Best CPU cooler to OC with Striker Extreme?

[Vahan]

im currently running an nForce 2 system (athlonXP and AGP graphics) in a p182. its kinda ok i guess for guild wars and counter-strike, but a lot of times my score in CS suffers at 20FPS and guild wars looks much better with post-processing on etc etc. i would also love to get into UT3 and TF2, but not with this rig. needs more power.

in order to upgrade my graphics to PCIe, i would have to replace the motherboard, ram, cpu and graphics card all at once. i've decided to get an asus striker extreme because its the best overclocker with a 680i chipset, required for future SLi in case i wanna use my 24in monitor for gaming (currently use it as a secondary with 17in primary monitor for gaming). it also has 8 fan headers, all with variable speed depending on temerature thresholds that i can set in the bios with QFan (i think its called QFan :S). i have a nice bunch of Yate Loons i'm gonna undervolt with it, including one for the PSU (140mm!). oh yeah and the ATX power connector placement also means i wont need an extension cable

other components ive chosen include Q6600 G0, 8800 GT/GTS w/G92. graphics card will have a zalman VF1000 with RHS88. the quad core is about the same price as its dual core equivalent but it pumps out more heat and divx/UT3 is faster with more cores. needs good cooling.

now as im sure most ppl are aware, the striker extreme has a very large heatpipe based cooling solution surrounding the cpu socket. if i keep them cool, the VRMs and northbridge should be a little more stable at very high clocks. the best cpu cooler at the moment seems to be thermalright ultra 120 extreme, with a noctua NF-P12 (non sleeve bearing, high backpressure, quiet fan). however, this hsf combo would blow air straight to the rear exhaust. would a thermalright SI-128 be better with the same fan? i dont know how cooling power should be distributed between cpu heatsink and motherboard heatsinks with this board, or even if it makes any difference. i've also considered a Scythe Ninja with 2 fans (one blowing to the rear exhaust and one blowing to the top exhaust).

this system is gonna make a lot of heat, but i want it to run as quietly as possible on air cooling.
quick recap of components:
- Asus Striker Extreme
- Intel Q6600
- 1GBx2 dual channel DDR2 8500 (preferably OCZ SLi Ready Edition unless someone has a better idea)
- nvidia 8800 GT or GTS 512mb (G92)
- Zalman VF1000 + RHS88
- Antec P182 with a bunch of Yate Loons AKA Nexus Real Silent (they have 3 pin header plugs, not molex)
- i could possibly add in a Scythe Kama Bay if you think its any help.


any ideas on how to proceeed? bear in mind i'll have to wait at least until january for pay day (might even have to put it off until february if things go wrong :S). any ideas or suggestions are greatly appreciated.

edit: i dont mind lapping a heatsink if its shipped with a bad quality surface. i've done it before and its actually quite satisfying

[thejamppa]

TRUE (ThermalRight Ultra Extreme) hands down. Ninja is good but TRUE is better out of box due betters attachment mechanism. Only cooler that could come near that effectiveness is TR SI-128 SE paired with high static pressure fan like Scythe Ultra Kaze 1000.

[Voldenuit]

The SI-128 is out of its depth here. It's not going to take you very far with an overclocked quadcore.

Using two "pull" fans on a Ninja is probably not going to work. You'll mess up the airflow and the fans will be fighting each other rather than complementing each other. Pull configurations also don't work as well as Push. In addition, I'm worried that the increased turbulence will lead to increased noise.

Personally, I wouldn't worry about overheating VRMs. The P182 has very good airflow characteristics, and if you're pushing the system hard enough that the VRMs on an overclocking-orientated board like the Striker gets stressed, it's going to be the CPU that gives out first. For that reason, I advise you to prioritise the CPU cooling system, and the TRUE is the best air cooler on the market at present.

BTW, the cpu is a Q6600, not a QX. It doesn't have an unlocked multiplier, so you're going to have to OC it by upping FSB. With a base FSB of 1066, though, the Striker will be able to take it to its limit without breaking a sweat, provided your memory can keep up.

[Vahan]

TRUE (ThermalRight Ultra Extreme) hands down. Ninja is good but TRUE is better out of box due betters attachment mechanism. Only cooler that could come near that effectiveness is TR SI-128 SE paired with high static pressure fan like Scythe Ultra Kaze 1000.

is it loud?

Using two "pull" fans on a Ninja is probably not going to work. You'll mess up the airflow and the fans will be fighting each other rather than complementing each other. Pull configurations also don't work as well as Push. In addition, I'm worried that the increased turbulence will lead to increased noise.

i was actually gonna "push". one fan blows through the heatsink towards the back and the other blows through the heatsink towards the top... so between them, hot air gets pushed towards the corner of the case where 2 exhaust fans remove it. these heatsink fans would be running more slowly than a single heatsink fan, so the fan quietness vs air turbulence wont be apparent until someone tests it.

