A few questions

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maddangerous
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A few questions

Post by maddangerous » Sat Feb 28, 2015 10:30 am

Hello SPCR! I am new here, came over from overclock, where I found this awesome website.

I have a couple questions related to my case and a CPU cooler I am looking into, so first off, should I post those here, or in those respective sub-forums..?

Edit for info.

So, I recently purchased my Nanoxia DS-5. It was mainly between that, the Silverstone RV-02E, and the Fractal Design R5. the post for that is on My Overclock Post. I ended up choosing this case because it seemed well outfitted for expansion in the future (i'll be using this for years) in terms of HDD mounting capability and large mother board support. It seemed to have pretty great reviews, and it also looked better to my fiancee and I, as it sits next to our entertainment center in the living room, due to the limits of our crappy apartment power system. Blegh.

Now, having moved the whole rig into it, i do notice the stock CPU cooler noise is very, very noticeable with this case all closed up. More so than I thought it would/should be. any thoughts on that? Am i missing a step here? This leads me to:

I'm looking into a new CPU cooler. I have read the Recommended Heatsinks, but was originally looking at a Cryorig R1 Ultimate or a Noctua NH-D15 although I can't stand the fan color. So I don't really know what to do from here honestly... but it needs to be quiet, and I am going for a tad overkill honestly. I really do not want to hear this system much, so I would like the cooling to be effective as it can be. I know that cooling and quiet don't normally go together, but the best of both is what I am going to go for. I have not updated the parts to include some other HDD's I just put in (can't remember what they are) but they are not making any noise at all really. Surprisingly, as they are older drives.

Parts:

MOBO: MSI 870A-G54
CPU: AMD Phenom II 1090T
RAM: 3 gigs Kingston
HDD: 120gig WD
HDD: 500gig WD Green
GPU: XFX AMD Radeon HD 7770 <-- swapping out for my HD4550 that is fanless this weekend.
PSU: OCZ Fatal1ty 750 watt semi-modular
Case: Nanoxia DS-5
Fans: stock nanoxia 140mm

Question recap

1. Am I missing something with this case? or is the stock cooler really that flippin loud?
2. Help with a CPU cooler? I'm kind of lost and SPCR has a lot of information to take in at once :P


Thanks,
--Madd
Last edited by maddangerous on Sat Feb 28, 2015 1:00 pm, edited 1 time in total.

CA_Steve
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Re: A few questions

Post by CA_Steve » Sat Feb 28, 2015 11:59 am

Welcome to SPCR.

Posting here is fine. It's best to keep all related q's in one thread so we don't have to guess about the case info in the cooler thread, etc...

maddangerous
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Re: A few questions

Post by maddangerous » Sat Feb 28, 2015 12:42 pm

CA_Steve wrote:Welcome to SPCR.

Posting here is fine. It's best to keep all related q's in one thread so we don't have to guess about the case info in the cooler thread, etc...
Great thanks a lot. I was hoping that would be the case for the same reason. I'll update the first post.

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Re: A few questions

Post by CA_Steve » Sat Feb 28, 2015 1:36 pm

Stock coolers can be loud. Have you done the test where you turn all the case fans off and then see what you hear at idle?

The best air cooler for stock clocked CPUs is the Scythe Kotetsu. It beat out the D15 as well as many other more expensive coolers.

I have to ask: Why are you using a 6 core 125W CPU as a server?

maddangerous
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Re: A few questions

Post by maddangerous » Sat Feb 28, 2015 1:59 pm

I built a new gaming rig to replace my older one, and this was the older one, so I re-purposed it. I have done the test, and mainly the stock cooler is what I hear. the hard drives a bit, not quite as loud as the cooler, and those will be updated over the next year or two, depending on how things go. Your link leads to a review to the case btw, and one I had not see i think, so thank you lol.

Is that really a great choice cpu cooler? I have seen it around here a lot, mentioned and such. I'll look around and see about other coolers as well, for looks and such. Yeah, that matters to me, athough some think it silly.

