Cooling/quieting advice for new system

PeanutR · Post by **PeanutR** » Thu Apr 28, 2005 11:50 pm

Hello Everyone,

I'm pretty new to these boards as I only recently started thinking about noisereduction for my PC. Thing is, I love gaming and as such my primary concerns have always been with cooling and performance. Those are still important factors, but I'v added some noisereducing components to my system after a years worth of sitting next to a jumbojet started getting on my nerves. Now I'm building a new system using the casecomponents I already have, but with prettymuch all new hardware inside.

What I already own:
Case: 3R systems R700, w. Acoustipack Deluxe and 2xPapst Lownoise 120mm fans
PSU: Seasonic SS-460AGX
Various little rubberframes designed to dampen PSU, fan and HDD to case vibrations.
Keyboard, mouse and other misc. items

What I'm planning to order now:
MB: MSI K8N-SLI Platinum
CPU: Athlon64 3800+ (Venice)
Gfx: MSI 6800GT
RAM: 2x512mb DDR400 from Dane-Elec
HDD: Seagate 250GB 7800.8

What I'm planning to order once my economy recovers:
Another MSI 6800GT
Another 2x512mb RAM

My question is about quiet cooling of the CPU and gfx cards, I'm concerned that dual 6800GTs will be noisy enough to drive me insane, but at the same time I'm pretty sure they'll produce tons of heat also. The MSI cards that I've owned in the past have had good combinations of quiet/effective coolers, but I still think an upgrade might be necessary in order to keep noiselevels acceptable. Does anyone know what kind of coolers can be installed that don't interfere with the SLI bridge/can fit in between the two cards AND are both quiet and decent coolers? What about chipset/CPU coolers, are the passive coolers for the chipset going to get in the way, and what kind of coolers would you recommend for the CPU?

Any input appreciated, thanks.
PeanutR

Kimo · Post by **Kimo** » Fri Apr 29, 2005 6:08 am

PeanutR -

I'd like to comment on the 6800Gts - I have an XFX, and the stock fan is REALLY loud. I found that the Zalman VF700 set to the lowest setting (7v or 5v I can't remember) works really well, and keeps the GPU cool to boot.

I play a lot of HL2, and have ZERO problems with this setup.

If that MB has a chipset fan, THAT will be loud, and you should look at replacing it with a passive solution. However, if you overclock, a quieter active solution would be best. I don't overclock and use the blue Zalman heatsink on my A8n-e. I had to modify the mounting of the VF700 by using the other two holes on the GFX card, but that was no problem at all.

Good luck with the build.

PeanutR · Post by **PeanutR** » Fri Apr 29, 2005 1:16 pm

Thank Kimo,
I've been looking at passive chipsetcooling from a couple of companies including Zalman. I'd really like to try it out, but I'm going to hold off on buying anything untill I actually get my new MB so I can take some measurements to see if everything will fit. Oh well, maybe I'm just being paranoid...

PeanutR

m0002a · Post by **m0002a** » Fri Apr 29, 2005 1:45 pm

Kimo wrote:I found that the Zalman VF700 set to the lowest setting (7v or 5v I can't remember) works really well, and keeps the GPU cool to boot.

The Zalman VF700 comes with a splitter, that when attached to a Molex (12V/5V) power connector from the PSU, allows a choice of either 5V or 12V. You can't use a MB fan header or the header on the video card itself if you want less than 12V (unless you can control the voltage via software or use a Fanmate).

PeanutR · Post by **PeanutR** » Sat Apr 30, 2005 2:00 am

Well after some more looking around I noticed that the FAQ on Zalmans website states that the VF700 will fit in a SLI system without problems:

Does VF700 can be installed on both graphic cards when in SLI mode?
Yes. You can install our VF700 on each of your graphic cards, and set these 2 graphic cards with VF700 in SLI mode.

PCI-e graphic cards are using PCI-e 16X slots which are separated by 2 slots of PCI-e 8X, which will give enough space between two graphic cards. Therefore there will be no interference between these two cards with VF700.

I've also sent Artic Cooling an email asking them whether their NV5 will fit in SLI systems, but I wouldn't expect them to answer until sometime next week.

benx · Post by **benx** » Sat Apr 30, 2005 6:21 am

currently socket 939 only support T1 when you are using 2 memory banks, when you are going to use 4x512 your memory can only run on T2, wich is much slower, +/- 300mb/s

beesting · Post by **beesting** » Sat Apr 30, 2005 7:42 am

benx wrote:currently socket 939 only support T1 when you are using 2 memory banks, when you are going to use 4x512 your memory can only run on T2, wich is much slower, +/- 300mb/s

The new Venice (or San Diego) core revision of the Athlon 64 is supposed to fix this problem. According to this site it can run four single sided modules on 400MHz DDR with 1T timings, and four double sided modules with 2T. The Venice cores are just about entering the shops, some are for sale allready here in Holland and in 1 or 2 weeks you should be able to get them from most (good) webshops. (Most have an ETA of May 6th.)