Personally, I wouldn't worry about overheating VRMs. The P182 has very good airflow characteristics, and if you're pushing the system hard enough that the VRMs on an overclocking-orientated board like the Striker gets stressed, it's going to be the CPU that gives out first. For that reason, I advise you to prioritise the CPU cooling system, and the TRUE is the best air cooler on the market at present.

good point. i didnt think about case fans providing adequate chipset cooling.

BTW, the cpu is a Q6600, not a QX.

thank you i'll edit that

It doesn't have an unlocked multiplier, so you're going to have to OC it by upping FSB. With a base FSB of 1066, though, the Striker will be able to take it to its limit without breaking a sweat, provided your memory can keep up.

thats why i chose ram with stock speed of 1066mhz. that ram is still overclockable if the cpu can go higher. i also wont have to worry about tuning the timing because "SLi Ready Edition" means the SPD data will take care of it.

[thejamppa]

Ultra Kaze 1000 is not loud, but its not inaudiable either. The problem for sound is that sound is subjective as is how you "feel" the sound.

Nexus and Noctua new NF-S12P fans have high static pressure and should work very well for the SI-128 SE.

[Vahan]

wootwoot

built the system last night, its a monster!!

as you can see in my opening post i upgraded from an old amd/ati agp system to an intel/nvidia pci-express system. big change!
Old system: athlonXP 3200+ with 2GB DDR400 and Radeon X1600 AGP
New System: Core2 Q6600 with 2GB DDR2 1066mhz and GeForce 8800GT (G92)

hardware at time of build:
for cpu, ram, gpu, motherboard, case see opening post
im using stock cooling on the gpu, thermalright ultra120 extreme has a scythe s-flex 1600rpm and the p182 has 4 yate loons (D12SL) with no hard drive racks. the hard drive is sitting on top of the dvd-rw drive. i put screws in the screw holes on the botom side of the hard drive. they were a little too long so when they bottom out theyre all the exact same length and give the the hdd about 3mm clearance. i slipped a silicone grommet onto each one and the indented part stretched a little around the head of the screw so it fits perfectly and works like the silicone feet underneath the case. i'll get a picture when i get home from work

[edit] heres the picture, click to enlarge: [/edit]

built the system and did a Counter-Strike: Source graphics stress-test last night. build was almost completely effortless btw, only problem i had was power supply cables were half an inch short in 2 places so couldnt route them round the back of the motherboard, doesnt really affect anything but would have made me feel better if it went according to plan (the rest of the system did!)

In Counter-Strike: Source, on my old machine, with graphics settings on low (except textures, they were medium) and my own customised cfg file for better performance, my FPS was about 55 in the stress test. not bad considering optimal refresh rate on my 1280x1024 monitor is 60hz. during real use it would frequently drop to below 30fps when all guns are blazing and people get a little too happy with grenades, but i still manage to kill stuff.

now with the new system, if you split the test into 3 roughly equal length parts, it was around 170-190fps at the start, around 250fps in the middle and it capped at 300fps and stayed there at the end. obviously capped by the software, so the reported average of 231fps isnt properly indicative of performance. but then again the whole test fails to indicate in-game performance anyway so who cares

this is with all settings maxed and hardware at stock clocks. havent got round to overclocking yet but will do once i get home. when i first turned on the system all fans were at max speed so i got a nice whoosh sound out of it making me feel like i made an extremely cool pc

first thing i did when it was built is check that all the fans were spinning correctly and the lcd poster didnt have any errors. had my finger on the switch at the back of the psu during this time
next thing was to take a look at the bios for the cpu temperature in case i put too much arctic silver 5... it was reporting 19°C! wtf! its only air cooling!
in case youre wondering i put a blob on AS5 in the middle of the ihs, 3/4 the size of a pea, and then when the heatsink was mounted i twisted it left and right to spread the AS5 nice and even. no razor blades were harmed in the making of this pc.

something worried me though. i lowered all the case fan speeds to 60% in the bios and after a little stress testing i went into speedfan to take a look at the temps and two of them went up to like 55°C with warning icons, one went to -50°C and one was 100°C. i dont know what they are because they have a different naming convention to the bios. might just be the optional sensors that i jammed between the heatsink fins on the chipset cooler lol.


ok if you havent got bored and clicked your back button already, i have a request: gimme some help with speedfan plzzzzzzzzz
if you have a striker extreme and you know which sensors are where etc etc let me know so i dont have to spend 4 hours trying to figure it out for myself fans are easy, just stick ur finger in.