I will be trying to get some different fans as well for the case. I think.

quest_for_silence
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Re: A few questions

Post by quest_for_silence » Sat Feb 28, 2015 2:56 pm

First of all try I'd try to undervolt and underclock (disabling Turbo and using a 12-15x ratio for the CPU would still be plenty for the new task) your hot CPU, I run an X6 1055T around 1.1V vcore, and it's very cool at that voltage, so even the stock cooler could spin at a lower pace.
On the other hand, I also think it's just crap, so that a good sounding one will help probably a lot more.

maddangerous
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Re: A few questions

Post by maddangerous » Sat Feb 28, 2015 3:17 pm

quest_for_silence wrote:First of all try I'd try to undervolt and underclock (disabling Turbo and using a 12-15x ratio for the CPU would still be plenty for the new task) your hot CPU, I run an X6 1055T around 1.1V vcore, and it's very cool at that voltage, so even the stock cooler could spin at a lower pace.
On the other hand, I also think it's just crap, so that a good sounding one will help probably a lot more.
I have turbo disabled already actually, it was causing me issues before :)

Are you referring to the cooler? I agree if so lol.

Did you read the overclock thread about what my application for this rig is by chance?

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Re: A few questions

Post by CA_Steve » Sat Feb 28, 2015 5:14 pm

Your link leads to a review to the case btw, and one I had not see i think, so thank you lol.
<sigh>

Try this.

You can also see it in SPCR's Gaming build (Fractal R5 version). Check out the relative noise levels of components.

maddangerous
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Re: A few questions

Post by maddangerous » Sat Feb 28, 2015 8:24 pm

Oh I read the Kotetsu review alright. Seems promising, but forgive me a tad... hard to believe I guess? Not sure why, just in a bit of disbelief.

I also wish I had seen this before I built my gaming rig with the Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO. My little 95 watt 7850K could have been even quieter :P

I'm going to search around and see if anyone has used this particular combination of CPU and cooler before. Also searching for how to underclock/undervolt properly.

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Re: A few questions

Post by CA_Steve » Sat Feb 28, 2015 9:20 pm

Your call. Scythe has had a series of great coolers for many years. One would hope that cycles of learning apply. :D

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Re: A few questions

Post by quest_for_silence » Sat Feb 28, 2015 11:28 pm

maddangerous wrote:Did you read the overclock thread about what my application for this rig is by chance?
No, I hadn't that chance, but you can link your post here, if you care to share.

maddangerous wrote:Oh I read the Kotetsu review alright. Seems promising, but forgive me a tad... hard to believe I guess? Not sure why, just in a bit of disbelief.

I beg your pardon, but if you don't believe what you watch, or if you don't trust SPCR findings, what are you doing here? Please take note that I don't mean to be rude.

BTW, these are some my findings about the Kotetsu, I dunno if those can help you.

maddangerous wrote:I also wish I had seen this before I built my gaming rig with the Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO. My little 95 watt 7850K could have been even quieter :P

You should be still in time to swap the stock fan, if you don't mind.
At any rate, quietness (or silence) like security in IT is a process, not a state, so picking some suitable parts it's just the starting point: it's how you run them to make a difference, noise-wise.

maddangerous wrote:I'm going to search around and see if anyone has used this particular combination of CPU and cooler before. Also searching for how to underclock/undervolt properly.

Currently I use a Big Shuriken 1 Rev. B on the 1055T and a Big Shuriken 2 Rev. B on a 960T, both with standard height (25mm) Scythe Slipstream PWM fans and I'm quite satisfied, noise-wise.

