4870 cooling within the following design

Quitch · Post by **Quitch** » Mon Jul 07, 2008 12:45 pm

I'm looking for recommendations for a 4870 cooler, but not in a void, something that will work with the rest of the from scratch build.

* Intel Core 2 Duo, E8500, S775, 3.16 GHz, 1333MHz, 6MB Cache, OEM.
* ATI - Radeon HD4870 - PCI-E
* 8GB RAM
* Asus Xonar DX sound card
* Samsun F1 1TB hard drive
* Antec SOLO case
* A P45 motherboard

I'm trying to keep this build as quiet as possible, but without having to use anything more than thermal paste and a screw driver. Where possible I'd like to go passive but I'm a little nervous about heat.

For the CPU I'm looking at a ThermalRight HR-01 (passive). The PSU I was considering passive, but the thought makes me a little twitchy so I'll probably use a 625W Enermax MODU82+. All the P45 motherboards come with heatpipes so no worries there, and the Xonar doesn't need any cooling. I'm unsure whether I should be using an intake fan on the SOLO.

This leaves me with the GPU. I was looking at a ThermalRight HR-03 GT w/92mm fan, but I've also been pointed at the Accelero S1 Rev. 2 as a possible candidate.

I'm just worried I'll go with too many passive items and end up burned (in the non-literal sense) because I became a little too obsessed with doing something I hadn't done before

thejamppa · Post by **thejamppa** » Mon Jul 07, 2008 12:57 pm

you could first try to use stock cooler and use Catalysts profiles to create a profile and then use Excel to "hack" its values. Like raising fan speed from 25% to 35% redices nicely temperature according Guru3D

Quitch · Post by **Quitch** » Mon Jul 07, 2008 1:21 pm

Won't that increase noise??

soloman02 · Post by **soloman02** » Mon Jul 07, 2008 3:26 pm

Yes. However, it may not be noticeable. On my 8800GT's stock cooler, I could only hear the cooler after I raised the rpm to 50% from the default 30%. Even then, the noise was not bad. Yes I could tell it was my 8800GT, but it even at 50% it was not significantly louder than the rest of my fairly quiet system.

widowmaker · Post by **widowmaker** » Mon Jul 07, 2008 3:32 pm

What operating system are you using? What could you possibly do with 8gb ram?

soloman02 · Post by **soloman02** » Mon Jul 07, 2008 3:35 pm

Good point widow.

Quitch had better be using a 64bit O/S otherwise he is wasting money.

SebRad · Post by **SebRad** » Mon Jul 07, 2008 3:39 pm

Hi, the HR-01 Pro (six pipe version) was recently reviewed on SPCR and is just about as good as it gets for passive/very low air flow cooling so thatâ€™s good choice! Probably over-kill for your CPU

I would say that passive cooling isn't worth it in almost all situations. It's very hard to get it to work well with all but the most low powered of components and not worth the effort. In most cases a few very slow quiet fans will be quieter than the hard drive and the ambient noise level. So unless you're living in the middle of nowhere and going to use an SSD (or at least a laptop drive in an enclosure) then work with quiet fans. E.g. I live in a rural location, itâ€™s very quiet at night, my PC is on the floor next to my desk, I can barely hear it over the buzz of the monitors, it has 5 fans in it!

I think the HR-01 comes with a duct so the case exhaust fan sucks through it removing the need for a fan directly on the heatsink. The E8500 is a pretty cool CPU (as long as not over-clocking) so no problems there.
As the HD470 is quite hot I'd go with a case fan not less than 1200rpm full speed and then use the motherboard fan speed control to slow it down either under BIOS control or with SpeedFan. (software) Something to think about is that some motherboards (e.g. Asus) will only control 4pin PWM fans as the "CPU" fan. If you use the HR-01 with a case fan duct then you may want to have PWM fan as the case fan and connect it to the CPU fan header as its speed will directly affect the CPU temp. I believe Gigabyte allows you to choose if the CPU fan is 3pin or 4pin, not sure about other brands.
For the 4870 you could try the stock cooler and hope to control it's speed in software. The stock cooler has the advantage of pushing most of the heat out the back of the case through the 2nd slot. If it's too loud I'd go with the Accelero as it's much cheaper and works fine with even minimal airflow. With the HD470 youâ€™ll probably need a fan on the Accelero or at least a case intake fan to blow on it. Otherwise I wouldn't bother with intake fan at all. You might find that some ducting to arrange for the fan on the GPU cooler to blow heat out through removed PCI slot covers to be worth while rather than recycling it through the CPU cooler as well. (Use the stock cooler for a few days first to be sure the card is working and not going to have early infant mortality)
The Enermax PSU is a very sound choice. If you've not over-clocking you could get a smaller version, I'd estimate DC power draw of your system at 250w max. If you're planning on Cross-Fire down the road then yes 500w+ PSU would be appropriate.
I built a PC with Gigabyte P35 board, E8400, 4GB (with Vista 64), WD 640GB and ATI HD3450 all in a Solo. The case fan was Xilence Red Wing 120mm fan (what I could get at the time) and ran slowed 600-700rpm, the CPU cooler was Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro and could cool the CPU 900~1000rpm (92mm) even under load. The WD6400AAKS is a quiet drive and the S12II PSU was a whopping 330w version and never speed up its fan. The whole system was really very quiet considering the "silencing" budget was ~Â£20 extra for the Solo, ~Â£15 for cpu cooler and ~Â£5 for the case fan.
I was pleased with my efforts and the end user is using it for fairly serious Photoshop work. He's stunned at the speed and noise level (or lack there of)
Regards, Seb

soloman02 · Post by **soloman02** » Mon Jul 07, 2008 3:47 pm

For the Motherboard, I recommend Gigabyte. I have the p35 and it works great.

