Cooling on Intel Quad core in Antec P182

[simm1701]

Hi all.

I'm looking at putting a new box together With the following as deffinite:

Antec P182
Thermalright 120 extreme
MSI Zilent 1GB NV9600GT

Intel Quad core 2.66Ghz
4 Gb ram
Asus motherboard

I'm still trying to decide whether to go with the Intel Q6700 and DDR2 1066 on an older asus board, or the Q9450 with DDR3 1333 and a newer asus board.

Any one any idea how much realistic gain I would get performance on the newer spec rig (given the cost is £700 vs £950)

Secondly how much difference in heat output is there between the Q6700 and the Q9450? I've heard the newer one is better but will it make a huge amount of difference?

My aim is to not have a fan on the heatsink - given the case fans on the Antec are well located

Any thoughts are appreciated - one thing to note - I'm not looking to overclock at all.

Simon

[MrMartin]

Hello

My preference would be the Q9450
But in my opinion DDR3 memory will be kicking from the 1600 Mhz range.

But it all depends on your budget, the DDR3 configuration will cost you more

[simm1701]

My budget is flexible - but I want to see sensible returns for my upgrades.

Its going to cost £250 more for the DDR3 rig, how much speed increase, or heat decrease am I going to see for that?

As I wont be overclocking - since my requirement for this system is stability - I suspect that going to 8Gb of ram and 2 of the same graphics cards on SLI would give a better performance boost for the same price (though that is an option I'm deferring for a future upgrade)

I think for me it probably comes down the heat output from the Q6700 and how much better I am likely to find the Q9450... Is it something I'm going to really have to ramp up fan speed to cope with? Or is it going to make maybe 1 or 2 degrees difference at low fan speed?

[MrMartin]

I face a similar problem.

I could go for 8 gig DDR2 memory. But do you (and me to) need all that memory. Isn't it a bit overkill if we are completely honest?
My credo has always been "more memory is better", but is it?
8 gig DDR2 memory will cost around the same as 4 gig DDR3 memory, right?

The Q9450 has a bigger L2 cache and if I am not mistaken is more power efficient.
But I have to look that one up.

[SebRad]

Hi, personally I'd go with the Q9450 as it's significantly more power efficient than the Q6x00 CPUs and pair it with DDR2 memory as DDR3 is much more expensive and really not much performance difference. I just looked up quickly and 4GB DDR2 1066 rated is £80-90 while 4GB DDR3 1333 rated is £200+ and further more I believe you need to be 1500-1600MHz DDR3 before the longer latencies are offset.
Most motherboards get down to 1:1 RAM speed so 1066DDR2 is good up to 533MHz FSB bus speed for over clocking, which you'll need a really good motherboard to get near with a quad core CPU. You might also look at the Q9300 CPU, it only has 6MB cache (vs 8MB for Q6x00 & 12MB for Q9x50) but it's much cheaper and in tests does similarly to the Q6700 for performance. It has 7.5x multiplier on 333MHz FSB for 2.5GHz but with a good board you should be able to get towards 3.5GHz if you want to.
Regards, Seb

[Gillian Seed]

I had the same choices to make...

Q9450 vs Q6600.
Q9450 runs cooler, lower wattage at idle and THG (i know!) averaged around a 7% performance increase thanks to the extra cache. SSE4.1 gives big improvements to programs supporting it....

Q6600 is cheaper, and overclocks very well. 3.2Ghz is common (mine required a tiny amount more VCore), with many people reaching 3.4 and 3.6GHz.

DDR3 vs DDR2
DDR3 is more expensive, but doesn't yet seem to offer any real advantage.

DDR2 is cheap, and available at speeds up to 1200MHz. Performance is extremely close to DDR3.

I went with Q6600 and DDR2, the CPU was over £100 cheaper and the RAM (I got 1066 Crucial ballistix) was only £55 for 2GB.

[simm1701]

Q9450 with ddr2? I didn't think that was a sane option?

I was under the impression that to get good results with any of the intel CPUs you should have a 1:1 FSB to RAM ratio, which means on the Q9450, 1333Mhz, hence DDR3?

I'm looking at either 2*2Gb DDR2 for £100, or the same in DDR3 for £180.

I was under the impression that suitable motherboards had a £120 price difference however looking more closely the Asus P5K3 Deluxe/WiFi-AP seems to do exactly what I want and would work well with either CPU/RAM combo.