Underclocking is a straight process, just cap the multiplier ratio to a suitable value; about undervolting, it's like overclocking, trial and error, boot, stability test, iterate: I ended up doing it via software with K10Stat, it let me have a more granular control than my BIOS.

maddangerous
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Re: A few questions

Post by maddangerous » Sun Mar 01, 2015 12:18 am

CA_Steve wrote:Your call. Scythe has had a series of great coolers for many years. One would hope that cycles of learning apply. :D
It has certainly seemed that way, I read some more reviews about other coolers too for fun

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Re: A few questions

Post by maddangerous » Sun Mar 01, 2015 12:43 am

quest_for_silence wrote: No, I hadn't that chance, but you can link your post here, if you care to share.
Here, first post near the bottom. I'm new to server stuff, at any rate, hoping I have the horsepower to throw some projects at it. For fun really, some of it.
quest_for_silence wrote:
maddangerous wrote:Oh I read the Kotetsu review alright. Seems promising, but forgive me a tad... hard to believe I guess? Not sure why, just in a bit of disbelief.

I beg your pardon, but if you don't believe what you watch, or if you don't trust SPCR findings, what are you doing here? Please take note that I don't mean to be rude.


Oh, no offense taken. I just didn't (and do not) have a better way to say what was on my mind. I guess I was just.. surprised? I very much believe it, but the cooling capacity at how quiet it is, just surprising to me. Believe me, the way things get tested here, I'm not questioning the results. I think I mentioned it earlier, but there is a lot of information to take in, very thorough reviewing. Just asking questions :D However, to clarify, is it really a balance of cooling capacity and silence that is tested for here, or just a touch more priority on the silence side?
quest_for_silence wrote: You should be still in time to swap the stock fan, if you don't mind.
At any rate, quietness (or silence) like security in IT is a process, not a state, so picking some suitable parts it's just the starting point: it's how you run them to make a difference, noise-wise.
I did actually, with a fan to match my case fans. Couldn't stand the fan that came with it. I do not think that one was well balanced, or something. Not sure. However, as a result, there is no conflicting sounds from different fans. It made sense to do something like that, even before I discovered this website. I would not say the fans are amazing, but certainly not bad. I hardly hear them ramp up at all playing games. The G1 970 gets a touch noticeable though.

I shall keep that last bit in mind, whilst looking for better fan control for both computers.

If you're curious, my fans
quest_for_silence wrote: Currently I use a Big Shuriken 1 Rev. B on the 1055T and a Big Shuriken 2 Rev. B on a 960T, both with standard height (25mm) Scythe Slipstream PWM fans and I'm quite satisfied, noise-wise.

Underclocking is a straight process, just cap the multiplier ratio to a suitable value; about undervolting, it's like overclocking, trial and error, boot, stability test, iterate: I ended up doing it via software with K10Stat, it let me have a more granular control than my BIOS.
Alrighy sounds good, I'll have to look into K10Stat, I had not heard of that before. thanks for the info on underclocking. I could probably cap the CPU speed with Catalyst too, but playing with undervolting... I'll have to see how those two combined play with each other.

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Re: A few questions

Post by quest_for_silence » Sun Mar 01, 2015 4:16 am


I gave a first skimming, and if I'm not wrong you started with the DS5 and ended with the... DS5. To say, definitely you're not an easily influenced guy. By the way, dealing with 6 drives SPCR strategy is a bit different.

maddangerous wrote:However, to clarify, is it really a balance of cooling capacity and silence that is tested for here, or just a touch more priority on the silence side?

First of all, given your combo (hot CPU paired with unheatsinked 4 phase VRMs to run 24/7) probably I'd give a look to a top-down (or down-blower) cooler, rather than a tower-style one, in order to cool the motherboard power circuitry (for reliability reasons).

Said that, any SPCR heatsink test is just a test: given a 20dB noise ceiling (see Recommended article) as a limit to call an heatsink "enough quiet", SPCR tests the cooling prowess at different fan voltage supply (usually corresponding to 5V, 7V, 9V and 12V), then records the temperature. Then it's up to your call to define your balance on those data basis.

