Hi.
Currently I have a Zalman HD-160 case and so far I am fairly happy with it, however I am looking to improve on the overall cooling by finding some components to re-arrange the airflow, notably the motherboard. How it is situated right now, the intake for the CPU fan is about 1cm from the back of my optical drive, covering about 30% of the intake surface area. I am fairly confident it is hindering my cooling. What I would like is to find a decent capable (overclocking friendly) motherboard with the cpu closer to the agp/pci-e slots.
Inside I am currently running:
I have stripped all but the heatsink attached zalman fans and replaced them with Nexus variants(less airflow but much more pleasant sound, first time using Nexus and very pleased, better than SilenX imo), and added a 92mm fan below the hdds in the vertical rack (my sata ones) otherwise they cook. I've also suspended a 92mm fan blowing along the backside of my agp card to help cool off the ram and motherboard north/southbridge.
The biggest concern, lies with the CPU Cooler being obstructed. I have been toying with the idea of rotaiting it so it exausts into the PSU, however I am unsure how well that will work with the rear exausting fans being perpendincular. I am hoping, that there is a decent replacement motherboard, ideally supporting crossfire(for when I upgrade, PCI-E seems inevitable). Ideally it would be full ATX, support either my current processor and ram, or go the Core Duo route. I do not want an AM2 motherboard as the cost for upgrading would not reflect an actual performance increase.
Are there any such motherboards around?
Edit: Although this picture is dated, it portrays the issue nonetheless. No longer in the system are the Radeon 9700np, the puny psu, thermalright xp-120(zalman has horizontal airflow), and I have the 3 listed sata drives hooked up as well. The back of my optical drive definitely pust a squeeze on everything.
HD-160 (old configuration)
Oh, and BTW before you get all Tornado/leafblower/watercooling/peltier(ick, stupid idea), compressor happy, this machine is meant to run 24/7, is heavily used, and not maintained. It is also runs as an HTPC/Server, and a gaming machine as well, fully utilizing both cores. It is located in a glass/wood cabinet with adequate environmental cooling. I do not want to add any noise to this box. and definetly no more thermal output. The heat is already borderlining bothersome from this box, somehwat leaning me towards a core duo but from what I see, it offers a neglible advantage in that department especially when both are overclocked.
Currently I have a Zalman HD-160 case and so far I am fairly happy with it, however I am looking to improve on the overall cooling by finding some components to re-arrange the airflow, notably the motherboard. How it is situated right now, the intake for the CPU fan is about 1cm from the back of my optical drive, covering about 30% of the intake surface area. I am fairly confident it is hindering my cooling. What I would like is to find a decent capable (overclocking friendly) motherboard with the cpu closer to the agp/pci-e slots.
Inside I am currently running:
ASRock 939DUAL-SATA
AMD Opteron 165 @ 2.4ghz (leisurely overclocked) w/Zalman CNPS9500
2x1024MB Corsair PC3200
ATI x800XL AIW (AGP) w/Zalman VF900
2x300gig samsung sata2 (Raid 0)
1x250gig samsung sata2
1x200gig seagate baracuda 7200.7 (pata)
1xTDK 8x8x40 dvd+/-rw
OCZ GameXstream 700w (these come with horrid fans stock, replaced)
I have stripped all but the heatsink attached zalman fans and replaced them with Nexus variants(less airflow but much more pleasant sound, first time using Nexus and very pleased, better than SilenX imo), and added a 92mm fan below the hdds in the vertical rack (my sata ones) otherwise they cook. I've also suspended a 92mm fan blowing along the backside of my agp card to help cool off the ram and motherboard north/southbridge.
The biggest concern, lies with the CPU Cooler being obstructed. I have been toying with the idea of rotaiting it so it exausts into the PSU, however I am unsure how well that will work with the rear exausting fans being perpendincular. I am hoping, that there is a decent replacement motherboard, ideally supporting crossfire(for when I upgrade, PCI-E seems inevitable). Ideally it would be full ATX, support either my current processor and ram, or go the Core Duo route. I do not want an AM2 motherboard as the cost for upgrading would not reflect an actual performance increase.
Are there any such motherboards around?
Edit: Although this picture is dated, it portrays the issue nonetheless. No longer in the system are the Radeon 9700np, the puny psu, thermalright xp-120(zalman has horizontal airflow), and I have the 3 listed sata drives hooked up as well. The back of my optical drive definitely pust a squeeze on everything.
HD-160 (old configuration)
Oh, and BTW before you get all Tornado/leafblower/watercooling/peltier(ick, stupid idea), compressor happy, this machine is meant to run 24/7, is heavily used, and not maintained. It is also runs as an HTPC/Server, and a gaming machine as well, fully utilizing both cores. It is located in a glass/wood cabinet with adequate environmental cooling. I do not want to add any noise to this box. and definetly no more thermal output. The heat is already borderlining bothersome from this box, somehwat leaning me towards a core duo but from what I see, it offers a neglible advantage in that department especially when both are overclocked.
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