For me this does make me lean in the Q9450 direction a lot more

Does anyone know if the above board is compatible with the thermalright 120 extreme, as the heat sinks do look quite high around the CPU

[simm1701]

Ok - right now the order is looking like this:


QTY Price (ea) Ex VAT Total Inc VAT Remove
LN22742
1GB MSI 9600GT Zilent, PCI-E 2.0, Mem 1800MHz GDDR3, GPU 675MHz, Streams 64, 2xDual Link DVI-I/HDTV £126.81 £149.00
LN21218
Intel Core 2 Quad Q9450, Yorkfield Core, S775, 2.66GHz, 1333MHz, 12MB Cache, Retail Assassin's Creed £189.89 £223.12
LN22021
4GB (2x2GB) CorsairTwinX XMS3, DDR3 PC3-10600 (1333MHz), 240 Pin, Unbuffered, CAS 9-9-9-24, DHX £152.10 £178.72
LN18867
Antec P182 Advanced PERFORMANCE ONE SERIES Super Midi Tower Case, Gun Metal Black (no PSU) £78.89 £92.70
LN20112
Thermalright Ultra-120 eXtreme 120mm Heat Sink Fan for AMD/Intel CPU (bare sink no fan) £32.49 £38.18
LN18763
Asus P5K3 Deluxe/WiFi-AP, iP35, S 775, PCI-E (x16), DDR3 1066/667/800, SATA II, SATA RAID, ATX £81.50 £95.76
LN15216
520W Corsair HX Series Modular PSU, ATX, EPS12V, whisper quiet, 5 year warranty £54.79 £64.38
LN17252
500 GB Western Digital WD5000AAKS Caviar SE16, SATA 300, 7200 rpm, 16MB Cache, 8.9 ms £44.69 £52.51
LN18937
24" Samsung SM-245B Black Widescreen LCD, 1920x1200, 3000:1, 400 cd/m2, 5 ms, VESA £254.89 £299.50
LN16148
Logitech G11 Gaming Keyboard, USB 1.1/2.0, Wired, Silver/Black £31.19 £36.65



Any comments?

Will I be able to get away with only the case fans around the CPU?

Will that heatsink fit on that motherboard?

Thanks

[Immortals]

I was under the impression that to get good results with any of the intel CPUs you should have a 1:1 FSB to RAM ratio, which means on the Q9450, 1333Mhz, hence DDR3?

The 1:1 FSB to Ram ratio giving a performance boost is highly arguable.... however you are misinterpreting what people are saying anyway. For a FSB of 1333MHz (it's quad pumped so it's actually only 333MHZ) you only need ddr (dual pumped) memory of 666MHz. ie if you're not overclocking DDR2 memory is fine.

a 9450 with ddr2 is a sane choice

[lm]

Q9450 with ddr2? I didn't think that was a sane option?

I was under the impression that to get good results with any of the intel CPUs you should have a 1:1 FSB to RAM ratio, which means on the Q9450, 1333Mhz, hence DDR3?

It is a perfectly sane option and in fact I am doing this myself as soon as my Q9450 gets delivered. I already have 8GB of DDR2.

Because the memory controller is on the northbridge and not on the cpu die, and also because the Q9450 has so HUGE cache that it doesn't really have to access the RAM all that often, combined with finely tuned prefetch algorithms etc etc mean that the bottom line is this:

Memory speed has little effect on system speed on a Core system.

Actually you could just as well get 667MHz ram for it, because that goes 1:1 with the FSB. However if you still get 1200MHz, the offset is so much greater that it is still better than strict 1:1.

But you might want to try to overclock to FSB 400, which would mean your cpu goes from 2.66GHz to 3.2GHz, and then you should use either 800MHz or 1200MHz DDR2 with it.

[ame]

Any comments?

Will I be able to get away with only the case fans around the CPU?

Will that heatsink fit on that motherboard?

If you do intend to OC then I'd have to say get a dedicated fan. Or at least remove the top fan and seal the opening, then use that fan on the TRUE.
Or better yet replace all fans with 2 quiet low rpm (800 might be enough depending on your OC) one on TRUE, one rear exaust, and remove the bottom chamber fan.

If you are running a passive 9600 then you might need an intake fan or a fan on the cards HS. Keep in mind moding the top intake vent or removing it really helps airflow and the temp drop is significant.

Edit: Just looked at the MSI and it has a fan and a mean looking HS.
Dont know about the Asus board, the delux models allways have huge sinks surrounding the CPU socket. Try a new topic with the words Asus delux+TRUE in its name, and you will probably get a hit.

[simm1701]

thermalright site seems to think the MB is ok

As for the case fans - I have a P182 already for my server.

Both the fans near the CPU are exhaust fans - the intakes are through the front

What are you suggesting modding or blocking?

[ame]

Remove the top exaust fan and block the vent with tape. Use that fan or a diffrent one on the TRUE.

As for the intake simply removing the front top vent will increase airflow but if you want to keep it you could widen the shutter gaps using a small drill or boxcutter.

sorta like oscar did here
viewtopic.php?t=44219

[simm1701]

I might well do the cut out job on the air intakes - but I don't think I will be putting a fan there - with the fans on on the exhaust (and the one behind the disks) there is very little noise from my current case.

I'm not planning to overclock at all and the heat sink on that GPU is pretty hefty so I suspect it will manage - I'm still on the fence about the DDR3, but for the extra £80 I think I'll go for it anyway, it just seems to round out the system better.

I'm still dubious about the gain in closing off the top vent though, I also would have though an east-west instead of north south would be better on the TRUE - though that may be down to whether it will fit or not....

I think I'll stick with the above plan... but I can always rearrange the fans inside if I need a bit more quiet.

The only thing I am considering changing is switching to a pair of smaller hard disks with RAID1, my server does the bulk of my storage and I am going to rely on this machine so stability is vital.