My own main criterion is that anything higher than 12-13dB isn't optimal, but it's the rig actual task to lead my choice (to say, whether I need cooling, then I need cooling, period: my trade off will be towards a tad more noise than optimal).

maddangerous wrote:I did actually, with a fan to match my case fans. Couldn't stand the fan that came with it. I do not think that one was well balanced, or something. Not sure. However, as a result, there is no conflicting sounds from different fans. It made sense to do something like that, even before I discovered this website. I would not say the fans are amazing, but certainly not bad. I hardly hear them ramp up at all playing games. The G1 970 gets a touch noticeable though.

As far as I know the G1 is a noisy card, or better, it is noisier and more noticeable than other valuable options (ASUS Strix, MSI Gaming, Palit Jetstream and maybe a few others), and probably the 2-fans Windforce OC is more well balanced, noise-wise, but I think you won't use a GTX 970 on a server, will you?

I guess that your problem with the Nanoxia stock fans were due to the motherboard: usually MSI boards are not well suited to dial down voltage driven (3 pin) fans, and as a matter of fact Lepa PWM ones apparently gave you a bit more satisfaction.

maddangerous wrote:I shall keep that last bit in mind, whilst looking for better fan control for both computers.

With your current board you may experiment with pure BIOS control, give a try to SpeedFan (very useful even with an XFX 7770), or use some external fan controller (but you have a door, so check the knobs height), preferably something programmable like a Scythe Kaze Server, IMO.

maddangerous wrote:If you're curious, my fans

Thanks: I don't know them, on paper they are good looking, they seem to have a long lasting bearing and a correct struts angle, but on the other hand they declare a bit too high minimum speed. As I said, I suspect that one of the reasons they worked apparently better than Nanoxia's stock ones is that they're PWM.

Broadly speaking I'm not confident with Lepa (the value brand of Enermax), their products are a mixed bag (I mean, see SPCR review on their LV12 heatsink, or [H]ard|OCP on their MX F1 600W PSU, or even JonnyGURU.com on their MaxBron 1000W PSU), but I can't say anything meaningful about your fans.

maddangerous wrote:Alrighy sounds good, I'll have to look into K10Stat, I had not heard of that before. thanks for the info on underclocking. I could probably cap the CPU speed with Catalyst too, but playing with undervolting... I'll have to see how those two combined play with each other.

Personally I wouldn't use the Catalyst suite on a server, unless you need for some specific reasons: I would use the plain, bare driver, maybe along with SpeedFan to dial down the GPU fan (on my XFX 7770 GHz Edition DD I set the fans at 675rpm on idle/low load, so that it's inaudible 30cm from my nose).
About K10Stat, it's just a piece of software to program the CPU P-states in a more granular way (voltage wise) than something like AMD OverDrive does: it may work for you, as well as it may not, undervolting can either be done satisfactorily with your BIOS settings. Take note that any chip is peculiar, as well as in OC'ing, and as a matter of fact my X6 1055T undervolts way more easily and deeply than my X4 960T, despite the facts they use two very similar motherboards, they have a similar frequency, and the latter sports two cores less.

Eventually take also note that any piece of softwares (Catalyst, SpeedFan, K10Stat) may give issues when running in a 24/7 server environment, so extended testings is IMVHO mandatory.

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Re: A few questions

Post by maddangerous » Sun Mar 01, 2015 9:22 am

quest_for_silence wrote:
I gave a first skimming, and if I'm not wrong you started with the DS5 and ended with the... DS5. To say, definitely you're not an easily influenced guy. By the way, dealing with 6 drives SPCR strategy is a bit different.
Yeah, when it comes to my case aesthetics I'm stubborn. Not pointing a finger, but there was another person that had to be happy with it too, so I was a bit more uptight about it than I normally am. I was strongly considering the Fractal Design R5, but it did not have larger that ATX motherboard support (for future use hopefully). I also did not like that the top moduvent system was not screwed in. When it comes to components though, I am not as stubborn about it, jsut when I have a case window :P ( not the case here )

I am intrigued by HDD suspension. I think there might be a way for me to do that in the DS5, and I was already considering modding the HDD cages with a dremel a bit for a tad more airflow, and I think opening up the sides of the cages will only make it easier to suspend the drives.
quest_for_silence wrote:
First of all, given your combo (hot CPU paired with unheatsinked 4 phase VRMs to run 24/7) probably I'd give a look to a top-down (or down-blower) cooler, rather than a tower-style one, in order to cool the motherboard power circuitry (for reliability reasons).

