Noise level of AMD Athlon 64 X2 4000+ stock cooler?

M25 · Post by **M25** » Sat Nov 24, 2007 6:32 pm

Hi!

I'm putting together a budget computer for my parents. The CPU I'm going for is the Athlon 64 X2 4000+ Socket AM2 (or perhaps the 4200+), most likely with the 65W thermal effect. It all depends on availability and price what it's going to be in the end.

My main question is how loud the stock cooler actually is on the 4000+/4200+? What size is the fan? If it's too loud, could I maybe just get away with another more quiet fan? I'm not thinking of running anything overclocked.
I remember how awfully loud my stock cooler was on my Athlon XP 2000+ before it was changed to a Zalman CNPS7000A. That little 60mm(?) fan going over 5000 RPM

The motherboard is either going to be an Asus M2A-VM or a Gigabyte GA-M68SM-S2, both with integrated graphics to keep the price down. Don't think my parents are going to do any serious gaming, and if they are... well then they're in for a big disappointment

I'm not going for a whisper quiet PC by any means. I just don't want too much noise, if you get what I mean.

aaa · Post by **aaa** » Sat Nov 24, 2007 7:09 pm

It turns itself off most of the time. Nothing like the old XPs.

Cerb · Post by **Cerb** » Sat Nov 24, 2007 7:32 pm

aaa wrote:It turns itself off most of the time. Nothing like the old XPs.

QFT

Also, current AMD coolers are quieter than the Intel ones. Oddly enough, a decent Antec case+PSU and a stock A64 X2 cooler ends up quieter than many current big vendor boxes. I believe you'll be quite pleased with stock parts, these days.

loimlo · Post by **loimlo** » Sat Nov 24, 2007 8:24 pm

Stock X2 cooler's fan is 70mm, and spins at 3000RPM mostly. Enable fan control function on motherboard, and you'll get quiet system out of the box.

I've used Speedfan to slowdown stock Athlon 64(single core) cooler to 1000RPM, which is an amazing result for me. No additional cost, and quiet enough.

M25 · Post by **M25** » Sun Nov 25, 2007 10:52 pm

Thank you all for your quick reply!
70mm at max 3000RPM gives me a good prediction of the expected noise level.

Thomas · Post by **Thomas** » Mon Nov 26, 2007 12:49 am

My brother bought a X2 3800+ this summer; At that point, AMD shipped them with (at least) two different coolers. One with heat pipes, and the other was quite simple, pure aluminium and no HP. My brother got the basic one. I was quite sure the fan was 80 mm, but maybe it was only 70. I think it was around 3000 RPM, though.

Anyway, my brothers mobo dont support fan control, so we simply lowered the RPM with a fanmate to around 1800. Never had a heatproblem, nor crash due to heat. While not whisper quiet, I'm impressed by how quiet it is. It's in an Antec case with Antex PSU. He uses Cool 'n' Quiet.

Maybe you should dig into the to mentioned mobos ability to control a fan. On the other hand, a fanmate is quite cheap

Shukuteki · Post by **Shukuteki** » Tue Nov 27, 2007 10:58 pm

I just built a rig for college with a X2 4000+, and the cooler is amazingly quiet. With both cores fully loaded with two instances of CPUburn, the proc stabilizes at 42C with the fan at around 2000 rpm. At that speed, there is a bit of motor noise, but its drowned out by the rest of my system (HX420W, 160gb HD, Yate Loon 120mm at 1500rpm). At idle, all that can be heard from the cooler is a slight hiss.

I am debating wether or not I even need to upgrade the cpu cooler, as my mini fridge will drown out the whole computer anyway.

loimlo · Post by **loimlo** » Sat Dec 01, 2007 6:20 am

I forgot one thing, sorry; 70mm fan at 3000 max was 65W TDP X2. As for 89W part, it's 70mm fan at 5000rpm max. If you get 89W part, it would be difficult to undervolt&slowdown the stock fan.

dhanson865 · Post by **dhanson865** » Sat Dec 01, 2007 1:01 pm

what are you talking about!

Either way 65W or 89W you can definitely slow the fan down on a stock AMD heatsink.

It's also worth noting that you aren't likely to get one of the thermally controlled heatpipe versions unless you get a part that has a TDP higher than 89W such as the X2 6000+ at 125W or one of the many 110W socket 939 processors.

some recent Stock AMD heatsinks are

Code: Select all

Heatsink/Fan                               Noise Fan V  Â°C Rise Â°C/W MP Weight
Ajigo MF064-074 (70mm fan no pipes)        ??    ?      ??      0.??    373
AVC Z7U7414001 (70mm 4 heat pipes)         ??    ?      ??      0.??    440
AVC Z7U7414002 (70mm 4 heat pipes)         ??    ?      ??      0.??    440
Coolermaster CMHK8-8I22A-A2 (80mm 4 pipes) ??    ?      ??      0.??    442

I have a 89W socket 939 X2 that has the Ajigo 70mm and I use speed fan to keep its rpms in the 600 to 2500 rpm range with it sitting under 1000 rpms the vast majority of the time.

The AVC and Coolermaster heatsinks have thermally controlled fans that would take some extra work to control by voltage but it is doable.

If you leave them thermally controlled the AVC is 3800 to 5400 RPM at 12V. If it were me I'd probably feed it 7v fixed and see what happened.

The Coolermaster 80mm uses a delta fan with a max RPM of 5200. Of course you could easily swap that for any 80mm fan of your choosing or just feed it 7v fixed and see what happens.

