Hey guys,

Let me start off with some basic parts for my new build in November.

CPU: Sandy Bridge E 3930k
Mobo: gigabyte x79 UD5

one regular SATA 2 1tb internal drive, and 2 ssd crucials 250gb x2

Graphics: SPARKLE Calibre Series X560 DF GeForce GTX 560 (Fermi) 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0

PSU: Fatality professional series.

My friend won't stress enough that to get this processor to 4.5gz, quietly and efficiently, I should be looking at these parts:

block

http://www.frozencpu.com/products/7357/ex-blc-477/EK_Supreme_HF_Universal_CPU_Liquid_Cooling_Block_w_Easy_Mount_Kit_-_Rev_2_-_Plexi_-_Sockets_77511561366939940754AM2AM2AM3.html?tl=g30c325s839

res

http://www.frozencpu.com/products/9575/ex-res-156/Bitspower_Water_Tank_Z-Multi_150_Inline_Reservoir_BP-WTZM150P-BK.html?tl=g30c97s165

rad

http://www.frozencpu.com/products/4041/ex-rad-83/Black_Ice_GT_Stealth_240_Radiator_-_Blue.html?tl=g30c95s160

pump

http://www.frozencpu.com/products/5125/ex-pmp-47/Swiftech_MCP355_12v_Water_Pump_Native_38_120_GPH.html?tl=g30c107s153


It's about $300 set up, and is a bit pricey considering the expensive processor and mobo alone.

This set up is for Audio so silence would be great, but I'm wondering if I can have a air cooled system almost as quiet.

A tech also mentioned this set up, without a reservoir.

http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1292/1/


Looking forward to your responses and if I should just scrap the whole water cooling idea.

If price is a concern, I'd rethink the whole thing actually.
Why do you need such a powerful computer to be in a place where noise is an issue? Why do you need such a graphics card? Maybe you don't need need such a powerful computer. Or maybe you don't need it on your desk.

I have no experience with overclocking a 130W CPU and keeping it quiet. But I believe it can be done without resorting to water cooling considering other people's experience with overclocking Sandy Bridge.
If I wanted to try, I'd start by searching this forum for the posts of people who overclocked Sandy Bridges quad-cores.

I do audio production, my computer will be utilizing all 6 cores and over 32 gigs of ram, so it's hard to compare to a quad core gaming pc. I was just wondering if anyone had some advice.

You're planning to use a gaming graphics card for some reason. And that's going to be the biggest cooling problem, not the CPU or the RAM. There's not a huge difference between 4 and 6 cores.

While you're at it, consider a more serious PSU. You'll get less noise, you'll waste less power and your computer won't look like a gamer built it if that's what you want.

I wanted a decent card for running games like Hitman 5, max payne 3, and GTA 5 in the future.

Wouldn't cooling this card only be a noise issue while gaming? If so that's not a problem.

My budget for this machine is $2000, with the processor and mobo alone I'm already at $1100 so I thought I would use my existing fatality PSU.
You're right, a gamer did build my last machine and it was a big mistake for gamers always underestimate how demanding audio production, especially film scoring, can be.

Stock graphics cards are rarely quiet even at idle. If you are certain that you want gaming-level graphics, your best bet is probably to go for an aftermarket cooler. See for example the recent Build the Perfect Workstation here at SPCR, where they use a Thermalright Shaman.
If the stock heatsink of the graphics card is decent, you could also just strip the casing and rig up a couple of 120mm fans to get similar cooling with much less noise. In either case you are not likely to get quiet graphics without some sort of modification.

Cooling the overclocked CPU should be similar to cooling an overclocked i7-980X/990X, with a similar 130 W TDP.
Intel will sell their own all-in-one liquid cooler for the Sandy Bridge E series. Unlike "real" (and expensive) water cooling, the all-in-one liquid coolers are generally inferior to air in cooling as well as noise. But they do take less room, if space is a concern.
I have no experience with "real" water cooling, but my understanding is that you can get better cooling than air, but rarely compete on noise.

For CPU cooling I would go with something like Archon, Silver Arrow or HR-02 Macho. Have a look at that last link, xbitlabs shows a diagram of temperature vs. noise for a number of coolers on a 980X @4.3 GHz. That's the most relevant comparison you are likely to get before Sandy Bridge E is released.
(Note that the air cooler Archon beats the all-in-one-liquid Corsair H100 with a couple of degrees in cooling as well as ~20 dB in noise.)