Said that, any SPCR heatsink test is just a test: given a 20dB noise ceiling (see Recommended article) as a limit to call an heatsink "enough quiet", SPCR tests the cooling prowess at different fan voltage supply (usually corresponding to 5V, 7V, 9V and 12V), then records the temperature. Then it's up to your call to define your balance on those data basis.

My own main criterion is that anything higher than 12-13dB isn't optimal, but it's the rig actual task to lead my choice (to say, whether I need cooling, then I need cooling, period: my trade off will be towards a tad more noise than optimal).

Ok I see. I will be looking at the top down style coolers in a while. Would it be of concern that the cooler would not really be getting fresh air..? I had been told before that the top down style coolers are not as effective when there is no source of cool air near them. I don't believe everything I hear on the internet, but I have just not heard anything to counter that statement made to me yet.
quest_for_silence wrote:
As far as I know the G1 is a noisy card, or better, it is noisier and more noticeable than other valuable options (ASUS Strix, MSI Gaming, Palit Jetstream and maybe a few others), and probably the 2-fans Windforce OC is more well balanced, noise-wise, but I think you won't use a GTX 970 on a server, will you?

I guess that your problem with the Nanoxia stock fans were due to the motherboard: usually MSI boards are not well suited to dial down voltage driven (3 pin) fans, and as a matter of fact Lepa PWM ones apparently gave you a bit more satisfaction.


Ah well haha the fans I was talking about, as well as the 970, are in my gaming rig. I would be out of my mind if I put a 970 in a server wouldn't I? Yeah, it is a tad noisier, but that really is not too noticeable as I have 10 fans total in the gaming rig (1psu, 5 case fans, 1 CPU cooler fan, 3 on the 970) and it stays cool enough.

On that note however, if I could mount these fans in the DS5 I would, but the front intake area can only take 140mm fans to my knowledge. Also, the fans in the server are running off of the integrated fan controller that came with the case. I should snag a 5.25 bay fan controller really though...

quest_for_silence wrote: With your current board you may experiment with pure BIOS control, give a try to SpeedFan (very useful even with an XFX 7770), or use some external fan controller (but you have a door, so check the knobs height), preferably something programmable like a Scythe Kaze Server, IMO.
Speedfan has always not liked me. Or maybe the other way around. I always seem to get hardware that is not supported by it. I will look at the Kaze server, thank you for the suggestion. I will most likely swap the 7770 for my HD4550, as that one is fanless. Makes more sense to me.

Sorry about that confusion.

quest_for_silence wrote: Thanks: I don't know them, on paper they are good looking, they seem to have a long lasting bearing and a correct struts angle, but on the other hand they declare a bit too high minimum speed. As I said, I suspect that one of the reasons they worked apparently better than Nanoxia's stock ones is that they're PWM.

Broadly speaking I'm not confident with Lepa (the value brand of Enermax), their products are a mixed bag (I mean, see SPCR review on their LV12 heatsink, or [H]ard|OCP on their MX F1 600W PSU, or even JonnyGURU.com on their MaxBron 1000W PSU), but I can't say anything meaningful about your fans.
Too high minimum fan speed? I though that was pretty low actually :P then again I bought those before I found this website. While I don't know about the other components, I can tell you that I think I have 3 fans that were DOA, but, the mail guy dropped the box with those fans on a concrete floor in front of me. So that is probably why. Other than that no issues yet. I did not know they were the value brand of Enermax though.
quest_for_silence wrote: Personally I wouldn't use the Catalyst suite on a server, unless you need for some specific reasons: I would use the plain, bare driver, maybe along with SpeedFan to dial down the GPU fan (on my XFX 7770 GHz Edition DD I set the fans at 675rpm on idle/low load, so that it's inaudible 30cm from my nose).
About K10Stat, it's just a piece of software to program the CPU P-states in a more granular way (voltage wise) than something like AMD OverDrive does: it may work for you, as well as it may not, undervolting can either be done satisfactorily with your BIOS settings. Take note that any chip is peculiar, as well as in OC'ing, and as a matter of fact my X6 1055T undervolts way more easily and deeply than my X4 960T, despite the facts they use two very similar motherboards, they have a similar frequency, and the latter sports two cores less.

