How do heat problems affect ur system?

[Phantom589]

many people have told me that the Pentuim D 830 (3 ghz) has problems when it comes to heat issues. My question is how does this affect performance/ the system? If you buy from dell, dont they know to put in the right stuff to make sure the heat is not a major issue?

also ive been looking at charts comparing the D 820 and pentuim 4 640 ...how well can these charts be used to compare the D 830 and the 4 650? can u say that the advantages/ disadvantges will remain similar?

thanks to anyone who responds

 

[Gravity]

Heat is the enemy.

 

[Duvie]

Heat is a natural enemy to all computer hardware. Heat will result in failures and errors....Some of these errors will result in a few apps failing, other will result in reboots and hardlock freezes....

Overheating of a P4 cpu with its thermal protection feature causes the cpu to speedstep itself to be able to drop the vcore and thus reduce heat. The idea is less to stop just normal heat buildup as it is for a catastrophic fan stoppage. The dropping of the vcore and speedstepping can often reduce the chip to speeds and voltages that allows it to cool passively and save itself from lasting damage. In most instances a P4 on the edge will go through a series of throttling. It will throttle until it reaches a certain temp then speedsteps back up and quickly the heat rebuilds and so it throttles again...The result is a lagging system with drops in performance. If you are doing serious cpu task it may very well be noticeable. On the other hand some dont even know when they are throttling...

The thing that is diffciult to compare a P-D to a 6xx series is that the dual core pentiums are actually built using 2 of the older 5xx series cpus....Thermally they were a little worse but their cache (L2) was a better performing cache though 1mb less per core....

The main thing to remember is that Intel had to release it dual core at a speed almost at the bottom of their current existing single core speeds. This is a clear sign of the type of thermal issues that going to dual core the smithfield has created.

I personally think the 6xx series line is much better then the 5xx series and thus the P-D line.


As for Dell...Well you hope so but sometimes they are so caught up in the quietness of their systems they basically build these chips at the very edge. Now dell isn't knowingly going to build faulty stuff that will overheat. They offer to much in terms of warranties and services and this would just come back to bite them. The problem somestimes arise in the different components used in combinations that add to the overall system heat. Then you add to the fact that there is no way for Dell to know some fool is going to place it in a cubby hole in his desk and that airflow is going to be hampered. Finally each cpu has its own litle quirks in manufacturing that lend to slightly different thermal characteristics. Take the IHS for instance. Some may not make good contact with the cores and result in poorer thermal conductivity.


So basically Dell is at the whim of the buyer. It doesn't help they are getting a chip (if we think of the 830 and 840's) that is basically hard enough to cool without aftermarket air coolers, then they pride themselves on low audible PCs and you have a potential dangerous combination that is only exasperated by 3 main factiors...

1) Ambient air temperature of the room they are located in. This can drastically very by geography as well as social ecomonics (have AC) Lets take me for example with an AC controlled office and an ambient room temp of 70-74f (even throughout the summer) I wont have much of a problem. Take the guy living in the south (not saying he is poor) with no AC and in a stifling 85+f room temperature and this is going to have impacts in the ability to cool the heatsink. Even think of the guy in Socal or AZ...warmer air is not going to cool as well as the cooler air....

2) Where the user places the case. I have seen or heard of ppl who push their PCs up against walls or put them in cubby holes barely big enough to get the case in...The exhausted air gets trapped in the case or in the cubby hole only to be recycled right back in by the intake fans....

3) Cleaniness...Without effective dust controls fans get quickly inudated with dust that builds up on the fan blades and drastically reduces the cfm the fan can produce....It also like a thermal blanket coats the heatsinks and other components on the hardware trapping heat in.....


Bottom line you need a product with some headroom for the average moron...If you are not an average moron then most can keep them from overheating....I would think the average Dell customer is not going to fit in the last category.

 

[Phantom589]

wow duvie, thanks alot i really appreciate it. hopefully i wont have an issue. Ill keep the back open so the fan can do its thing, my house is constantly AC'ed and ill clean it every know and then. But what abt cooling systems and stuff? can i just go to ciruit city or w.e and pick up something that is simple to install and will help keep the system cool?

