Balancing between size, heat, and noise

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paulsiu
Posts: 70
Joined: Wed Nov 10, 2004 8:16 am

Balancing between size, heat, and noise

Post by paulsiu » Wed Jan 26, 2005 10:39 pm

I am contemplating replacing my aging PC and I am toying around with getting a SFF because I am short on space. I am thinking something alone these lines:

P4 3 Ghz or equivalent Athlon 64
1 Gb of memory
1-2 Western Digital Raptor Drive
DVD writer drive
Mid to high end video card (probably a NVIDIA since they have better Linux support)

Some of my friends have warned that SFF are fairly unreliable due to heat issues. What's the tempature and noise level difference compare to a Mid Tower? I have been told that the Shuttle, which are the better SFF may reach up over 50C while under load. This would exceed the thermal spec for the Raptor (which state that they operate up to 51C).

In addition, the NVIDIA cards seemed to have hefty power requirements of around 350W. There aren't too many SFF with those requirements.

Opinions?

burcakb
Posts: 1443
Joined: Tue Mar 09, 2004 9:05 am
Location: Turkey

Post by burcakb » Wed Jan 26, 2005 11:46 pm

You've got more problems with SFF than just PSU. But let's start with heat first.

A P4 at load easily reaches over 100W. That's a lot of heat to evacuate from such a small restricted space. An equivalent A64 runs MUCH cooler. With a system that you can undervolt, you're sure you can get a cool processor.

WD drives make noise and worse vibrate like crazy. Most SFFs I've seen are aluminium and that just amplifies the problem.

Your greatest problem will come with the VGA card. Most SFFs place the VGA right up to the left panel where it cannot get any air and you can't install any of the quiet two-slot cooling solutions. So you're bound to stay with the stock cooler which will definitely scream for air in its position.

Mid-tower and you're talking a whole different game.

Read the SFF forums, there're a lot of mods done there that explore the limits of the SFF format. that'll give you a good idea of what'll work

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