Help me find a QUIET P4 heatsink/fan

[Wah]

I'm about to buy a P4 2.53, Asus p4s8x, corsair xms2700. I need a quiet heatsink/fan... not planning on overclocking. I haven't really been keeping up with the latest and greatest, so can you help me out?

 

[brunswickite]

i have the arkua 8568 its Ok, not as good cooling as i wanted, but its queit, and its very easy to install

 

[hc1001]

y not just use the stock intel HSF? its really great if ur not OCing.....

 

[Leo V]

You could try Alpha PAL8942 + Panaflo 80mm L1A fan. If you *really* want silence, undervolt the CPU to say 1.40Vcore (to reduce heat) and undervolt the Panaflo to 5V or 7V. (At 7V it's pretty much inaudible, probably much quieter than your other fans.) I'm guessing that if you aren't overclocking, you'll be able to reduce Vcore to somewhere from 1.30-1.45vcore with no effect on stability. 1.35vcore = (1.35/1.5)^2 = only 81% of the heat.

I'll be using 8942 with undervolted Panaflo and ASG3, only I'm overclocking 2.26B @ 2.55ghz. I'll use a Papst fan later on.

 

[TheHunter]

Use the stock HSF that you'd get with the CPU, his quiet and doing great job, and if you'd decide to Overclock in the future he will still keep the CPU on normal temps.

 

[SupermanCK]

stock is quiet enough

 

[BD231]

Stock is NOT quiet

 

[RalfHutter]

Stock IS very quiet.

 

[Leo V]

Originally posted by: RalfHutter
Stock IS very quiet.

Stock is thermally-controlled, and gets annoyingly loud when the CPU has been under load for a few minutes.

 

[SpeedyGonzales]

To be honest, I would keep the Intel HSF, when not doing heavy overclocking. However if you really want to invest some money into a quiet solution, what about the Coolermaster HSC-L71 Fujiyama. In this version it comes with a 2500rpm fan, which is very quiet and the performance lvl is a bit better, than the Intel stock cooler.

If you want to have better cooling at any point in time later, just grab yourself one of these nice new YS-tech TMP fans and replace the silent fan. From all the tests I did myself and read at overclockers.com the effectiveness of the HSF is still heavily dependant on the fan (of course it is not the only factor, the HS itself is also important, but the fan speed really makes a big difference).

Cheers
Speedy

 

[RalfHutter]

Originally posted by: Leo V


Stock is thermally-controlled, and gets annoyingly loud when the CPU has been under load for a few minutes.

Per this Intel P4 Thermal Management Page the retail HSF is at it's lowest speed setting and only starts speeding up as the case temperature goes above 33C. By 40C it's speed is midway between it's lowest and highest range.It's not until 43C that it's at it's highest.

I don't know about you but my case temps (P4 1.8A @ 2.3GHZ, Antec SX10x0 + 4 Panaflo L1As) never get over 37/38C and I live in Sunny SoCal with no AC. I use MBM to monitor my fan speeds and even during extended Prime95 or gaming sessions my HSF speed rarely get's over 3000 RPM. Max is around 3400 RPM (I unhooked my case fans to heat things up so I could test this). My HSF runs between 2700 and 2900 RPM probably 95% of the time. It is inaudible. At 3000RPM I can just barely start to hear the HSF over my case fans. At 3400 you can definitely hear it but it's certainly no louder than a typical 35dB, 35+ CFM type of 80mm fan. I'd compare it to a retail Antec 80mm case fan in sound.

I've built at least 15 P4 rigs for people and have used the retail HSF on all but one. All of them were extremely quiet, even during extended break-in sessions. I recommend that you start with the retail HSF and spend the money for something else only if you decide you don't like the retail HSF.

 

[Leo V]

RalfHutter, my case temps max out at 39C and it seems sufficient to reach ~3800RPM with the retail cooler. That said, I personally find it somewhat loud even at midrange speed (~2800-3000RPM), so I have to use Asus's Q-Fan to slow it down to 2000RPM.

Since the original poster seems interested in a capital-QUIET system, I would definitely recommend a Panaflo L1A (undervolted if possible) if not a Papst. SilentPCReview is a great resource for information. A Panaflo @7V is inaudible, the same cannot be said about Intel's stock cooler.