Eventually take also note that any piece of softwares (Catalyst, SpeedFan, K10Stat) may give issues when running in a 24/7 server environment, so extended testings is IMVHO mandatory.
Yeah I was going to be wary of that stuff too. I thought I should probably do this in the BIOS. Would Cool n Quiet interfere with this at all do you know?

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Re: A few questions

Post by quest_for_silence » Sun Mar 01, 2015 3:17 pm

maddangerous wrote:I don't believe everything I hear on the internet, but I have just not heard anything to counter that statement made to me yet.

Seriously? You need counter statements? Why a top-down cooler would need that (more) fresh air? And how much that fresh air would impact the relevant performance? Don't the tower coolers breath the same air? Is that air of the same scolding heat of your unheatsinked mosfets? Really, I can't believe this may be an actual concern for you: obiously I may be wrong, but I'd definitely call what you were told sort of bullshits. :wink:
Said that, there are not so many top-down coolers, and even less are the high-performance ones, but there are: as a matter of fact the Prolimatech Genesis and the Noctua NH-C14 are two of the best heatsinks reviewed by SPCR.

maddangerous wrote:Ah well haha the fans I was talking about, as well as the 970, are in my gaming rig.

Well, sorry for the misunderstanding: unfortunately nothing, not even the G1, let me think about you were talking about fans of a different rig.

maddangerous wrote:On that note however, if I could mount these fans in the DS5 I would, but the front intake area can only take 140mm fans to my knowledge. Also, the fans in the server are running off of the integrated fan controller that came with the case.

I thought you want to tie the cooling prowess to the actual load, mainly because that's what I usually do: the standard Nanoxia fan controller can be very quiet at its lowest setting (around 5V), but while Nanoxia fans may spin rather slow, on the other hand your case won't be able to automatically balance any internal temperature increase due to load or ambient temp rising (you're not often sit at a server keyboard, though it shouldn't be a real threat for an home server).

maddangerous wrote:Speedfan has always not liked me. Or maybe the other way around. I always seem to get hardware that is not supported by it.

I would still give a read to the whole SPCR guide, however, and personally I never found a MSI board which was not compatible with SpeedFan, but since you are not going to tie the cooling prowess to the load level, it's just up to your call.

maddangerous wrote:Too high minimum fan speed? I though that was pretty low actually

600rpm is the usual max for my rigs (I may raise to 800rpm in summer, when ambient temp exceeds 30°C).
Obviously with 5-6 drives your requirements may be different, as well as your subjective assessment of noise levels.

maddangerous wrote:Would Cool n Quiet interfere with this at all do you know?

No, K10Stat as well as PhenomMsrTweaker let you customize and tune Cool'n'Quiet according to your needs and will.

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Re: A few questions

Post by maddangerous » Sun Mar 01, 2015 9:47 pm

quest_for_silence wrote:
maddangerous wrote:I don't believe everything I hear on the internet, but I have just not heard anything to counter that statement made to me yet.

Seriously? You need counter statements? Why a top-down cooler would need that (more) fresh air? And how much that fresh air would impact the relevant performance? Don't the tower coolers breath the same air? Is that air of the same scolding heat of your unheatsinked mosfets? Really, I can't believe this may be an actual concern for you: obiously I may be wrong, but I'd definitely call what you were told sort of bullshits. :wink:
Said that, there are not so many top-down coolers, and even less are the high-performance ones, but there are: as a matter of fact the Prolimatech Genesis and the Noctua NH-C14 are two of the best heatsinks reviewed by SPCR.
maddangerous wrote:Ah well haha the fans I was talking about, as well as the 970, are in my gaming rig.

