Just ordered a system - suggestions?

mattek · Post by **mattek** » Mon Aug 29, 2005 1:48 pm

I placed an order for my new system. Silence is of great importance to me but since I need a powerful system to work I had to make some compromises. Since the processor I selected is currently out of stock I still have time to make changes to my order.

The system I ordered:
Antec SONATA II Piano Black SmartPower 2.0 450W
Asus A8N-SLI Premium nForce4 SLI (passive cooling)
AMD Athlon64 "San Diego" 90nm 3700+ (Why pay for two cores when I'll only use one?)
2xCorsair Value Select 2x512Mb (2GB in total)
Samsung SP2004C 200Gb 7200rpm 8Mb S-ATA2
NEC ND-3540 Dual-Layer DVD +RW/R
Hightech Excalibur ATI Radeon X850XT Turbo ICE-Q II
Systemfan ADDA AD1212DX-A73GL
Cpu-cooler Zalman CNPS7700-AlCu 120mm

I will also put in two already existing Hitachi 160GB PATA drives in RAID0 for storing all work related files.

My questions are:

1. The ADDA systemfan is not a preference of mine but right now Nexus fans are scarce in Sweden. Are there any other components that can be easily replaced to further silence this system?

2. Is switching the Zalman fan worthwhile in this system? Since there will be three harddrives such a switch might not affect the acoustics greatly, or will it?

3. In this system, would it be a good idea to spend money on stuff like AcoustiPack?

4. Since I will have a total of three fans pulling air out of the case should I run the front case fun at 12V to get a well balanced airflow?

Any other comments or critisisms are welcome.

Thanks to the community for providing such an ample source of information and advice.

Regards,
mattias

Post by **NeilBlanchard** » Mon Aug 29, 2005 5:35 pm

Hello Mattias,

On the 4th question, the Sonata's front fan doesn't pull much air into the case, but rather it pulls air over the HD's (or it is supposed to) and it will churn the air inside the case. So, I doubt that cranking it up to 12v will do much (if anything) for the air flow through the case -- I might even suggest trying things w/o it and see how the HD temps are.

mattek · Post by **mattek** » Tue Aug 30, 2005 1:31 am

Interesting suggestion. I'll give it a shot and see how it works out.

Any other suggestions or ideas?

/matte

~El~Jefe~ · Post by **~El~Jefe~** » Tue Aug 30, 2005 6:53 am

antec SLK3700BQE is my suggestion. the front case is open wide yet baffled. has massive airflow from the front, more than I thought, but the rush of air when i place my hand down there is strong.

the only thing is the psu has less power than the one you mentioned, however, it's adequate and fine for your system.

I definitely would get a front 120 on this. I just looked at the sonata II again... I'm trying to figure out where 3 fans blowing out would be? I see the psu, that's one (unless you mean it has 2, but one's internal and wouldnt count), and the exhaust 120. That's two fans blowing out. I definitely would do this:

Undervolt the rear exhaust down quite a bit, and put the front case 120 on a higher setting. I have seen what great things this does for sound and heat. It allows the psu to breath which normally is the loudest thing in the case (besides an ATI heat sink fan).

ramping up of the fans in the psu happens when you have too much hot air just sitting in the case. A strong exhaust fan chokes the psu and makes it actually hotter! This is why i splurged and bought a phantom 350, I knew that I could just add more fans and fan power without worrying about competing with it's air pressure.

mattek · Post by **mattek** » Tue Aug 30, 2005 7:17 am

Good point El Jefe.

The three exhaust fans are:

1. PSU
2. Systemfan
3. The VPU fan which is dual-slot. (The ICE-QII on the card is supposedly the best stock cooling there is)

Looks like the way to go here is a front 120 and then undervolt the systemfan and VPU fan as far as possible (5V-7V maybe?).

Thanks again.

noac · Post by **noac** » Tue Aug 30, 2005 9:52 am

Just wondering how come you choose an ATI card on a SLI mobo, why not a 7800GT(X) card instead? And yes that wasn't one of your questions, im just curious. B)

mattek · Post by **mattek** » Tue Aug 30, 2005 10:08 am

Hehe. Relevant question.

The reason is that I wanted a excellent preforming mobo with passive cooling and this one does just that for me. I selected this specific graphicscard because it has a dual slot cooling setup which exhausts air from the case, I have no plans on going of actually using SLI in the future. The ICEQ is also considered the most silent stock cooling as far as I know.

Hmm. Another option would be to go with a singleslot 7800GT and a Zalman Zalman VF700-ALCU, which can be had for more or less the same buck. Hmm. Im going to look into that option.

7800GT+VF700-ALCU or Hightech Excalibur ATI Radeon X850XT Turbo ICE-Q II??? Which will yield the most performance? Which is the most effective cooling solution (considering both case airflow and silence).

Thank you noac for your comments!

sean10mm · Post by **sean10mm** » Tue Aug 30, 2005 11:03 am

The IceQ just uses the Arctic Cooling Silencer, which is also available in an nVidia version that you can install yourself on just about any nVidia video card. The Zalman cooler is nice, too.

ATI doesn't sell a product that can compete with the 7800 series yet. If you are going to drop $400ish for a video card, at the moment nVida is by far the best choice.

Incidentally, Asus sells a 7800 series card with the Silencer cooler on it.

mattek · Post by **mattek** » Tue Aug 30, 2005 11:06 am

I just noticed the Asus card you are refering to. But its not in stock. However, I could a 7800GT and a Zalman cooler for less than the ATI card I currently have in my order. Hmm. I think I'll make the switch tomorrow if its not too late.

Thanks for all the input guys and gals. Any more suggestions or comments are greatly appreciated!

dfrost · Post by **dfrost** » Tue Aug 30, 2005 11:09 am

Undervolt the rear exhaust down quite a bit, and put the front case 120 on a higher setting.

My tests show that the reverse works better for my sig sytem. Running the front ("intake") fan at higher voltage in the Sonata I/II hybrid caused the NB and PWM components to run hotter then balanced (same in and out fan voltages).

But when I run the exhaust fan at higher voltages, using the Abit FanEQ to vary it automatically with "System Temperature," those hot componenets are 3-5C cooler under load.

The Seasonic S12 PSU is unaffected in either mode, based on PSU fan speeds and measurements of PSU exhaust temperature.

mattek · Post by **mattek** » Tue Aug 30, 2005 11:37 am

Seems like I got some testing to do when my system arrives. Personally I'd prefer to run the front fan really low from a noise standpoint. But keeping my harddrives cool is top priority here since I got so much valueable data on them.

Really looking forward to play around with the fan settings!

Thanks for all the input!

dfrost · Post by **dfrost** » Tue Aug 30, 2005 12:28 pm

The hard drives in my Sonata usually stay between 33 and 37C with the 120mm Yate Loon MS intake fan at 5V (roughly 800 rpm). I've seen 39C on only a few occasions when trying different fan configurations. They peaked a few degrees higher when I used a Nexus as intake at 5V.

mattek · Post by **mattek** » Tue Aug 30, 2005 12:52 pm

Good stuff. Thats the kind of temps Im hoping to achieve. Thanks for the info. Now I have something to compare my results with!

mattek · Post by **mattek** » Tue Aug 30, 2005 3:19 pm

Thought this might be of interest:
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=25807

Doesn't help me choosing between ATI and Nvidia...

BenW · Post by **BenW** » Wed Aug 31, 2005 11:11 am

Kustom PCs in the UK will be able to send you a nexus or 2 to sweeden

http://www.kustompcs.co.uk/acatalog/info_2578.html