So many questions and comments!
I'll respond to a bunch of them together in this post.
Bluefront wrote:
My God....I thought I went over-board with computer quieting. Apparently all the fan speed changes were done with resistors.....I wonder why a manual fan speed controller was not used instead, maybe replaced by resistors when the final necessary fan speeds were determined? Or perhaps left in use for fan speed changes on hotter days. Or better yet.....some type of automatic fan speed control used instead?
Also, would it have been possible/easier to replace the NB heatsink with a better/higher performance model. The one in the photos (stock I suppose) looks pretty pathetic for a high performance system.
It's a
hobby. It doesn't have to make much sense...
I wanted inline resistors in the end, just as sold with the AcoustiFans, small and tidy. At the very end, only one fan wasn't 5V, so the method doesn't matter. (What made you think I didn't experiment using a controller?) As for hotter days, I avoid running CPUBurn and Prime95...
The only automatic controllers I know about are the NMT-2 and NMT-3. I did consider them, but they don't have adjustable temperature ranges, and would always be 5V in my system.
The NB heat sink is custom with specialized attachment hoops. Rather than try to match these, a simple duct seemed better, and it certainly works well.
flyingsherpa wrote:
i can't help but think how much easier the path would have been had he better followed SPCR fundamentals in component choices: he has some VERY hot parts in there. it is impressive to see that even very hot components can be made suitably quiet
Of course. But bear in mind my primary goal was performance. Making it quiet was more for entertainment. Remember "A League of Their Own"? "It's supposed to be hard. It's the hard that makes it great."
perplex wrote:
No offense but why even try with an Intel 8xx CPU? Why not a Yonah and make life easy?

Um, maybe because it didn't exist at the time?
jaganath wrote:
On the other hand, it would have been a very short article if he'd gone with an X2 3800+ instead: "bought CPU and motherboard. Installed in case with Ninja heatsink and quiet 120mm fan. The End."

However I have to commend the author on his ducting, rarely have I seen such neat and effective ducting outside of one of Bluefront's rigs.
Indeed.
Thanks for the comments on the ducts. That was one of the more fun and interesting parts of the project. Always remember: measure twice, cut once!
walla walla wrote:
I just purchased a p180 to move my computer into. I have a p5nd2-sli deluxe with a pentium D 830 and i was planning on getting the thermalright xp-120. I didn't want a tower heatsink because I tried that once and the voltage regulators got to hot and caused the system to crash. Should I not get the XP-120?
It depends how fast you want to run the fan on the XP-120. At 5V (700 RPM) the CPU was adequately cooled, but the air leaving the HS was very hot. Higher speeds would give better heat transfer and cooler air, but with more noise. There is no doubt that the Ninja cools the CPU better with absolutely minimal air flow, but then the VRM is on its own...
If your system crashes, it's quite likely due to voltage droop (the VRM efficiency and output voltage drop when it's hot). Check this with CPU-Z and two copies of CPUBurn: the Vcore should always be above 1.20V for correct operation of an 830 D. If you see low Vcore, bump the CPU voltage in the BIOS.
Ruiner wrote:
I recall the best temps obtained in the SPCR review with that same heatsink were rear fan blowing in, and top fan blowing up.
Ducting used with that config would be an interesting test.
I have a phantom 350. The bottom gets much hotter than the top under load and the fins are bigger there too. I would put the cables on top.
Having the back fan blow in and the top fan blow out cools the CPU amazingly well (at least 10C cooler), but the rest of the system cooks...
The air flow across the top of the Phantom mounted in a P180 is way better than across the bottom, so naturally the top heat sink is cooler due to better heat transfer. I stand by my recommendation to put the cables underneath.
peterson wrote:
Really good to read about others builds, and an extensive article.
But when he went through the trouble on applying new TIM to the GPU, why not have a shot at the NB HS?
Thanks.
Actually I did put Arctic Silver 5 on the NB; I forgot to mention it in the article. When I did that, the HS temperature went up at least 5C (from hot to very hot); clearly the stock compound wasn't transferring heat very well.
sun.moon wrote:
Very nice reading.
I wonder if the XP-120 would have performed better had it ducted cool air through a side vent like the CAG on the SLK3000B. Would have been not a pretty mod to the case however.
Thanks.
When I tried the XP-120, the case was open, so the air entering the HS was only about 25C. The air exiting was over 40C. With the case closed this would have been even hotter.
Don't get me wrong, the XP-120 is a good HS, and it did cool the CPU. It just wasn't able to cool both the CPU and the VRM in my system without a cyclone blowing through it.