For about $110
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6813128345

However, for $149 you have the option of getting a second 4870 down the road and crossfiring them.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6813128344

Luminair · Post by **Luminair** » Mon Jul 07, 2008 4:10 pm

> I'm trying to keep this build as quiet as possible, but without having to use anything more than thermal paste and a screw driver.

It will take more than that! Get a PSU and rear fan recommended by SPCR. From there you have more than one option to try. No front fan, yes front fan. No aftermarket GPU heatsink, yes aftermarket GPU heatsink, remove stock GPU heatsink and apply new thermal paste and lower fan speed. Etc.

leifeinar · Post by **leifeinar** » Mon Jul 07, 2008 6:44 pm

remove stock GPU heatsink and apply new thermal paste and lower fan speed. Etc.

thats the way to go, or to start. my experience is that thermalpaste i way to thick and looks like no other paste i ever seen, this goes for most of the cards i had.

as an example, my 8800 gts 320mb. i removed a thick layer of paste, added artic silver. this resulting in 10% lover fanspeed AND temps down 10 celsius, so no aftermarket cooler needed and money saved

Quitch · Post by **Quitch** » Tue Jul 08, 2008 9:51 am

widowmaker wrote:What operating system are you using? What could you possibly do with 8gb ram?

Windows Vista 64-bit.

Quitch · Post by **Quitch** » Tue Jul 08, 2008 11:11 am

SebRad wrote:I think the HR-01 comes with a duct so the case exhaust fan sucks through it removing the need for a fan directly on the heatsink. The E8500 is a pretty cool CPU (as long as not over-clocking) so no problems there.

What's the difference between the HR-01, HR-01 PLUS and HR-01 X?

http://www.thermalright.com/new_a_page/ ... ooler.html

All of them have a duct.

SebRad wrote:As the HD470 is quite hot I'd go with a case fan not less than 1200rpm full speed and then use the motherboard fan speed control to slow it down either under BIOS control or with SpeedFan. (software) Something to think about is that some motherboards (e.g. Asus) will only control 4pin PWM fans as the "CPU" fan. If you use the HR-01 with a case fan duct then you may want to have PWM fan as the case fan and connect it to the CPU fan header as its speed will directly affect the CPU temp. I believe Gigabyte allows you to choose if the CPU fan is 3pin or 4pin, not sure about other brands.

So should I be looking to replace the fan provided with the SOLO or will that meet these needs?

SebRad wrote:For the 4870 you could try the stock cooler and hope to control it's speed in software. The stock cooler has the advantage of pushing most of the heat out the back of the case through the 2nd slot. If it's too loud I'd go with the Accelero as it's much cheaper and works fine with even minimal airflow. With the HD470

Is this supposed to be 4850 and 4870 respectively?

SebRad wrote:The Enermax PSU is a very sound choice. If you've not over-clocking you could get a smaller version, I'd estimate DC power draw of your system at 250w max. If you're planning on Cross-Fire down the road then yes 500w+ PSU would be appropriate.

Are these similarly quiet smaller PSUs? I went for this owing to the glowing review of this site.

krille · Post by **krille** » Tue Jul 08, 2008 11:48 am

Hi there Quitch.

HR-01 Plus is a lot better than HR-01 (the Plus has more heat pipes, etc). HR-01 X is HR-01 Plus for servers (Socket 603, Socket 604 and Socket 771).

HR-01 Plus passive or with a slipstream should work. I wouldn't recommend a fanless PSU if you're going for a high-end video card.

I would suggest the Accelero S1 Rev. 2 + low-speed (800-1200rpm, use a fan controller to adjust it to your needs) 120mm fan. That's what I'm getting.

As for the lower end Enermax Pro82+/Modu82+ PSUs, ask in the Power Supplies section. I don't remember (and haven't looked in to it since I'm not able to get my hands on one anyway).

Quitch · Post by **Quitch** » Tue Jul 08, 2008 12:29 pm

Thanks, so I'll probably go for the HR-01 PLUS, since I don't think my preferred supplier even provides the base model, and I prefer the peace of mind from a better design than saving a few quid.

I'll probably wait for the 4870X2 to come out and use that, since I can't bring myself to suffer the pains/quirks of CrossFire or SLI across cards. I'll see what the cooling solution is like then and what solutions come out for it.