Well, sorry for the misunderstanding: unfortunately nothing, not even the G1, let me think about you were talking about fans of a different rig.
Well.. I'm just going to take my keyboard and sit in the corner for a bit. It was very late here when I posted lol. Sorry about the confusion, I should have specified.
Also, holy crap, the Genesis is a GIANT. I was just considering the Noctua NH-L12, unless I am reading the charts wrong it performed better than the C14...?
quest_for_silence wrote: I thought you want to tie the cooling prowess to the actual load, mainly because that's what I usually do: the standard Nanoxia fan controller can be very quiet at its lowest setting (around 5V), but while Nanoxia fans may spin rather slow, on the other hand your case won't be able to automatically balance any internal temperature increase due to load or ambient temp rising (you're not often sit at a server keyboard, though it shouldn't be a real threat for an home server).

I would still give a read to the whole SPCR guide, however, and personally I never found a MSI board which was not compatible with SpeedFan, but since you are not going to tie the cooling prowess to the load level, it's just up to your call.
I would like to do that yes, I just figured I would run the fans a tad high for now until I get a better fan control setup down. Basing the fan speed on load is definitely better. Also, I will go read the speedfan thing later on. I did not ever try it on that motherboard, only my new one for the gaming rig.
quest_for_silence wrote: 600rpm is the usual max for my rigs (I may raise to 800rpm in summer, when ambient temp exceeds 30°C).
Obviously with 5-6 drives your requirements may be different, as well as your subjective assessment of noise levels.
dang. that is really low. Also, yeah, I assume I'll need a tad more cooling with the HDD's. Need to take a dremel to open the HDD cage sides a bit more so I can suspend and cool the drives well.
quest_for_silence wrote: No, K10Stat as well as PhenomMsrTweaker let you customize and tune Cool'n'Quiet according to your needs and will.
That is good to know thank you. I'll still probably try the bios too :P

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Re: A few questions

Post by quest_for_silence » Mon Mar 02, 2015 12:54 am

maddangerous wrote:Well.. I'm just going to take my keyboard and sit in the corner for a bit.

Well, no, I didn't want to send you to sit in that corner: to quote you, I was... surprised? At the same time I probably took for granted that I shouldn't explain anything I think it were obvious, and that's an error (it was obvious for me only).
So, I apologize: let's say that as far as I know a top down cooler has about the same needs and about comparable performance of any other kind of air coolers, and that, all things equal, any possible difference (at least due to fresh air) unlikely can be really noticeable; on the other hand, talking about high performance, heat-pipes based heatsinks, several times the tower coolers proved to be a bit more effective on average, probably due to their physical differences, but that's not mandatory.

maddangerous wrote:Also, holy crap, the Genesis is a GIANT.

Even the NH-C14 is rather large: broadly speaking, usually running an air cooler at low fan speed require larger dimensions to be very effective.

maddangerous wrote:I was just considering the Noctua NH-L12, unless I am reading the charts wrong it performed better than the C14...?

The trick is in the table headers: they are tested on different platforms (Core i7-965 vs Core i5-2400). So, in the end, I can say that no, the NH-L12 didn't performed better and it isn't better than the NH-C14.
Nonetheless that L12 may be a good candidate, expensive, as any Noctua product, but it should tame well your X6, as well as the Cryorig C1 (which may deserve a better fan).
Other possible candidates may be the Scythe Kabuto II or Kama Cross II (larger), also Phanteks and BeQuiet! have their ones, but if you can effectively undervolt the CPU even some smaller cooler (like my Big Shuriken) should be plenty.

maddangerous wrote:dang. that is really low. Also, yeah, I assume I'll need a tad more cooling with the HDD's.