They aren't going to outshine the heatsinks below but if you aren't overclocking they are far from substandard. And if you get the no heatpipe version I'd even call it quiet (with speedfan or motherboard fan control).

Code: Select all

Heatsink/Fan                             Noise Fan V  Â°C Rise Â°C/W MP Height Weight
Thermalright XP-120, Nexus 120    ($??)  23   12      25      0.32    63/88  493* (370+fan)
Thermalright SI-120, Nexus 120    ($??)  23   12      ??      0.??    90/115 523* (400+fan)
Thermalright SI-128, Nexus 120    ($45)  23   12      21      0.27    92/117 633* (510+fan)
Thermalright SI-128 SE, Nexus 120 ($60)  23   12      ??      0.??    92/117 633* (510+fan)
Scythe Andy with stock fan        ($45)  20   12      16      0.21   125/150 685  (???+fan)

Scythe Ninja Mini, stock fan      ($40)  28   12      19      0.24     115   678* (580+fan)
Scythe Ninja Mini, Nexus 92       ($??)  20   12      ??      0.??     115   678* (580+fan)
Scythe Ninja Mini, 92mm fan ~23dBA($??)  23   12      ??      0.??     115   678* (580+fan)

Scythe Ninja, Nexus 120           ($50)  23   12      14      0.18     150   788* (665+fan)
Thermalright Ultra-120, Nexus 120 ($55)  23   12      15      0.19     161   868* (745+fan)
TR Ultra-120 eXtreme, Nexus 120   ($??)  23   12      12      0.15     161   913* (790+fan)

loimlo · Post by **loimlo** » Sat Dec 01, 2007 9:22 pm

Something about motherboard fan control, it's highly specific to individual motherboard. I've used 8 AM2 boards, and they all came with different range & power on fan controlling. Some were able to fine-tune range of fan RPM, but some were just equipped with enable & disable function, and nothing else. Well, I've successfully slowdown X2 5600+ fan to 1800prm by mb's fan controlling. However, it's not quiet enough, even not by SPCR standard. I don't think something from 1800 to 2500rpm was ok, and that's why 5V or 7V was not low enough for a 5000rpm fan.

As for speedfan, it's more specific & individual to motherboard & sensor chip. I can't guarantee everybody would get the same sub-1000 result as yours and mine.

=assassin= · Post by **=assassin=** » Sun Dec 02, 2007 10:00 am

I've noticed a sticker on the side on my old stock AM2 3800+ (single core) heatsink had "Foxconn" written on it.

Shukuteki · Post by **Shukuteki** » Mon Dec 03, 2007 2:22 pm

loimlo wrote:Something about motherboard fan control, it's highly specific to individual motherboard. I've used 8 AM2 boards, and they all came with different range & power on fan controlling. Some were able to fine-tune range of fan RPM, but some were just equipped with enable & disable function, and nothing else. Well, I've successfully slowdown X2 5600+ fan to 1800prm by mb's fan controlling. However, it's not quiet enough, even not by SPCR standard. I don't think something from 1800 to 2500rpm was ok, and that's why 5V or 7V was not low enough for a 5000rpm fan.

As for speedfan, it's more specific & individual to motherboard & sensor chip. I can't guarantee everybody would get the same sub-1000 result as yours and mine.

Indeed not. I have one of the new 690G motherboards from Gigabyte and since it is quite cold in my room (no insulation), the motherboard keeps the fan to about 1000-1200rpm at idle with the processor at an average 25C (!).

At that speed, its pretty much impossible to distinguish if you have any more fans in the system.

loimlo · Post by **loimlo** » Fri Dec 07, 2007 8:39 am

Shukuteki wrote: Indeed not. I have one of the new 690G motherboards from Gigabyte and since it is quite cold in my room (no insulation), the motherboard keeps the fan to about 1000-1200rpm at idle with the processor at an average 25C (!).

At that speed, its pretty much impossible to distinguish if you have any more fans in the system.

Sorry, too busy to browse SPCR recently.

You can't compare a 5000rpm fan to a 3000rpm fan directly. With GA-M56S-S3 (also Gigabyte board), I've successfully downgrade the RPM of fan from 5000 to 1800, but the result doesn't satisfy me. With 3000rpm X2 cooler, I could slowdown to 1200. Well, you got it. If you want a quiet cooler right out of box, get 65W/45W part, not 89W or higher one.

As for mb fan controlling, I would share my experience with you.

I was running two MSI, and one Abit AM2 boards for my family. One MSI board, K9N6PGM-F, ws only able to enable/disable control. Based on mb's function, stock single core Athlon64 cooler would only slowdown to 2000rpm! And I decided to use speedfan to adjust fan speed manually. The other MSI board, K9NU Neo-V, had ability to set percentage & temperature & tolerance. The fan rotated 650rpm or so in my younger brother's computer, I guess, because motherboard couldn't detect any fan speed below 700rpm. My Abit KN9 kept my fan about 720rpm at idle with every controllable fan speed bios. I couldn't name more AM2 boards right now cause they were assembled for others, and I couldn't touch them immediately. But one thing I am sure, you can't anticipate motherboard's fan control would be the same across the boards; even they were coming from the same company. For example, ASUS mbs fan control, Q-Fan, differ greatly from high-end Intel P35 boards to low-end nVIDIA 6100 boards. I believe that everyone who surf on SPCR would perceive the difference between 2200rpm and 1200rpm.

Btw, how is the stock 3850 fan at idle? It doesn't matter at full load cause Game music would cover it. Does it generate a buzzing sound or a whirring sound? I like to hear a suggestion from SPCR, thanks. I believe SPCR users have a far strict standard than most reviewers out there.