 

[Duvie]

Are you having Dell build it??? If not I would start with an aftermarket zalmann cooler and you will be fine....I would have a minimum of 2 case fans (1 intake in the front, 1 exhaust in the back), with 3 being optimal ( side intake fan)...The power supplies of most now can act as the second exhaust fan so 2 of each will balance it....

This will be fine if you dont plan on seriously ocing it....If you want to Oc this then talk to the boys who do this...I have heard 3.4-3.6 on air is pretty tops with water cooling needed for any attempt at 3.8....

 

[Phantom589]

yes delll is building it. So does that mean i wont be able to get something in thier to help cool it?

i dont plan on OCing it at all lol, most dont even do that with intels do they?

 

[Duvie]

Originally posted by: Phantom589
yes delll is building it. So does that mean i wont be able to get something in thier to help cool it?

I dont plan on OCing it at all lol, most dont even do that with intels do they?

Well do they offer you some aftermarket cooling??? If not, then changing anything like the heatsink will void warranties...If so things like I mentioed above will do fine....If you want you could always see if there is more room for case fans if need be...

 

[Phantom589]

do, they offer me no option for cooling. I guess ill just go along with what they give me and make sure i treat the system right and stuff, hopefully it wont be an issue, im goin with the Pentuim D 830 over the Pentuim 4 650 btw..good?

 

[Duvie]

Originally posted by: Phantom589
do, they offer me no option for cooling. I guess ill just go along with what they give me and make sure i treat the system right and stuff, hopefully it wont be an issue, im goin with the Pentuim D 830 over the Pentuim 4 650 btw..good?

I am pro multitasking and run apps that are multithreaded so for me I would go dual core regardless if AMD or INtel...

I dont think dell offers but may put something better on their high end gaming line...I am not sure..I haven;t cracked one open recently...

What are your total specs,and what did you pay for it??? If you dont mind...

 

[Phantom589]

Dell XPS 600 is what teh system is, which is bascilly dells "top of the line" system for gaming and media so hopefully itll have a nice cooling system.

Dell Xps 600
Windows XP Media Center Edition
Pentuim D 830
2 gig dual channel SDDR RAM
160 gig hard drive with NCQ
A really good sound card (forgot name sorry)
256 mb nvidia geforce 6800
thats the basic stuff, theres also some nice extras thrown in..surround sound system with sub, 9 in 1 media reader, dvd cd burner and reader, 19 inch flat panel, 4 year warranty.

The whole thing will cost 1,200-1,300 because i am gettin 40% off on the whole system. What do u think?

 

[Duvie]

Great system for that price!! You will enjoy it....

What will your uses be for it??

 

[Phantom589]

a mix of everything. Mabey not ALOT but definatly gaming. I do alot of multitasking when i am encoding videos, useing photoshop, browsing and other stuff. Thats why i went with the D 830 , so i could multitask, but i know its not as good as the 650 for gaming..should i replace the d 830 with a 650? or would the D 830 be better overall?

 

[Duvie]

Honestly 3ghz versus 3.4ghz....That is only 13%...I would take the responsiveness of dual core...You should have added one more HDD though...It will help in the multitasking as well...

 

[Phantom589]

should i get two hdds from dell (like a 80gb plus 60 gb in the pc) or buy a portable hdd to put my files on and stuff?

 

[Phantom589]

which would u recommend

80GB Serial ATA Hard Drive (10000RPM) [add $70 or $3/month2]


160GB Serial ATA Hard Drive (7200RPM) w/ Native Command Queuing [Included in Price]


250GB Serial ATA Hard Drive (7200RPM) [add $60 or $2/month2]


500GB Serial ATA II Hard Drive (7200RPM) [add $400 or $12/month2]


160GB Performance RAID 0 (2 x 80GB 10K SATA2 HDDs) [add $240 or $8/month2]


160GB Data Security RAID 1 (2 x 160GB SATA HDDs w/ Native Command Queuing) [add $100 or $3/month2]


320GB Performance RAID 0 (2 x 160GB SATA HDDs w/ Native Command Queuing) [add 100]

 

[Phantom589]

what do they mean by 160GB Data Security RAID 1 (2 x 160GB SATA HDDs w/ Native Command Queuing) [add $100 or $3/month2] ? 2 160 gigs but it only comes out to 160 gigs total? are 160 used for backup?

