XP-120 on A8N-SLI Premium

[ozdoc]

Oliver

PSU is a Phantom 350 - no fan.. Graphics 6600 GT passive gigabyte.

Some temp numbers at idle:

Open Case
Blow CPU 34 MB 36 GPU 66
Suck CPU 37 MB 36 GPU 65

No Air Duct
Blow CPU 36 MB 38 GPU 67
Suck CPU 39 MB 37 GPU 65

CPU Air Duct
Blow CPU 34 MB 39 GPU 69
Suck CPU 39 MB 37 GPU 67

Ambient temp around 25.

The CPU certainly seems happier with a CPU duct / blow configuration. Suck seems to bring down the MB and GPU temps in a closed case, but only marginally. Duct seems to restrict local airflow, increasing the passive GPU temps.

I'm likely to stay with the CPU duct, with blow configuration.
Any thoughts?

[Oliver]

First off, I think you are doing about as well as you can with those parts.
Your observations coincide with mine.
The duct does mess with airflow to the GPU.
Your motherboard temp number seems right (actually considering you do not have a fannned PSU, I think you are doing well with that number).

If your ambient temp is really 25c and not 22c then I think you are doing about as well as you can with that setup and parts. That graphics card will probably heat up 18c-20c at load if you had a fan on it (and since it is passive my guess is that it will go up at least 30c actually)

www.fan-x.de has a bunch of test of various heatsinks and the components in the system.

A tower heatsink with a fan blowing sideways towards the back will cool the nvidia chipset heatpipe fins located near the cpu and thus lower your motherboard temp that is reported.

If it really is 25C where you are at, then I think the max you can get that down to with very slow moving fans inside your case is 35c (but I think that would be hard to do a fan blowing down onto the xp120, and that is why I asked about your sucking temps ). You can achieve that with the tower as I said already, Or with a PSU that has a 120mm fan on its bottom above the CPU heatsink area.

As far as your GPU that is passive, you need turbulance. According to fan-x.de the SonicTower with a fan mounted on the side (which would put it over the memory slot) will create such turbulance on th eside of the graphics card.

Hope this helps ozdoc.

[Thorz]

I have the Asus A8N SLI Premium and ordered the SI-120. I have also an XP-120. Big question is:

I can see from the pics posted that the heatpipes can be installed pointing the back ports or the memory slots, but speaking about performance, which of these 2 orientations delivers better temperatures?

I am pairing it with a Nexus 120, my case is also the Antec 3000B and I use the air duct.

Thanks a lot.

[m0002a]

Not sure about the Asus A8N SLI Premium, but on the Asus A8N-E, you can use memory slots 2 and 4 (instead of 1 and 3) to keep the DIMMs away from the XP-120 heatpipes, assuming that you only have 2 sticks. The Asus manual is a contradictory on this isssue, but it worked fine for me on the Asus A8N-E.

[Firetech]

I have the Asus A8N SLI Premium and ordered the SI-120. I have also an XP-120. Big question is:

I'm intrigued: If you already have an XP-120, why are you getting an SI-120 too

[Thorz]

I have the Asus A8N SLI Premium and ordered the SI-120. I have also an XP-120. Big question is:

I'm intrigued: If you already have an XP-120, why are you getting an SI-120 too

I have both already. I had the XP-120 in another system that was sold, I took away the XP because that system went with standard intel cooler, the SI was for my old system that I decided to upgrade but I decided to install the SI on the premium at the end . Having both I think that the SI is a better choice for my new system than the XP, but both fit the Asus premium.

[Firetech]

Thanks for the reply