Unless you densely packed those drives, unlikely you may need some serious cooling on them: whether their temp were up to 45°C (but 47°-48° would be the same, for me), that would be fine, IMO.
My concern was mainly towards noise level: with 6 drives you shouldn't need to run any 120mm or 140mm fans very low, as the 6 drives noise should easily drown out case fans noise even when spinning at higher speeds. On the other hand, what's quiet for you may well not be so for me, but in case that doesn't matter one iota: it's (enough) quiet for you, period. :wink:

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Re: A few questions

Post by quest_for_silence » Mon Mar 02, 2015 4:52 am

maddangerous wrote:I'll still probably try the bios too :P

That's a quick comparison to show you the thermal effect of underclocking/undervolting (now using PhenomMsrTweaker: it's a bit easier/quicker to set up than K10Stat, but I prefer this latter):

3.5GHz - 1.35V VID (1.360 vcore)
Image

2.8GHz - 1.2375V VID (1.1375 vcore)
Image

So, about 20% less performance (to be honest, IBT isn't a benchmark) and about 15°C shaved off on load: obviously, with a hotter X6 1090T, your mileage may vary.

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Re: A few questions

Post by maddangerous » Mon Mar 02, 2015 8:43 pm

quest_for_silence wrote: The trick is in the table headers: they are tested on different platforms (Core i7-965 vs Core i5-2400). So, in the end, I can say that no, the NH-L12 didn't performed better and it isn't better than the NH-C14.
Nonetheless that L12 may be a good candidate, expensive, as any Noctua product, but it should tame well your X6, as well as the Cryorig C1 (which may deserve a better fan).
Other possible candidates may be the Scythe Kabuto II or Kama Cross II (larger), also Phanteks and BeQuiet! have their ones, but if you can effectively undervolt the CPU even some smaller cooler (like my Big Shuriken) should be plenty.
Ahhh ok I thought I missed something there. Thank you. I really like how the Prolimatech Genesis seems to perform in the tests, I think it is down to that or the Noctua NH-C14. I am looking at fans now too. It never ends! lol.
quest_for_silence wrote: Unless you densely packed those drives, unlikely you may need some serious cooling on them: whether their temp were up to 45°C (but 47°-48° would be the same, for me), that would be fine, IMO.
My concern was mainly towards noise level: with 6 drives you shouldn't need to run any 120mm or 140mm fans very low, as the 6 drives noise should easily drown out case fans noise even when spinning at higher speeds. On the other hand, what's quiet for you may well not be so for me, but in case that doesn't matter one iota: it's (enough) quiet for you, period. :wink:
The aren't too packed together. I do feel that opening up the cages a tad on the sides might allow for better suspension, but that is just a first time guess. I'll try it before modding a new case.

I will also look at that other program, thanks for the screenshots and real world example!

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Re: A few questions

Post by quest_for_silence » Tue Mar 03, 2015 2:05 am

maddangerous wrote:I am looking at fans now too. It never ends! lol.

Which fans? Try anything at stock before looking for alternatives, that's my advice.

maddangerous wrote:The aren't too packed together.

Yes, I guess: AFAIK you'd have 15 bays, with 5-6 drives you'd be able to not crowd those cages.

maddangerous wrote:I'll try it before modding a new case.

Good luck for your build!

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Re: A few questions

Post by maddangerous » Tue Mar 03, 2015 9:12 am

quest_for_silence wrote: Which fans? Try anything at stock before looking for alternatives, that's my advice.

Well, I'm reading up on them at the moment, generally speaking. I was interested in the Phanteks PH-F140 and Noiseblocker B12-2, but I am still doing research.

Edit: looking at fans because the Prolimatech Genesis doesn't shipp with any.
quest_for_silence wrote: Yes, I guess: AFAIK you'd have 15 bays, with 5-6 drives you'd be able to not crowd those cages.
Good luck for your build!
Yeah it is nice and roomy in this case lol. Thanks a lot for all of your help so far too!

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