Near-silent cooling for an E8500- with a twist

[Geeky1]

Hi all,

One of my friends has asked me to configure a new system for him, and I'm running into some issues with speccing something that will meet his standards and mine.

Anyhow, here's a partial list of what's going in it:

• SUPERMICRO MBD-C2SEA-O (Intel G45) mobo
• Core 2 Duo E8500
• nVidia GeForce GTX260
• Corsair 550w PSU
• CoolerMaster Centurion 590 case

And here's my problem:
He needs to set this system up to be very, very quiet (absolute silence isn't a requirement per se, but the closer the better), but it also has to operate in a room that can hit 35*C in the summer. To meet my standards-and since I'm speccing it, it needs to meet my standards as well as my friend's-the CPU must not exceed 55*C and the RAM and all of the components on the mobo need to stay at or below 50*C under 100% load (defined as both CPU cores and the GPU running flat out, along with heavy RAM access) at an ambient temperature 5*C higher than anything the computer is likely to ever see, whilst the GPU and all components on the graphics card need to stay below 65, and the hard drive's temperature must be no higher than 40*C even during heavy, continuous access.

My major concern right now is finding a CPU heatsink; I'm considering the HR-01 Plus, the Xigmatek HDT-S1283, the Scythe "Orochi" SORC-1000, the Thermalright SI-128, the Arctic Cooling Freezer XTREME and the SilverStone NT06-E

The thing is, the Supermicro board has very, very tiny heatsinks on the northbridge and the voltage regulators. Because of that, I'm concerned about using a tower heatsink, which will, I believe, reduce the airflow across both the NB and the PWM heatsink to, near-as-makes-no-difference, nothing.

Adding a fan to the 120mm side panel mount above the CPU area would help counteract this, to an extent at least, but all of the tower heatsinks save for the Arctic Cooling unit (which uses a proprietary fan of questionable silence and only manages ~0.14*C/w, if that, with the fan running flat out @ 1500rpms) are too tall to allow that. The Scythe heatsink is too tall to run any fan at all as far as I know-either on the heatsink or the side of the case-and only musters an even more abysmal ~0.25*C/w according to FrostyTech's testing @ 85w with the stock fan. And while the SI-128 and the SilverStone heatsink would provide some cooling for the mobo, I'm not convinced that either of them can keep an E8500 @ 100% load within about 10*C of ambient.

Other than that, does anyone know if heatsinks that will fit the GeForce 9800s will work on the GTX260?

Any suggestions would be appreciated, however, I'm stuck on a few points:

-Changing the motherboard for something with a more elaborate cooling setup is not an option. Every "consumer level" board I've worked with in the past 2 years-from ECS, ASROCK, ASUS, MSI and Gigabyte-has been unmitigated crap. I will not buy one or recommend one again, to anyone, for any reason.
-Swapping the NB and PWM heatsinks on the SuperMicro board is presumably a non-starter, simply because on my X7DCA-L they appear to be glued down as well as clipped, and I'm sure the ones on the C2SEA are the same)
-Liquid cooling is not an option; a good water cooling setup is out of my friend's budget and he has concerns about their reliability.

Thanks!

[alecmg]

Looks like the question is not cpu cooling, but organizing airflow.
The number of fan mounts makes it simpler, but number of holes in this swiss chees of a case can be a problem.

My first idea is to create top-down airflow. You have natural exhaust in PSU already. Now put couple very low speed exhaust fans (500-800 rpm) to side door lower mount and front panel lower mount. This will create underpressure inside and force air through top holes to flow past motherboard components.

Put your tower cpu heatsink in top-down direction and you'll be set. It doesn't have to be a monster, E8500 is quite cool of a CPU.

Just 2 cents from my experience with Arctic Silentium Eco Pro case.

[oxygen200000]

You can take a look to the Noctua NHC12P. Noctua are the most silent fans on the market today.

[Geeky1]

My first idea is to create top-down airflow

That's not a bad idea. Since I don't have any of the components in front of me, I can't really experiment with it but that may be worth trying. The only issue with it is, as you pointed out, the number of holes in the case. The entire front panel, for instance, is wire mesh. Which means that even with a few 120mm exhaust fans, the actual velocity of the airstream past a given location in the case is likely to be very, very low. Admittedly, it is conceivably possible to block off some of these vents and increase the velocity somewhat, but then you get into issues with how little vacuum a typical axial fan-particularly a low speed, low noise one-can pull. It's something that I'd be interested in trying, but I'm not sure it would work any better than a more conventional airflow path in this particular case.

It doesn't have to be a monster, E8500 is quite cool of a CPU.

Any idea what the real-world heat output on these things is? I know my old Conroe E6600 runs very, very cool (~35*C with both cores @ 100% using Intel's TAT), but my E5410 Xeons run obscenely hot (mid 70s @ 100% load using the stock heatsinks; some of that is the case they're in, but still...)

oxygen200000: I considered that as well. I was hoping to find something that performs a little better; SPCR's own test got something like 0.21*C/w out of it with the stock fan @ 100%, and just barely within my 55*C upper limit if the E8500 does put out anything like 65w. =/

[jaganath]

just barely within my 55*C upper limit if the E8500 does put out anything like 65w. =/

thankfully it doesn't; more like half that, in fact:

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/di ... html#sect0

apparently the E0 stepping, which you'll presumably be using, is even cooler still. Xbitlabs measurements are very reliable, IME.

the RAM and all of the components on the mobo need to stay at or below 50*C under 100% load

this seems unnecessarily conservative; some components such as MCH and mosfets are often rated for safe operating temperatures up to 100C.

[burebista]

[...]the CPU must not exceed 55*C and the RAM and all of the components on the mobo need to stay at or below 50*C under 100% load[...]

IMO you're too conservative. I have an E8400 cooled by a Ninja rev.B fanless with TR Bolt-Thru kit and I have something like this with Linpack.



With Orthos load temperature is much better.



As long as intel says TJMax=100°C for Wolfdale's I don't see any reason to be afraid of 60-70°C load temperatures on cores.

[Geeky1]

burebista & jaganth:
I'm probably being more conservative than is necessary, yes (though the thermal spec for the E8500 is 74.1*C), but I'd rather err on the side of massive overkill to allow for things like dust buildup, fan failure, poor ventilation of the case due to someone being inattentive and placing a book on top of the blowholes at the top of the case or due to being put in one of those computer desks with a 3-sided enclosure for the tower, or whatever.

It's also a matter of principle for me; if it's possible to improve performance without spending significantly more money, leaving the extra performance on the table-for instance, by saying "65*C @ 100% load is good enough" as opposed to "you know, I think if I put some thought and some time into this I can probably get it down under 50 at full load" is doing a halfassed job, irrespective of whether the lower temperature actually offers any benefit or not.

Either way, if xbit is correct about power consumption, achieving a 10*C or better delta at full load shouldn't be challenging at all. The Noctua heatsink ought to do it, and it should be quiet enough for my friend with a Nexus fan @ 12v.

I was hoping to use PWM fans for the whole thing though (the Supermicro board can control 5 of them, I might as well take advantage of it). Has anyone used either the Arctic Cooling or the Nexus PWM fans? I've got a CoolJag Everflow PWM 120mm in my Xeon box (this one) and it's effectively inaudible at the lowest speed unless i get my ear within a few inches of it...