Best fanless northbridge cooler?

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thepwner
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Best fanless northbridge cooler?

Post by thepwner » Sun May 24, 2009 11:08 am

I have this motherboard with it's crappy little northbridge heatsink.

http://www.biostar-usa.com/app/en-us/mb ... p?S_ID=370

I want to upgrade the northbridge heatsink, what should I get? And of course I want fanless...

Blue_Sky
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Post by Blue_Sky » Sun May 24, 2009 12:52 pm

Thermalright, Noctua and Xigmatec all make tower heastinks for northbridges. They are the only coolers I know that aren't just bigger versions of what you already have. There are some offset versions as well.

I'm not sure where the best places to get them in the States are, so Google the Thermalright HR-05, Nocturnal NC-U6 and the Xigmatec N881. They're all going to be pretty similar in cooling efficiency.

thepwner
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Post by thepwner » Sun May 24, 2009 4:08 pm


Blue_Sky
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Post by Blue_Sky » Sun May 24, 2009 8:39 pm

The fin spacing is pretty close, which means that you need a high velocity flow. The circular cross section only reinforces that.

Technically, to best use that shape of that cooler, you need an airflow with the highest speed in the middle and lower at the edges. A fan provides the opposite. I'm not sure what they where thinking when they designed that one.

frenchie
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Post by frenchie » Mon May 25, 2009 10:39 am

I tried the Noctua but got better results with the HR-05 (the one with the fancy design, the IFX I think) with a fan though... Still, I'd say the noctua's fin spacing is pretty tight for fanless operation... and the HR-05 is cheaper too.

thepwner
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Post by thepwner » Mon May 25, 2009 1:53 pm

OK, so it's down to the Xigmatek and the Thermalright.

The Xigmatek only has 1 model, so that's easy, but Thermalright has 4, http://www.thermalright.com/new_a_page/ ... ooler.html

Which ones will fit my motherboard?

Also I have an Arctic Cooling 64 Freezer Pro heatsink, so I can't have that big of a northbridge cooler because it might get in the way of the cpu heatsink...so keep that in mind. I made a quick mock up of the distance between the cpu heatsink and the edge of the existing northbridge heatsink just to give an idea of what type of space I'm working with.

Image

So the new cooler can't get much closer to the cpu heatsink than the current one is right now.

Blue_Sky
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Post by Blue_Sky » Mon May 25, 2009 2:25 pm

Both of the Thermalright SLI versions will likely be too close to that Pci-e 16x slot if you're putting a graphics card in it. Possibly the Xigmatek as well.

Otherwise, all of the tower coolers have a smaller horizontal cross-section than the stock cooler.

JamieG
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Post by JamieG » Mon May 25, 2009 3:20 pm

thepwner wrote:The Xigmatek only has 1 model, so that's easy, but Thermalright has 4, http://www.thermalright.com/new_a_page/ ... ooler.html

Which ones will fit my motherboard?
The Thermalright HR-05 IFX will probably be the best for your situation. It comes with a variety of mounting clips and other mounting methods so you should be able to find one that works with your motherboard.

I have a passive HR-05 IFX on the northbridge of my HTPC's Gigabyte 780G-based mobo. I had to bend one of the mounting clips a little to make it fit, but it was fairly easy to do.

On a side note, the IFX versions of the HR-05 fit 80mm fans, while I think the non-IFX versions only fit 70mm fans, which implies the IFX versions have a little more surface area, so go with the HR-05 IFX.

As for fitting on your mobo, the HR-05 IFX should be fine. You might have to angle it a little bit so the mounting clips fit across it, but I don't think it will interfere with your CPU cooler if your mock-up of its size is accurate.

thepwner
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Post by thepwner » Mon May 25, 2009 6:22 pm

I'm concerned about how close the northbridge is to the RAM slots. I'm thinking that the thermalright might get in the way of one (or both) of my RAM sticks...I don't want to run at 2GB or 0GB of RAM...I like my 4GB set up I have right now...I don't want to have to change that...

Can you guys picture where I'm coming from? The thermalright bows outward (the heatpipe goes outward from the plate of metal that touches the die) and I'm thinking that part is going to hit the RAM chip. I'm estimating that the stock heatsink is 60mm wide...the Thermalright is 80mm wide...I'll be cutting it very close if this DOES work...I don't know if it will.

JamieG
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Post by JamieG » Mon May 25, 2009 7:37 pm

Hmmm, good point. With that in mind you might want to go with the Xigmatek one, which appears from the photos here to be offset slightly from the base and not just straight up and down. It should give you some clearance away from your RAM slots but might start getting a little close to your PCIe slot (but it probably should be fine).

