Noob at silent cooling! Please help

D1n1_81 · Post by **D1n1_81** » Mon Sep 20, 2004 5:42 am

Hi there,

I am planning to build a new system and am going to be basing it around a silver Coolermaster WaveMaster case, an Asus P5AD2 Deluxe MOBO with a P4 3.60 Ghz LGA 775 processor and an ATI X800XT 256MB graphics card (+ 2 HDs, 2 DVD drives, 1 floppy). I will be using the machine for downloading, gaming, some work with graphics and web development.

I have a couple of questions about cooling and sound - obviously I want it sufficiently cooled but I also want it as quiet as possible. I am not too keen on going the watercooling route since I know nothing about it and it is more expensive! As such I would like your opinions on the following components:

Case fans: The case comes with dual intake 80mm fans and one exhaust 80mm fan. I intend to replace all of these with Vantec Stealth fans. Will I be able to install a 120mm fan inplace of the 80mm exhaust fan? - I have been advised that a 120mm exhaust might be wise given the components I will install. What do you think of the overall case fan setup?

CPU cooling: There does not seem to be many cooling options for socket 775 CPUs! I am not sure how good the one which comes with the processor is but at the moment I intend to replace it with a Thermaltake Silent 775 CPU cooling kit. Other than the Thermaltake 775 tower (which I read was V. heavy!) this seems to be the only option I can find that is supposed to be fairly quiet. Do you have any views on this piece of kit? Are you able to suggest any better options?

PSU: Tagan 480W dual fan ultra quiet power supply. Do you think this is sufficient/What do you think of this?

So overall, how do you think the temperature vs sound in this setup up be? Will it achieve my aims of sufficiently cooling while being quiet?

Any advice will be greatly appreciated.

Many thanks
D1n1_81

Post by **Ralf Hutter** » Mon Sep 20, 2004 5:55 am

You've got a long road ahead of you young man.

1) The Wavemaster is a crappy case from an airflow point of view. It'll need lots of modding to the front grill to be even halfway decent.

2) The Wavemaster is aluminum, not the best type of material for making a silent case.

3) That CPU runs damn hot. More than 115W at full tilt. Something that hot is nearly impossible to quietly cool with air.

4) S775 is too new, there are very few aftermarket HSF's for it. TT is almost always crappy (loud, in our case) and I've read reports that their new S775 cooler is especially loud.

I'd take a look at the reviews and the "Recommended Components" articles on the main SPCR site.

I can't make any specific recommendations, but I'd look at putting together an AMD system if you want a fast, yet quiet rig.

Oh, and BTW: WELCOME TO SPCR!!!

D1n1_81 · Post by **D1n1_81** » Mon Sep 20, 2004 6:30 am

Thanks very much for this.

I am working my way through the main site at the moment anyway so I'll see what comes up.

For me, the priority is to have the specs I want in a case which I really like. Once that is decided then I would like to make it as quiet as is possible given the constraints of the different components.

Assuming I settle on those detailed above, ie the Wavemaster and the hot P4 3.60 CPU, which components (fans, heatsinks, etc) would provide the best solution?

Is there a cheap (but RELIABLE) water cooling kit for cooling the CPU while the fans I mentioned work on the rest of the case/GPU/etc?

NB I am reading through the main site but thought I would put these questions up in the meantime.

Thanks again,
D1n1_81

sthayashi · Post by **sthayashi** » Mon Sep 20, 2004 6:34 am

BTW, the Vantec Stealth is not. Go for either a Nexus, a Globe or an Acoustifan. The latter two will require undervolting to keep silent.

burcakb · Post by **burcakb** » Mon Sep 20, 2004 10:05 am

If you insist on cooling the worst processor out there with the hardest-to-silence case out there just because of looks, try the Thermaltake Tsunami Dream.

It's aluminium, the front is a knock-off the Wavemaster so that should settle things for you and the innards is exactly the same as our very much favored Antec 3700AMB.

For CPU cooling, you're out of quiet alternatives. There are - AFAIK - no quiet solutions. You might want to try the noiseblocker tower with its 120mm config if you wish. It's a lot lighter

Tagan PSUs have a clicking issue that I'm not sure is solved. First read about it in these forums and try it before you buy one. Otherwise, choose one of the 400W units from the recommended lists.

Last advice: Ditch L775, go Athlon64. You're buying WAY MORE power than you'll ever be using. And you're paying for it by the nose, both in terms of cash and in terms of heat & noise. Go buy a Socket 939 Athlon64 system, the highest you can get, slap a XP-120 on it with a Globe fan on top and you'll be done with nearly the same power and order of magnitude less heat & noise.

PS: Yeah, vantecs are anything but stealthy, but since you'll be making a racket trying to cool that CPU, they may go unheard

Straker · Post by **Straker** » Mon Sep 20, 2004 3:48 pm

any A64 is way more power than anyone will ever need too, outside of games and rendering.

if you aren't really comfortable or don't have the time/patience to learn about water cooling stuff, don't bother with a kit, almost all are just ordinary components sold as a batch. usually they're made with a specific price point in mind too, so one or more things will almost always be skimped on. having said that, the Reserator is pretty decent... a bit expensive but i think it's about the only complete solution that exists right now that works fairly well and can more or less be setup without much work, and then left alone.