Seeking the perfect combination of speed, size, and sound

[Xentropy]

It seems to me after reviewing a ton of options that you can basically pick any two of the following three things, but not all three:

1. Fast speed and good overclockability
2. Small size and light weight
3. Quiet operation

I currently have a medium sized system that I'm able to overclock very well, but it's loud as hell and whines at the perfect frequency to make me irritable 24 hours a day.

I also take my rig to LAN parties quite often, so I want small size and light weight, which pretty much throws watercooling and Peltier systems out.

I might even be happy to not have any overclockability, but I want a 3G P4 processor (this is for a system I'm building in a few months) to run without a problem 24/7 in an ambient room temp as high as 85 (no A/C + 3rd floor apartment = hot during summer days, even in Oregon).

I've found some great small aluminum cases which would be perfect for my size and weight issues, but is there any way I could safely run high end hardware without adding the weight of water or the insane sound of high RPM fans?

Thanks in advance for any advice!

 

[Xentropy]

I'll take the utter silence from the experts as meaning my request is an impossibility. I'm searching for the holy grail of cooling and it doesn't really exist. Oh well.

I guess I'll go with watercooling or something and buy a refrigerator-mover to take my case down to my car for LAN parties a couple of times a week. That's going to suck.

 

[mechBgon]

As long as you don't list

4. Low cost

then there might be some solutions

1. For overclockability, how about a Pentium4 1.8A on an i845e or i845G microATX board, or an AthlonXP 1600+ on an nForce microATX board. Throw in a fast AGP video card, which you probably have already. Pick an Alpha PAL8942 (for Pentium4) or PAL8045 (for AthlonXP, make sure the board you pick is on the fit list for the 8045)

2. For small size and light weight, hmm... I would tend to think of one of these Fong Kai's and an Antec TruePower 330W power supply, which is an option with Directron. This case also features a rear exhaust port that will take either 80mm or 92mm fans, and a Panaflo L1A 92mm would be perfect. They are very quiet, and what noise they do make is low-pitched.

3. For quiet operation, you will want a hard drive that's not too noisy (a fluid-bearing Maxtor or Seagate) and fans that run quietly. As mentioned, a 92mm Panaflo L1A is perfect for the rear exhaust. The TruePower's fans are very quiet. You can pick a low-rpm fan for your Alpha heatsink, such as a Panaflo L1A 80mm, and it is very likely that the loudest fan in the system will end up being the one on your video card.

For a motherboard to use, you might look at the Asus A7N266-VM. It will take 266MHz-bus AthlonXP's using either the Palomino or Thoroughbred core, it has onboard AGP GeForce2MX-class video plus an AGP slot, superb onboard Dolby audio, built-in isyncrhonous nVidia LAN (low ping, baby! ) no fan on its (big) motherboard heatsink, and it does accept the Alpha PAL8045. It lacks the TwinBank dual memory controller of an nForce 400-series chipset, but that is mainly a drawback when using the onboard video for gaming, which you will probably not do anyway.

I guess I should add that the A7N266-VM isn't a wild OC board. Abit has some nForce microATX boards that might suit that need better, if you want an Abit. However, with the price/performance ratio of AMD CPUs, you can get pretty good power for the monetary unit without resorting to manual CPU multiplier alterations.

Hope that helps!

 

[Xentropy]

Originally posted by: mechBgon
As long as you don't list

4. Low cost

then there might be some solutions

Money is no object...to a point.

1. For overclockability, how about a Pentium4 1.8A on an i845e or i845G microATX board, or an AthlonXP 1600+ on an nForce microATX board. Throw in a fast AGP video card, which you probably have already. Pick an Alpha PAL8942 (for Pentium4) or PAL8045 (for AthlonXP, make sure the board you pick is on the fit list for the 8045)

I already said it'll be a 3Ghz P4. That part is non-negotiable because I'm getting the chip for free and am building the system around it. And again, overclockability may be too much to ask for, but I at least want 3Ghz to run reliably and not throttle down due to overheating. I also plan to use PC1066 RDRAM because I don't want to bottleneck a 3Ghz CPU with DDR, so an i850E is pretty much a guarantee. There are microATX i850E motherboards out there, and again, I can get two of the three easily--speed and size can both come together, but then sound kicks in as a drawback because I'd need superloud fans to keep enough airflow going in a small space.

2. For small size and light weight, hmm... I would tend to think of one of these Fong Kai's and an Antec TruePower 330W power supply, which is an option with Directron. This case also features a rear exhaust port that will take either 80mm or 92mm fans, and a Panaflo L1A 92mm would be perfect. They are very quiet, and what noise they do make is low-pitched.

Was looking at the Lian Li PC-30, since I'd like the lightweight of aluminum, though I'll take the fan recommendations into consideration. Anything to avoid this Delta whine that sounds like a jet engine lives under my computer desk.

3. For quiet operation, you will want a hard drive that's not too noisy (a fluid-bearing Maxtor or Seagate) and fans that run quietly. As mentioned, a 92mm Panaflo L1A is perfect for the rear exhaust. The TruePower's fans are very quiet. You can pick a low-rpm fan for your Alpha heatsink, such as a Panaflo L1A 80mm, and it is very likely that the loudest fan in the system will end up being the one on your video card.