That said, I don't think you can get a 130 W CPU with 30% overclock to be actually silent. Add the graphics card and the fans you need to dump >300 W of heat from the case (130 W CPU and 150 W graphics plus overclocking, disks, motherboard, PSU inefficiency etc.), and I think "less noisy" is pretty much the best you can do.

YMMV, this is just my take.

Sandy Bridge does not consume as much power as the previous generation which is why you can hope to keep the heatsink fan(s) reasonably quiet.
Of course it would be best if you could move the computer doing the work to a different room or failing that to spread the work among several cheaper CPUs.

A six-core Sandy Bridge-E should use less power than a six-core 980X at the same frequency, true.
But it's still 50% more cores than the likes of 2600K, and 4.5 GHz is a sizable overclock from a 3.2 GHz base, so I would expect power consumption to be closer to the 980X than the 2600K. But I guess we'll see soon enough

Found this link, apparently this thing is massive

http://www.amazon.com/THERMALRIGHT-SILV ... =8-1-fkmr0


I should also post links to my mobo, it's a new model and rumor has it things may not fit this board nicely, and I can't sacrifice any dimm slots:

http://www.pcstats.com/articleimages/20 ... 79-UD5.jpg



I have people saying I should go with the Silver Arrow fans, and a noctua heatsink? Why would I switch them up if heatsinks and fans are usually a package deal? A little confused on that.

A

I've also heard that some LGA2011 boards may have problems with large air coolers.
It's hard to tell just from pictures, but some of those boards look like they should have room for an Archon, at least. (The Archon would probably eat a PCI-E slot, but not interfere with RAM.)

If it were me, I would wait with ordering until I had the details.

You don't need waterblocks. Modern heat pipe HSF towers perform just as well or better, without the hassle of liquids, algae, pumps, external fans, tubing, etc, etc.

Several years ago, I cooled a seriously overclocked&overvolted Pentium D (at least 150W in my configuration) with a relatively slow fan on a Ninja (SCNJ-1000). Today's equivalent to that classic is the Megahalem.

Your intended overclock seems extreme to me. Please ignore the gonzo postings on sites like xtremesystems, where the point is not to build a useful system but to get one more megahertz than the other guy. Dial it back 10-15%, so you can run at stock or close to stock voltage. Remember, power consumption is v*v*c (square of voltage, linear with clock speed).

As for graphics, if you want quiet, you have two choices: get a "passive" card and strap a slow quiet fan to it, or get a mainstream card and replace the cooling with something like the Accelero.

Modern heatpipes just as good or better?
I've heard people reaching 5gz using the 2600k chip, but it was very hard and required lots of volts.
THen others saying they reached 5gz easily, with great temps using this:

http://www.frozencpu.com/products/11743 ... 0c321s1310


I'm really leaning toward the above, it's fairly cheap, more quiet than any fan especially after the insulation I provide when building.

Also I'm on a tight budget and this chasis seems the best, only thing is the x79 mobos have more PCI slots:

http://www.sundialmicro.com/lianli-mid- ... _2132.html

to really get the difference in water vs air cooling you have to overclock decently and invest in a good water cooling solution. And I mean that in buying a big radiator with quiet fans.

If you don't have the money for it. Overclock less and invest in very good quiet air coolers.

Water is better than air cooling, but only if you invest enough money in it. The cheap water solutions are no better than the air ones.

So my last post of the water cooling unit is not better than a high end cooler? I've read it's much better.

http://www.frozencpu.com/products/10235 ... 1037#blank

Same as the Silver Arrow just different fan, $70. I've got a SA, it's awesome, quiet, and has no problem with my 2500k@4.6Ghz.

That WC kit is at $130 + distilled water + additives + 2-4 fans.

Yes the WC kit is better. But does it do a better job at similar noise levels? Depending on the pump and fans you use.

I've nothing against WC, I want one. Will get one in the future, but it will probably contain 2-3x360(or 480) radiators cooling a CPU and 2xGPU and doing it quietly. Yet I will be squeezing every Hz I can get out of my PC components.

For now I got my 2500k and my GTX580 on good after market air cooling. It does the job for me and does it well(quiet).

