need some help in cooling...

[koolh]

Hi all,

Yes I'm new to all this - it will be my first desktop build and boy is it exciting. Will be using it for gaming. I've been reading up tons, mobos, graphics cards, memory etc. and this is what i'm currently looking at.

GA-P35-DS3L (cos i'm not gonna do any SLI or CF)
E6750 (or perhaps E8400 cos i've been hearing much about it - will see)
either CM 690, or 543 or Centurion 5 (any comments?)
2x1GB DDR2-800 RAM probably Kingston
one of the 8800 GTs
Corsair 550VX (is this overkill?)
WD 500GB HD
Samsung 20X DVD
Windows XP Pro

So all that thus far is good..

Now comes the cooling stuff, and yeah you probably guessed that I need some serious help in this area, cos i've no clue what I need. I'm probably not gonna do any O/C-ing.

I've been reading the other posts in this forum, and it seems that many of you guys get a CPU sink (was thinking AC Freezer 7 Pro), and another for the GPU (Zalman 900?) and some for RAM too? And I don't suppose I'd need a thermal compound (since I'm not O/C-ing) or do i? All in all: what kind of cooling would I need for my setup?

Well, any help/comments (in anything) would be very very much appreciated. Sorry for being really noob heh and thanks in advance for the patience.

 

[DerwenArtos12]

First of all, welcome to AT. And congradulations on your impending first build. I can still remember mine, though it included punch cards and tubes........

Everything looks good. I do have a few suggestions and general info for you.

For the case, the 690 is great, no two ways about that. Going down to the 5 seires I have to reccomend the 532. The 5 uses an 80mm fan in the front which will be much louder to get even close to the same ammount of airflow and the 534 relocated the front 120mm to the side. I would also reccomend the elite 330 as it's inexpensive and has provisions for a front 120mm fan.

The corsair550 won't really be overkill, better safe than sorry. There is a good deal at PC Club right now for a corsair 750, like half off after mail in rebate, you should check it out.

Now, on to my area of expertise, cooling. The AC freezer 7 pro is a great budget heatsink. Can't beat it at $22 except with a stick. You will need a thermal compound or TIM(thermal interface material) of some kind to help fill all the little gaps between the processor and the heatsink. You can basically just use what comes with the heatsink as you won't be overclocking. Make sure to follow the manufacturers directions pretty closely when installing the heatsink.

As for the GPU the stock will function just fine if you're not going to be overclocking. The only major reason to upgrade would be to overclock or cut the noise and the factory HSFs on the 8800gts is fairly quiet.

 

[koolh]

thanks! i've got a few more questions...

so the 532 only has a 120mm rear fan which means i should install another in the front? shouldn't be too much trouble?

as for the HS, how does AC freezer 7 pro compare with Cooler Master Hyper TX2? i guess i won't be needing something like a Tuniq Tower? also, should i get a backplate (what is it really used for?). read about it in one of the other threads.

and the thermal compound that i use could be either the one that it comes with or something like Arctic Silver 5, Arctic Cooling MX2 etc

finally, are there any other HS or cooling equipment that i'd require? such as for the RAM? or... whatever else?

thanks again

 

[DerwenArtos12]

The 532 should come with a pair of fans, one front and one rear. I would typically reccomend removing the built-in fan grills and replacing the fans though, as it would be free to cut out the grills and a max of $20 to replace the fans. I happen to like Scythe Slipstream fans. It's a very easy 30 minute project depending on what you use to cut the grills out.

As for the cooler master tx2, the design is neigh identical as is the size and fan speed and even price so I would wager performance to be identical within the margin for human error. I would recommend the backplate as a $7 insurance policy with ANY cooler that uses push pins. I've installed one on an Intel factory HSF. What the backplate does is replace the plastic clips that go through the motherboard with actual bolts and adds a piece of metal to the back of the board to distribute the weight of the HS over a larger area.

Yeppers.

I've honestly never run anything more than what the factory puts on ram and I have DDR1-630 running at 2.9v so DDR2 and 3 do not really need any additional cooling.

With the 532 and it's variants I typically reccomend removing the lower hard drive bay completely and putting hard drives up in the 5.25" bays with an adapter like the thermaltake i cage and again, replace the fan on the icage with one to match the rest of your case fans.

There are two major and extremely simple aspects to air cooling. Get as much air flowing through the case as you can stand the noise of. Get said air moving as linearly as possible.

That brakes out to mean, as many fans as moving as much air as doesn't make you go crazy, good cable management, anything getting in the way of the air is going to either slow it down or throw it off in directions other than you intended, and visually follow where the air in your case is going, any pockets of turbulent air are going to be hot spots.