I'm not concerned with drive noise. I've had "noisy drives" before and they're nothing compared to this fan whine. I can't even *hear* my current drives over the whine of my CPU cooling fan. I can barely hear my television over the whine of my CPU cooling fan

Anyway, it looks like it boils down to I need to find fans that are quiet but will generate enough airflow to keep a 3Ghz P4 fat dumb and happy in a confined space. Every fan I've seen to date has either been anemic on airflow or louder than the toddler that always decides to sit behind me when I'm trying to watch a good movie in a theater.

I had high hopes for the tip-based magnet fan, but now that's being recalled due to problems. Oh well.

 

[mechBgon]

The Alpha has the cooling capabilites to cool your 3GHz P4 quite well with a low-rpm 80mm fan. THUGSROOK overclocked his P4 to about 2700MHz with the popular Vantec Stealth 27cfm/21dB fan on an Alpha, and was reporting temperatures of 46C under load, which is 21C below the throttling point (details here).

As for case ventilation, if you get a Lian-Li, cut out the restrictive grillework over the rear fan(s) and replace it with chromed grilles. I coughed up a large assortment of quiet 80mm fans here: thread I'd suggest looking strongly at the adjustable-RPM YS Tech. When you're at a loud LAN party and the room's hot, twist the adjuster and you've got 40cfm+ just when you need it.

If you have a 3GHz P4, I wouldn't count on much OC headroom (particularly considering it's RDRAM, not DDR), or much need for it either. Do make sure the board you pick has the power circuitry designed specifically for the >2.8GHz P4's... do your homework on the manufacturer's site before committing.

 

[spanner]

Take overclocking out of the question and its not very hard. but a little expensive. these are in order of importance

Get a quiet power supply (enermax whisper/antec or PC-power and cooling if you have the cash). I have noticed cheap power supplies make the most noise

You are on the right lines with an aluminium case. try to get one with good fan grilles.

Don't use any fans over 23db. I use 80mm 20db 27cfm fans from www.pcpowerandcooling.com (these rock). but I hear the ones from panaflo are good, mechbgon has a pretty good list in that thread. Sleeve type exhaust fans are quiet and effective

heatsink- I don't know much about P4 heatsinks. just make it the quietest 3ghz approved heatsink you can afford. Using that Lian Li PC-30 in combo with a power supply with a bottom intake may mean you can run the heatsink without the fan because the PS is side mounting.

Replace video card and chipset fans with those huge fanless chipset heatsinks.

Use rounded cables

Keep extra components to a minumum i.e try to get a mobo with intergrated nic, sound etc

And there you have it, this will be pretty quiet and cool enough, BUT it will cost you (Its worth it if you ask me)

 

[Xentropy]

Thanks man, though will 27cfm really be enough to keep a 3Ghz processor cool? Given what it takes to keep my 1.2Ghz Thunderbird-C cool, I expected to not be able to find sufficiently quiet fans with good enough airflow.

Rounded cables won't be an issue since when I build this system, SATA should be available and I'll be going with that :>

My current P/S is one of those Whispers, but I definitely can't get away without a fan. Though it *does* mean that if my fan dies, my Athlon won't fry. I unplugged my fan once to see how much of my system noise was that one fan (subjectively, 75% or so of my system noise, ugh) and watched my CPU temp go from 27 to around 50 and then sit at 50. Not exactly something I want to leave that way long term, but definitely better than the 300+ degree CPU death in things like that Tom's Hardware video ;>

I'll do some more research into fans and try to find one with quiet operation and good cfms. If something as low as 27cfms is actually sufficient, that changes everything. My current fan pushes CFM's in the 60's but loudness in the 51dB range comes with it. And that's in a case with two exhausts (back and top) and three intakes (two on the side and one in the front), and I'm still barely able to overclock a 1.2Ghz processor. With all those fans, the system is still about 1/4 of the loudness with JUST the CPU fan disabled, so number of fans doesn't seem to be much of a problem, but the loudness of one single fan being bad will make the whole system a living hell to sit near for very long.

I just don't see how 27cfms is going to be moving enough air, especially in a smaller case (my current is a midtower and I'm looking to get something smaller than mini), but if you're sure it will, I'm happy to go with a fan like that for the peace and quiet it'll afford.

 

[spanner]

Assuming you use the PC-30 case. 2x 27cfm intake fans, enermax whisper power supply is awsome for air flow, one slot type exhaust fan and a huge heatsink should be plenty. I have a similar setup but in a full tower using a small low profile Taisol heatsink to cool my 1.2ghz tbird and it does just fine. Airflow in a smaller case can actually be more efficient because its easier to control the airflow path. Just don't count on any overclocking. About the heatsink, the The OCZ Goliath 2 SE looks like a descent option but definately do some research as to whether or not it can handle a 3ghz P4. If its still not enough use a drivebay intake fan. One general rule is that 2 quiet intake fans make less noise then 1 loud one so the more fans the better

 

[Xentropy]

Maybe I'm missing something, but what fan is on your CPU heatsink? It's not my case cans that bother me, they're pretty quiet and may very well be 27cfm, but my processor fan, which is in the 50-60dB range, is the annoying thing, and if removed causes my CPU to heat up to a warning (if not quite dangerous) level.

 

[mechBgon]

As I said, people are getting fine real-world results with a 27cfm 21dB fan on an Alpha, with an overvoltaged P4 at ~2700MHz. 21C below the thermal-throttling point sounds like a good saftey margin to me. If it works, it works... Alpha Novatech rocks!

 

[spanner]

I have a Taisol CEK747092 21.7cfm 36db. Its a low profile heatsink with a copper base. my idle temp is 52C load temp 57C with a case temp of 37C(its summer here, no AC) which is fine unoverclocked