all use dual ball bearing fans by Adda but the ones in the bigger models are rated for higher speed and have a higher min speed/noise. As for what "they" say, don't worry about em. They're just plain wrong.

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Post by pdf27 » Sun Aug 21, 2005 1:22 am

vertigo wrote:
Unless you're ducting the air from the CPU out of the case, the case can be treated like a box with a heater in it and a fan to recirculate air around but not out.
No, that's not true. The case fan exhausts air, so you can't treat it like a heater in a box without exhausts.
Sorry, need clarity here - was referring only to the CPU and case combination. The case fan is a second fan, and as far as it is concerned the situation is identical in both boxes.

vertigo
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Post by vertigo » Sun Aug 21, 2005 4:54 am

The case fan is a second fan, and as far as it is concerned the situation is identical in both boxes.
I won't repeat what I've already said. Read over all my posts in this thread. If it doesn't make sense, so be it.

alexo
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Post by alexo » Fri Aug 26, 2005 4:27 am

Hi Mike,
MikeC wrote:They now all use dual ball bearing fans by Adda but the ones in the bigger models are rated for higher speed and have a higher min speed/noise.
OK, thanks.
MikeC wrote:As for what "they" say, don't worry about em. They're just plain wrong.
My concern was about the support "they" will or will not provide...

But I guess you are right.

Going a bit on a tangent, can you think of a configuration where an S12-430 will not be adequate?

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Post by Korwen » Fri Aug 26, 2005 8:00 am

alexo wrote:Hello teknerd and Mike,
teknerd wrote:3) good choice for the video card cooling
No "choice" yet, trying to decide between Zalman VF700, Thermalright V1 and ArcticCooling ATI Silencer 5 but cannot find enough info.
I have an AC NV silencer 5 on my 6800gt, and I like it, only problem is that if you're going for a completley silent case, you'll need to slow down the fan a bit, which is possible by plugging it into a fan connector. Even as it is, unmodified, it is very quiet and I like it. I must also say I have not heard a zalman VF700 on a card in an area where I could see how quiet it is.

mattthemuppet
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Post by mattthemuppet » Fri Aug 26, 2005 8:59 am

vertigo - as far as I understand it, if the CPU is stably producing X amount of heat, then that heat will be transferred to the air in the case. The case fan and the PSU fan will then exhaust it. If they're not taking out enough air, the internal temperature will increase, CPU temp will increase and PSU fan speed will increase - then you'll need to increase case fan speed or decrease CPU power output.

How that heat is transfered from the CPU to the air in the case is simply not relevant as far as I can tell.

teknerd
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Post by teknerd » Fri Aug 26, 2005 10:02 am

alexo wrote:Going a bit on a tangent, can you think of a configuration where an S12-430 will not be adequate?
4 Xeons.

Seriously though, most desktop configurations will be handled fine with a 430.
If you were running SLI with 6800gt's or higher you'd want the 500, but only so you weren't eating up 4 molexes to power your cards.

Also, since the load on the 430 will be closer to its max than a 500, the 430 will run more efficiently, hence generating less heat.

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