I basically copied Bicster's setup, but with an E6600, Asus P5B-VM, and an MSI passive 7600GS (not over-tall). Oh, and my fans blow out instead of in. A few...er...more than a few... notes on my experience, in case it's of any help to someone thinking of a build along these lines.
My temps are significantly higher than Bicster's, even though I'm running the rear Nexus at 1100rpm.
Load = 2x CPUburn (one high-priority, one normal-priority) (if 2x high-prio, the GUI goes non-responsive) + 1x rithdribl @ 1200x1000
Idle = WinXP
Code:
A-Load A-Idle B-Load B-Idle
CPU degC 64 41 74 55
Mobo degC 49 35 52
VGA degC 60 53 73 65
HDD degC 27
CPU fan rpm 1140 1140 680 680
Case fan rpm 875 875 680 680
A-columns are as I run it. B-columns are with fans wired serially (6V each). Numbers are from Speedfan 4.31, which gave identical numbers as the ASUS PCProbe-II.
Perhaps because E6600 vs E6400.
Perhaps because of the airflow direction.
Perhaps because Bicster couldn't put the lid on his case.
Or perhaps because I tweaked my heatpipes too much...
Everything as it came right out of the boxes, my NT01 & my rear fan conflicted. The heatpipes were not quite bent up to 90 degrees vertical. More like a 91 or 92 degree angle. If I mounted the NT01 flat and square on the cpu, then it left only space for a 23 mm thick fan. Since the fans are 25 thick, I had to bend the heatpipes a smidgeon so the NT01 fins wouldn't project so far rightward. "So," me thinks to me-self, "I have to bend the pipes by a couple mm just to fit, but if I bit them a little further still, then I'd have enough margin to let me soft-mount the fans." So I did. Bent them almost 10 mm. I carefully clamped the block of fins between cork-surfaced faces of a wood-working vise. And used a one-inch birch dowel to support the inside of the pipes' curve, while I bent them a couple degrees further. Further than I'd planned, really. But no kinks or such.
After all that, I looked about softmounting the fans. And realized it's not really *possible* to do so. There's only 120.5 mm vertically from the floor of the case up to the bottom of that curved-over lip of the sidewall. So if one *did* softmount the fans, they'd just vibrate up-and-down by 0.5mm and rattle against the top and bottom. So I bent the heatpipes *back* again, to just 2.5 mm from their original position. Now I have just under a mm between the NT01 fins and the hardmounted Nexus. Which is perfect.
The NT01 uses sintered powder capillary heatpipes. I don't know how well they like being tweaked, post-manufacture. One of these days, I'll get another NT01, and maybe it will be on the other end of the tolerance stackup, and will just fit right in without touching the fan. Or I'll bend it only once, and only as much as necessary for 0.5 mm clearance to the fan, and swap it in to see if it improves the cpu temps. And try in-vs-out airflows. Etc etc. For now, it's cool enough and a lot quieter than my tinnitis, and I have lots of work to do. It's been running solid and stable since October.
Oh, and another thing about using the NT01v2... The backing plate that goes on the bottom of the mobo has a thin layer of foam to insulate it from the PCB. My P5B-VM had numerous through-hole leads that stuck out by ~4mm from the bottom surface of the PCB. Some of them happen to be under the NT01 backing plate. They prevented it from sitting quite flat, and I was quite nervous about them someday poking through the foam and shorting against the metal plate. So I clipped them shorter -- only the ones that would be under or touching the NT01 mounting plate.
And the little knurled brass nuts that tighten the mounting screws to the mobo -- make sure they don't directly impact any top-layer PCB traces.
In general, I'm not super-keen on the thumbscrew mounting for the heatsink. Preloaded springs would produce more consistent mounting pressure. I felt that it was quite tricky to tighten the NT01 onto the cpu and get just the right mounting force and ensure the force was equal on all four corners. But I concede that this sort of mounting system is more flexible for use with different types of mobos and cpu sockets. Everything's a compromise.