Olle P
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Post by Olle P » Tue May 26, 2009 3:12 am

What about the two upper scale Zalman sinks?
ZM-NBF47 should serve you well, I think.

Cheers
Olle

thepwner
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Post by thepwner » Tue May 26, 2009 5:22 am

Looks good, it'll at least be better than the heatsink I have now, but what about the white stuff on the bottom? Is that a thermal pad or something? I would want to clean that off and use my own paste...anyone have experiences with this heatsink?

KansaKilla
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Post by KansaKilla » Tue May 26, 2009 11:28 am

i've got that one on a gigabyte p35ds3l board. massive improvement over the original nb heatsink. don't remember if it had a thermal pad on it or what, but i remember using arctic silver on it. worked with a ninja and a sdt1283 no problems with clearance.

thepwner
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Post by thepwner » Tue May 26, 2009 6:23 pm

http://www.zalman.co.kr/ENG/product/Cat ... nd_Pic.asp

Which of the other 2 do you guys think is best? The copper one or the other blue one?

IMOM
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Post by IMOM » Tue May 26, 2009 8:05 pm

I tried the Xigmatek one from newegg. There description is wrong, it's doesn't fit in a NSK2480 case. I had to remove a top fin or two and then pinch the heatpipe down a bit. Then the heat pipe fin assembly is askew from center so it hits my CPU heatsink mini Ninja. I tried to bend the heat pipe a bit so it doesn't collide with the CPU heatsink and it bent the cpu direct touch surface...so the heat sink is now recycled junk I tossed it in the trash. I recommend getting the thermalright HR05 IFX one...that's the one I will buy next. I think the Xigmatek could be a great northbridge heatsink with a revision or two. It didn't fit in my application. The HR05 IFX looks like it will fit since it's straight up and not offset to the side. I called their tech support and emailed them...but I never got a response back from the email support.

I also bought the zalman ZM-NB47J and had it cut to fit the southbridge on my 780g motherboard. It fits like a charm. It's kinda high and I will probably need to dremel the heatsink fins if I ever buy a discrete video card for my system.

The ZM-NB47J is probably not a good solution for 780g or other northbrige with video...the chip gets pretty hot. It's great for the southbridge with mod.

new2spcr
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Re: Best fanless northbridge cooler?

Post by new2spcr » Wed May 27, 2009 10:01 am

thepwner wrote:I have this motherboard with it's crappy little northbridge heatsink.

http://www.biostar-usa.com/app/en-us/mb ... p?S_ID=370

I want to upgrade the northbridge heatsink, what should I get? And of course I want fanless...
I recently swapped the stock alu HS on my Asus P5N-E SLI with Thermalright HR05. It performs so much better than stock HS, especially if it can take some advantage from some spill over airflow from e.g. a CPU fan.
My temps has dropped several degrees, I'd guess around 10 degrees C or so! I can now touch the HS without developing blisters. Some parts of the HR-05, especially the part that is closest to the fan's frame and the bottom area, still don't get any benefit from the spill over airflow but I'm happy with its performance. There are several ways to mount the HS, but I suggest you to remove the mobo and go for the secure mounting hardware and skip the plastic push-pin solution. There have been reports of people being able to wiggle the HR-05 but mine doesn't budge.


Image

frenchie
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Post by frenchie » Wed May 27, 2009 10:55 am

Same mobo than new2spcr but I put the SLI version of the HR-05 IFX on it so I could fit a slow moving 70mm fan I had around.
Works like a charm.
The Noctua chipset cooler got too hot to touch with the same fan on it.

I'd say the HR-05 is better at dissipating heat (thanks to the way the fins are shaped I'm guessing)

new2spcr
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Post by new2spcr » Wed May 27, 2009 11:17 am

frenchie wrote:Same mobo than new2spcr but I put the SLI version of the HR-05 IFX on it so I could fit a slow moving 70mm fan I had around.
Works like a charm.
The Noctua chipset cooler got too hot to touch with the same fan on it.

I'd say the HR-05 is better at dissipating heat (thanks to the way the fins are shaped I'm guessing)
Have you tried mounting a fan on the Minja? You could get rid of that 70mm fan.

The 92mm fan on my Minja @ 800 rpm isn't even blowing directly at the HR-05 but it still does wonders for the temps.

thepwner
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Post by thepwner » Wed May 27, 2009 12:02 pm

Ya you know I don't want to risk buying something and it not fitting, I'm thinking right now I just want to buy a Zalman, something small, but better than what I have now and know that it'll fit. So which of those Zalmans would you guys reccomend?

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