 

[Duvie]

Originally posted by: Phantom589
which would u recommend

80GB Serial ATA Hard Drive (10000RPM) [add $70 or $3/month2]


160GB Serial ATA Hard Drive (7200RPM) w/ Native Command Queuing [Included in Price]


250GB Serial ATA Hard Drive (7200RPM) [add $60 or $2/month2]


500GB Serial ATA II Hard Drive (7200RPM) [add $400 or $12/month2]


160GB Performance RAID 0 (2 x 80GB 10K SATA2 HDDs) [add $240 or $8/month2]


160GB Data Security RAID 1 (2 x 160GB SATA HDDs w/ Native Command Queuing) [add $100 or $3/month2]


320GB Performance RAID 0 (2 x 160GB SATA HDDs w/ Native Command Queuing) [add 100]

I would probably get a 250gb large storage drive...When you are encoding and gaming in multitask you can be encoding which take write and read operations on the backup drive and running the game and other things on the root drive...it will keep it from the IO system being the bottleneck....

 

[Phantom589]

so wait are u saying to buy this
250GB Serial ATA Hard Drive (7200RPM) [add $60 or $2/month2] (it doesnt have NCQ) or to buy a SEPARATE hard drive from like best buy?

 

[Duvie]

Originally posted by: Phantom589
what do they mean by 160GB Data Security RAID 1 (2 x 160GB SATA HDDs w/ Native Command Queuing) [add $100 or $3/month2] ? 2 160 gigs but it only comes out to 160 gigs total? are 160 used for backup?

RAID 1 is a mirror array...m,eaning you would have the exact things written twice....It is a redundant system but is exactly that, not 320gb of available storage but a protected 160gb. If something happen to one of the drives the other can rebuild it with no data loss...

A raid 0 would be a striping array where you would gain the 160gb of the second for 320gb but take the risk that any data corruption on the array would result in total loss...They also tend to be less then perfectly stable so data loss is a serious risk here...

Get one main drive and just load the apps and oS....use th esecond for storage and as a work drive for encoding....

 

[Duvie]

Originally posted by: Phantom589
so wait are u saying to buy this
250GB Serial ATA Hard Drive (7200RPM) [add $60 or $2/month2] (it doesnt have NCQ) or to buy a SEPARATE hard drive from like best buy?

YOu could do either or...It may be cheaper buying it yourself...You will likley need another SATA cable and avaiable SATA power plug from the power supply.

 

[Phantom589]

so does the 250GB Serial ATA Hard Drive (7200RPM) [add $60 or $2/month2] have a backup hardrive in it, if so ill just buy that.

 

[Duvie]

Originally posted by: Phantom589
so does the 250GB Serial ATA Hard Drive (7200RPM) [add $60 or $2/month2] have a backup hardrive in it, if so ill just buy that.

no that is for just one drive....

in the Dell customize pages after th emain HDD which is obviously mandatory the second is likely clicked to none by default....Just click on to add the 250gb drive...

Overall you will have 410gb of space for your system...The OS will be installed on the first HDD you chose...

 

[Phantom589]

ok so ill get teh 160GB Serial ATA Hard Drive (7200RPM) w/ Native Command Queuing as my main hard drive (OS and main apps), then for a second hard drive choose

250GB Serial ATA Hard Drive (7200RPM) to put all my movies, music, etc...but will these files be safe from damage if thier is only one copy of them? no right?...Will the system automatically use one for gaming, etc and the other for encoding or will i have to set it to do this?

 

[Aenslead]

Get a SONY VAIO, RX system. Those use water cooling.

 

[Duvie]

Originally posted by: Phantom589
ok so ill get teh 160GB Serial ATA Hard Drive (7200RPM) w/ Native Command Queuing as my main hard drive (OS and main apps), then for a second hard drive choose

250GB Serial ATA Hard Drive (7200RPM) to put all my movies, music, etc...but will these files be safe from damage if thier is only one copy of them? no right?...Will the system automatically use one for gaming, etc and the other for encoding or will i have to set it to do this?

you could back up the files also on the c: drive or burn it on a DVD-r....