Non OCer - do I need extra cooling for this rig?

[JasperCat]

New PC build will be ready tommorrow - wondering if this system
will need any extra cooling? There is one fan in the back of this case and
locations for more. I don't plan on overclocking - at least not yet.
Do I need cooling on the Retail Athlon?

Enermax Mid Tower Case

It will have a Chaintech GF4-4600, which based on the writeups here at anandtech, is
runs hotter than the rest of the GF4s.

Thanks,
Myles

Budget minded gaming machine :

$177.99 AMD Athlon 2000 XP
$ 74.00 Enermax CS 300w P/S
$ 87.99 Asus A7S333
$ 119.99 512MB PC2100/DDR266
$ 279.99 Chaintech GF4-Ti4600
$ 87.00 WD 40GB ATA100 7200RPM
$ 32.99 52x CD ROM ( I already have a USB CDRW )
$ 12.00 Floppy
$ 105.00 OS
$ 60.00 Build
TOTAL = 1128.20 ( tax included )

 

[mechBgon]

Looking at some photos of it, it appears to have two 80mm fan positions in back, one in the top and one in the left side panel, plus one in the front. It couldn't hurt to put a second exhaust fan in the back near the CPU, to keep the air moving past it quickly. Can you pick up another 80mm fan conveniently in your area? Since you will have a hot-running video card, adding a third case fan to the side panel to cool it also would be nice.

It's not quite clear what you mean when you say "Do I need cooling on the Retail Athlon?" but I'm sure you know that you do need the heatsink installed (and fully clipped down) before you plug the system into the wall (in case it powers up automatically, like motherboards may do after a power outage).

That should be a pretty righteous gamer, have fun!

 

[JasperCat]

"Retail Athlon" : well I wasn't sure whether there is difference between
an OEM packaged Athlon or Retail packed Athlon. My invoice says I
bought a Retail Athlon. I will ask but given that this shop build
tons of custom PCs I am assuming they are attaching a heatsink
if there is not one already attached. Maybe thats a bad
assumpution?

Myles

here is a clip from the store's website:

AMD ATHLON XP 2000+ 1.67GHZ SOCKET-A RETAIL The AMD Athlon?
XP processor with QuantiSpeed? architecture is the latest member of the AMD Athlon family of processors Text

 

[mechBgon]

Yeah, they'll put it on for you, if they want a happy customer. The Retail cooler will look like this: http://65.119.30.151/productimage/19-103-327-03.JPG

 

[muddocktor]

Watch your temps close when you are stressing that cpu hard as I've never been satisfied with the stock retail hsf that comes from AMD. I find them too marginal and don't cool well enough for my tastes. That's why I buy the oem procs with a good aftermarket hsf like the Swiftech MC462 series, the Alpha PAL 8045 or the new Thermalright AX7(which I haven't used yet but everything that I've read on it indicates that it is another winner).