 

[koolh]

wow ok. sounds like quite some work. i'll wait till i get down to building it (prob in a few weeks time), and if i run into problems i'll post back here.

thanks loads for your help!!!!

 

[DerwenArtos12]

My pleasure. It's what we're here for. I spend as much as 8-10 hours a day here between home and work so, i doubt you'll miss me, unless I'm sleeping.

 

[BlueAcolyte]

The CM 690 is a great case... Big, with lots of slots for fans...

The Arctic beats the Cooler Master HyperTX2, but sometimes the Cooler Master has rebates of $20, so you can get it for $2.
For the 8800GT, you will want:

A) To kick the fan speed up using Rivatuner (there are guides for this at guru3d.com, where you can also download it)
B) To get a better cooling system. I would personally recommend the arctic Cooling Accelero S1 with a fan such as their turbo modules strapped to it. Zalman coolers are usually overpriced for what you get.
It will definitely fit in the Cooler Master 690, even with the fan on the side panel, (I own one, it's unhearable over my other fans and keeps my 8800GT under 60C at load and 40C at idle) but I'm not sure about the 532.

If you feel a bit ambitious, you can flip the fan off the intel heatsink that comes with the processor using a screwdriver and mount it somewhere using zipties. Just note that you need the heatsink and fan to RMA the processor. (I think)

I would go with MassCool shin-etsu G751 or arctic cooling MX-2 for the thermal paste.

 

[koolh]

Hi guys. Ok so I'm finally getting down to building my rig. I was just wondering about the CM-690 vs CM-532. What would be the main differences between both? I mean I realize that the CM-690 is larger and can take more fans, but I guess I'm coming from the perspective of "do i need the CM-690 or will a CM-532 be fine". Here are my specs again:

GA-P35-DS3L
C2D E8400
2x2GB A-DATA DDR2-800 RAM
EVGA 8800GT
Corsair 550VX
Seagate 500GB
LiteOn 20X DVD
32-bit XP Pro
AC Pro 7 (with backplate)
Perhaps Accelero S1 (not sure yet), or Zalman VF900, or perhaps just the stock cooler.

with perhaps very slight over-clocking (if any).

What would be the advantages of the 532 and 690 over the other. I'm not that concerned price-wise (since both are sub-$100).

Thanks again!

 

[MarcVenice]

Haha, get the p182 instead for 90$ AR http://www.newegg.com/Product/...2E16811129025&Tpk=p182 ? Why ? Well, because it's an awesome case, comes with 3 pretty good, quiet, fans preinstalled, allows for decent, plenty good enough cooling, and it looks awesome ? Just a suggestion hehe, to make things more complicated for you.

What I wanted to say btw, the AC PRO 7 comes with REALLY good thermal grease PRE-applied. So you take it out of the box, and you simply click it onto your motherboard, and poof, you're done, in less then 2 minutes. You COULD use a backplate, but I dunno, derwen is old skool, but I don't see the need for it personaly. It's never a bad thing though, but a necesity, no.

 

[BlueAcolyte]

Not really any advantages of the 532 since the 690 is $20 AR at microcenter. The P182 is pretty damn nice too.

 

[Doclife]

Originally posted by: koolh
Hi guys. Ok so I'm finally getting down to building my rig. I was just wondering about the CM-690 vs CM-532. What would be the main differences between both? I mean I realize that the CM-690 is larger and can take more fans, but I guess I'm coming from the perspective of "do i need the CM-690 or will a CM-532 be fine". Here are my specs again:

GA-P35-DS3L
C2D E8400
2x2GB A-DATA DDR2-800 RAM
EVGA 8800GT
Corsair 550VX
Seagate 500GB
LiteOn 20X DVD
32-bit XP Pro
AC Pro 7 (with backplate)
Perhaps Accelero S1 (not sure yet), or Zalman VF900, or perhaps just the stock cooler.

with perhaps very slight over-clocking (if any).

What would be the advantages of the 532 and 690 over the other. I'm not that concerned price-wise (since both are sub-$100).

Thanks again!

Since you're not going to overclock or might slightly overclock, there is really no need for an after market CPU cooler. The Intel stock cooler is more than adequate for stock or mild overclock since the E8400 ir running very cool (compare to the 65nm CPU like E6750) to begin with. In addition, the stock cooler is quiet, even under load. I overclocked my E4500 (65nm CPU) from 2.2GHz stock to 3GHz using the stock cooler (see my signature) and its been running for about 6 months now without any problems.

 

[DerwenArtos12]

Yeah, with the 690 for less than the 532 at microcenter, if you've got one, go get the 690. The 690 is basically the next evolution in the design of the 5 series. The original 5 was completely re-designed into the 532 then upgraded slightly to the 534 and they started from scratch again with the 690 and did a very good job.