heatsink for 45W AMD Athlon low power

wous · Post by **wous** » Thu Jan 24, 2008 2:51 pm

Hi,

I just bought a 45W AMD athlon LE-1600 combined with an ASUS M2A-VM Mobo (AM2 socket).

Now looking for the quietest cooling option. Since this is a 45W CPU while most are 65 and up, going for a standard cooling fan feels like overkill. Any recommendations or specific options?

I was wondering whether a fanless Scythe Ninja Mini would do the job. The case has a big 12" fan nearby (Antec Sonata). Any potential problems for motherboard overheating?

cheers
wous

LAThierry · Post by **LAThierry** » Thu Jan 24, 2008 3:14 pm

Page 5 of the review shows a fanless Mini Ninja on a Pentium D950, which is a hotter CPU. If your case fan is about an inch away, the Mini Ninja should have no trouble keeping your 45w AMD cool in my opinion.

George van Kralingen · Post by **George van Kralingen** » Sun Feb 03, 2008 3:25 am

Hi,

I have found 6 options !

1) The coolermaster Vortex 752 running on 5 volts ! That one is more silent compared to the Nina mini (which I have tryed also) It is also cheaper and has a better 92 mm fan instead of a 80mm . Also your mainboard will get some airflow which is less the case which the Ninja !

2) The coolermaster GeminII in combination with 1 or 2 Noctua fans

http://www.noctua.at/main.php?show=prod ... d=4&lng=en

This choice with 2 pcs 120mm fans is a little bit of a overkill and it works with me ( with a AM2 45 watt BE2400) with just one Fan and is absolutlely silent ! With a little bit of shopping the price will be around the same as the Ninja !

3) The Thermalright SI-128 + a similar Noctua fan also works fine with superior silence !

4) Aerocool also has some nice options ! The Xfire or the Dominator with a 14 cm fan !

5) If you want to use the Scythe Nina Mini then I would change the Fan into a 80 mm one from Noctua which is far more silent compared to the one from Scythe ! (Keep in mind that Scythe is a producer of just the heatsinks and not the Fans and with Noctua that is just the other way around)

6) The Noctua NH-U9F Cooler could also do the job with superior silence and far better compared to the Ninja ! However, like the Ninja , the components on the mainboard won't get as much aiflow compared to the ones from CM , Thermalright or Aerocool.

Best regards,

George

thejamppa · Post by **thejamppa** » Sun Feb 03, 2008 3:26 am

Arctic Cooling Alpine would be more than enough. I am using that with my 45W Spartan and it never spins up.

FlorisNielssen · Post by **FlorisNielssen** » Sun Feb 03, 2008 5:52 am

Alpine indeed should be enough. I run a 3800 X2, 65W with it. My fan also never ramps up.
Very cheap. Quiet. Simple installation. Review.

But if you want it passive, and more costly, you'll need a Ninja Mini. The test LAThierry mentioned uses a 78W processor and it gets 57Â°C max, inside a pretty small case. But, it is mounted very near a case fan...
I don't know about yours, but I can hardly imagine it to be smaller.

Anyway, the 45W processor will easily run passive.

Spare Tire · Post by **Spare Tire** » Sun Feb 03, 2008 6:46 am

I'd ask myself if the cpu could run passive from it's stock heatsink first.

iganu · Post by **iganu** » Sun Feb 03, 2008 9:51 am

I'm running a couple of BE-2300 systems, both undervolted. I don't think I'd try running passive with the stock heatsink. But they don't need much airflow at all to keep them nice and cool. And the stock amd fan is very quiet if you run it very slowly. And you can't beat the price.

On my first BE-2300 system I used an alpine heatsink, with the fan fixed at 5V. This was way overkill for an undervolted AMD 45W processor (one of my systems doesn't have a hard drive and it only draws 38W from the wall with both cores fully loaded). So, for the second build I just used the stock AMD heatsink and the BIOS fan controller. I don't think it's noticeably louder than the 5V alpine and the heatsink doesn't get warm even when folding 24/7.