SPCR

Hi Everyone.

I'm doing my first ever pc build (slightly cheating using a barebones Asus T3-M3N8200) which is all very exciting. I'm going for mid spec (at least it seems that to me) as follows:

AMD Athlon X2 Dual-Core 4850e 45w
2 x 2Gb DDR2 kingston 1066 Ram

Asus T3 is here

http://uk.asus.com/products.aspx?l1=1&l ... odelmenu=2

And later

Enermax modu82 425w

and when the price is right in a few years

a 32gb SSD to boot the OS from

My question for anyone is what would be a great heat sink for this. I think it has to be low profile because of the way the power supply and hard drives are held in the case.

The case doesn't have a rear case fan so the processor will probably need a fan on it.

Does anyone think passive cooling for the cpu is possible? Is a scythe shuriken overkill for 45w? I'm really after a really low rpm / passive solution.

Thanks

What about the Zalman VF2000LED?

Only 45mm high...nice cooling performance, but probably not the quietest cooler at 7/9/or 12 volts.
It's been a while since I read that review..

I'm using a Thermalright XP-120(with AM2 rev.2 bracket) with a Scythe Kaze Jyu Slim 10cm fan - totalling ca.70mm high: 72mm clearance- on my X2 5000+ BE @ 3.2GHz inside an Antec NSK1380 myself. A decent combo, I can get silence with the Scythe @500rpm or excellent performance @2000rpm..

What's the clearance for your cooler inside the T3?


Also check out Frostytech's low-profile line-up

http://www.frostytech.com/top5_lowprofile_heatsinks.cfm

The case looks like this inside, here is another picture of a similar, but not the exact same model.

I have a T3-P5G31, like the second picture.

Inside I mounted a Zalman CNPS7700-Cu with a modified black and white Nexus 120mm fan mounted on it. Also have a oem psu that didn't come with the case, with a very quiet 120mm fan.
The cpu-cooler is about 8-10mm from the harddrive cage. I only have one disk so, there is some more room.

I also have one of these fan-less graphic-cards inside. It creates some wiring trouble but nothing that can't be overcome.

I have a Samsung HM160JI (2.5" sata) disk suspended in the harddrive cage.
Sidenote: With two 3.5" 7200rpm disks the chassi will vibrate badly.

All in all, it makes for a very nice and quiet system, I usually work with my head about 1m from the front of the case (mounted under my desk).
It goes unnoticed until late at night. I would be surprised if it were louder than 25dB when idling or under load. I have been able to run 2 instances of cpuburn in linux for a few hours without a hitch.

Don't have any pics (of my own) to share, sorry!

Edit: Found this thread at overclockers.com.au, it has some nice pictures and some answers for your questions.