Whoa! Silent fanless Xeon Heatpipe solution!

rocarpen · Post by **rocarpen** » Thu Sep 16, 2004 12:41 am

I've been researching a new dual Xeon rig, and am determined to design a quiet system. I'd been searching for a quiet air-cooled CPU solution, and on 2CPU.com came across what looks like the ultimate product:

Cooler Master E3W-NPTXS-04 Xeon Socket 604 Heat Pipe

These beauties are brand new from the folks at Coolermaster, and reports are they're dead-silent, very efficient, and quite reasonably priced (ballpark $42 US apiece). Here's what one new owner said over at the following 2CPU.com thread:

http://forums.2cpu.com/showthread.php?s ... genumber=5

OK. I installed the CM -04s tonight. Here are the impressions.

I went from a system that sounded like it was running a vacuum cleaner inside it full time to one that is basically silent except for the whine of the SCSI drives. The difference is night and day. Really.. get these. It does make that much a difference...

There's also a great review with lots of pics here:

http://www.ctechnet.com/hardware/Cooler ... txs-04.htm

Anyone interested in a silent dual Xeon rig ought to keep their eyes on these beauties! Note that there are actually two variations, nearly identical save for the Xeon's they support:

E3W-NPTXS-04: Intel Xeon (Nocona,Irwindale)
E3W-NPTXC-01: Intel Xeon (Prestonia)

Coolermaster information page here:

http://ecd.coolermaster.com/product/ind ... t_id=3#top

Check out that 2CPU thread for the full rundown. Hope this info helps someone!

rocarpen · Post by **rocarpen** » Thu Sep 16, 2004 12:52 am

Orbit Micro has the -04 variation (suitable for NCCH-DL, DH800, and other mobos geared towards 800FSB Nocona Xeons) on right now for $41.60:

http://www.orbitmicro.com/products/acce ... TXS-04.htm

rocarpen · Post by **rocarpen** » Thu Sep 16, 2004 12:57 am

Okay, one more annecdote! Again, from the 2CPU.com thread here:

http://forums.2cpu.com/showthread.php?s ... genumber=6

WOW!! I got them today, installed them, and holy smokes! It's running SOOOO much cooler than the stock intels with the 38mm fans! I'm at least a good 8 degrees cooler than before. I'm gonna try to bump it up and see if I can get to 3.6 stable with them hah! Also will get some pics up tonight.'

Update:

HAHA! I hit the wrong button... 17 instead of 16 for a multiplier. Guess what happened! It friggin posted with BOTH cpus at 3.95ghz!!! HOLY HELL! Mr. Tweak, be afraid, be very afraid... (regarding your PCMark 2004!!)

...

DH800
2 x 2.4ghz LV 533 (Pin-Mod)
3.961ghz (17x233) 1.575v!! + HT ENABLED!
HS=CM-04 + 120mm fan blowing through it
1gb OCZ PC4400 Gold (easily handles paltry 233)

And that was just a post, but there was no way in hell I could post that high in dual mode with the old HSF setup. haha

And again folks, these area DEAD silent. Geez I'm psyched to score a pair of these.

icancam · Post by **icancam** » Thu Sep 16, 2004 1:07 am

Makes one's heart glad, doesn't it? At my last job, I often went into the server room. The roar of all those cooling fans was intense. It's wonderful to see that silencing computers is now recognized as being both desirable and marketable even beyond single processors in the home and at the office worker's desk.

silvervarg · Post by **silvervarg** » Thu Sep 16, 2004 1:50 am

It would be interesting to see one of these beasts in a SPCR test.
The reviews linked so far does not resemble anything that can be repeatable, so no results can be verified.
This like hardware setup (with images), case fans used etc is very important.

IMHO removing the CPU fan is a good thing, BUT since the CPU fan is in the center of the computer it's noise i baffled quite a bit by the case. So, before you remove the CPU fan entierly you should remove all case fans, including PSU fan.
Up to that point you are better off with lowering the speed of the fans.
What really matters is to get as low overall noise level at operators position.

Seeing things like:
HS=CM-04 + 120mm fan blowing through it

Yikes, he has a "passive" cooler with a 120mm fan (probably at full 12V) blowing through it. I think this guy missed the point...

rocarpen · Post by **rocarpen** » Thu Sep 16, 2004 1:58 am

silvervarg wrote:Seeing things like:
HS=CM-04 + 120mm fan blowing through it

Yikes, he has a "passive" cooler with a 120mm fan (probably at full 12V) blowing through it. I think this guy missed the point...

Well the guys at 2CPU.com are more performance minded, going on and on about overclocks and the like. They see these heat sinks as providing superior cooling to the popular Swiftech MCX603 line, at lower prices and with zero sound. I'm sure it's too much for them to resist combining the efficient heat sinks with a nice 120mm fan for ultimate cooling.

Personally, I can see these guys in something like a BQE, with intake and exhaust 120mm fans running at like 7v via Zalman Fan Mate. Couple that with a 475W Noisetaker and maybe an Arctic Cooling NV Silencer 5 on the GPU (I'm eyeing a GeForce 6800GT), and you've got a super-powerful, very quiet system. This seems like the sort of rig I really didn't expect would be possible without going into expensive water-cooling options.

Awesome!