Normal dude who wants some ok OC, save $$ and go decent air.
Crazy Hz!!!!!!!NOWS!!!! dude and have the $$$, go water.

Gogogo WC!

Ugh I know anymore, everyone has mixed reviews, silent, not silent, should add another rad, good the way it is.
If a H500 cooler can get the 2600k to 5gz easily why not this RAS set up. I understand it's 6 cores but still.

5GHz is a dream. Give it up. Note you never see a followon posting from any of those nuts a year later, because their CPUs burn out after a few weeks, regardless of the cooling.

If you really need that kind of performance, get an i7 and clock it at 4.2-4.5. Which by the way can be easily cooled with air.

If you're already getting 4.6 quietly, why would you want water in the future? Less hardship on your cpu?

So what's the point of water cooling if youre going to see the same performance? Just for silence and possible longer life expectancy?

Things changed about 5 years ago. Used to be that water cooling was the most efficient way to transfer heat from super-hot CPUs. But then good heat pipes became easy to manufacture. That led to a whole new generation of heat sinks, led by the Scythe Ninja. Later another generation of "direct touch" heat pipe heat sinks came along, where there wasn't a base between the CPU lid and the heat pipe. Extremely efficient, and IMHO the most efficient available now.

Some history: A while back, all air cooling was based on heat being conducted through metal to the fins where fans could blow it away. Compared to that, water blocks were way more efficient, because the heat density of water versus (say) aluminum is much higher. But when heat pipes became economical, that dynamic was reversed: a heat pipe is based on water boiling (540 calories/gram) versus the water block conduction (1 calorie/gram). So even a mediocre air cooling system built around a heat pipe cooler had a major advantage, as long as it had a decent coupling to the CPU heat source.

Things didn't go all that well in the air-cooled camp though; Scythe (and others) decided to cut corners, and made coolers that had horrible bases that didn't transfer heat to the pipe well at all, and typically had very low-pressure (aka shitty) mounting systems. It wasn't until Xigmatek came out with the direct touch (with nothing between the CPU and the heat pipe) that air-cooled heat sinks regained their competitiveness.

A while later, Prolimatek came out with the Magahalems, which wasn't really all that great, except it had a very good mounting system and a pretty good base-to-heat-pipe design, resulting in a very good heat transfer, comparable to the original Ninja, and better than most water blocks.

heatsinks with heat pipes are water cooling. - just no pump, fittings or stinky liquid to deal with.

Glad to hear you say that, I wasn't to thrilled about WC anyways, thanks for the advice. If this is the case why is Intel giving us the option to ship these new Sandy E chips with water cooling? And not a fan?

So far my options are these, please let me know your thoughts, I don't know if I should be buying heatsinks and fans separately, if that's even possible:

http://www.frozencpu.com/products/10235 ... 1037#blank

Or for a few more dollars...

http://www.frozencpu.com/products/11676 ... 2_AM3.html

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6835608018

And the regular Silver Arrow..

http://www.frozencpu.com/products/12300 ... 2_AM3.html


Note I'll also be installing this in my case: http://www.acousticpc.com/acousti_produ ... g_kit.html

last 3 links go to same place...

have you read these yet? http://www.silentpcreview.com/Recommended_Heatsinks http://www.silentpcreview.com/article26-page1.html

If you need a lot of cpu power, then i would probably wait for the Xeon LGA 2011, they should release dual socket mobos as they did with LGA1366, there you can have lots of cpu power and probably way above 32gb of ram.

Fixed the links!

Yep those would be ideal, and I would still choke those in two seconds, I'll be getting a Slave pc when I'm at that magnitude of projects. Besides, those are CRAZY expensive, around $2000 at cpuworld

It would be on the new LGA2011 platform and since I would be having gpus on water to push them might as well be push the cpu to the limit on water as well.

But that is the future, I'm pretty happy with what I have now. Just want the other one as well later on

As I said: today air is pretty good, it's only for the extreme 1Hz more thinking that water really shines. I'll probably never go for Liquid Nitrogen cooling, well you can never say never I guess.

LOL!! That would literally blow the competition out of the water.

LOL ye and take me with it .

Nitrogen it was supposed to be. Don't know why I wrote that wrong, maybe watching too many explosive scenes