Cooling AMD Phenom II X3 710

teeppaja · Post by **teeppaja** » Sat Jan 23, 2010 4:04 am

Hi,

I bought new computer about 4 months ago and now it is time to make it quiet. My computer is about 24/7 on and I sleep in same room so it has to be quiet. I am also going to overclock my CPU so the cooler must be quiet and effective.

I have

Case: ANTEC NSK 4480BII MINI TOWER CASE with Earthwatts 380W
CPU: AMD Phenom II X3 710
Motherboard: Asrock 780GXH
Memory: 2x A-DATA DDR2 800MHz 2GB
VGA: Sapphire Radeon 4770 (littlebit overclocked)
Harddrive: SMG F1 1TB 3.5" SATA2 7200RPM 32MB
DVD-Drive: TSSTCorp CDDVDW SH-S222A

Any ideas?

JamieG · Post by **JamieG** » Sat Jan 23, 2010 5:13 am

Some random thoughts/starting point:

- do a fan swap on your PSU: change it for a Noctua NF-R8 80mm fan.
- you could also duct the PSU to the front of the case so it get separate cool intake air.
- a Scythe Mugen 2 would be a pretty good option for your CPU cooler. It comes with a pretty good stock fan.
- Swap your rear exhaust fan for a Nexus or Scythe fan
- block off all the air vents in the side of your case, as this helps noise escape. some self-adhesive vinyl floor tiles would be good and would add some extra weight that would help reduce vibration noise
- remove that hard drive cage and suspend your HDD somewhere
- cut out the fan grills on the rear exhaust and front intake (every bit of airflow helps)
- add an aftermarket GPU cooler to your graphics card. If you are going to overclock it a bit, something reasonably beefy will be needed. Add a couple of fans to whatever cooler will fit your card. Check the Thermalright HR and T-rad series, the Prolimatech MK-13 and the Scythe Musashi for compatibility with your card. Arctic Cooling also makes some reasonably quiet GPU heatsinks but if you are overclocking then the passive Accelero series may not be appropriate, even with a fan tied on to the heatsink.

Hope some of that helps.

jhatfie · Post by **jhatfie** » Sat Jan 23, 2010 11:43 am

What is your budget? $30? $50? $70?

teeppaja · Post by **teeppaja** » Sat Jan 23, 2010 12:50 pm

Well 70$-100$ sounds fair, but it would be nice if it is enough for quieting CPU and PSU.

teeppaja · Post by **teeppaja** » Sun Jan 24, 2010 7:12 am

@JamieG:

Prolimatech MK-13 was the only one that fits to my VGA. If I buy it this is going to be about 170$ case :S
I guess I'll buy it anyway, if some1 just tells me where I can find it. I tried to google it, but I just found news and previews.

jhatfie · Post by **jhatfie** » Sun Jan 24, 2010 12:03 pm

I am not a quiet expert as I like things quiet but have more tolerance for noise than some here.

I believe that the AC Accelero L2 Pro also fits the HD 4770 and can be found for around $15-18. It has a PWM fan, runs a bit cooler than stock and should be quieter.

I am not familiar with that Antec case you have, so I am not certain about clearance issues you might have with certain tower coolers. But the Thermalright rev. C's and Noctua U12P's are very good efficient air coolers that are only as loud as you make the fan go and can cope with high heat using a lower cfm fan. I use a CoolerMaster Hyper 212+ on my OC'd i5-750 @ 4Ghz and it can get a bit loud at full tilt with 2 fans in push/pull at 100%, but with PWM enabled (tends to sit at 1400 rpm under moderate use versus 2000 for 100%) at a less aggressive setting it is pretty dang quiet and cools the cpu pretty well with a modest overclock.

K.Murx · Post by **K.Murx** » Mon Jan 25, 2010 3:15 am

jhatfie wrote:I believe that the AC Accelero L2 Pro also fits the HD 4770 and can be found for around $15-18. It has a PWM fan, runs a bit cooler than stock and should be quieter.

I use one, and it does fit (on the card, do not know about the case), and is very, very quiet, significantly quieter than the stock fan (which tends to have sudden bouts of ramping up, too).

teeppaja · Post by **teeppaja** » Mon Jan 25, 2010 1:25 pm

I have just ordered Noctua NF-R8 80mm fan, Scythe Mugen 2 and Scythe S-Flex 120mm.

Thanks for help guys.