Upgrades to Lower Heat Output

[Vaulter]

Getting rid of your OC, (re-)enabling CnQ, and disabling cores will get you some gains, but that will only go so far on a fundamentally hot chip like a Thuban.

Beyond that, you are going to be spending a little money. Pick any two: cheap, cool, and fast.

Ya, I still haven't taken the time to find out about disabling cores, but I'll do that soon. Is it possible to maybe disable three of them but keep at least part of the OC? I think something like this would keep my gaming potential where its at but drop the electricity usage and therefore the heat output. I guess the point of this post is that I've already chosen, cool and fast.

I do think however that a good solution would be taking my HTPC from my living room and upgrading the cpu and mobo in that, and turning it into a usable desktop for basic work, and then using my computer that heats up everything strictly for gaming (or ripping movies). Then I can just tell one of my roommates to buy an apple TV so they can stream content from my box to the living room.

 

[piasabird]

I imagine a refrigerator with a computer case in it.

Play older games.

I use to have an office in a server room and we had 2 airconditioners that ran non-stop 24/7. In no time at all the room could heat up above 90f if the air failed to work.

I could see putting the server in a closet and putting an exhaust fan in the top of the closet. Just need a way to run the cords out the side to the monitor and sound.

 

[Puppies04]

Usually if the computer put a lot of heat, meaning the cooler is not doing the proper jobs. Go get an aftermarket cooler then you should be fine

 

[sandorski]

I imagine a refrigerator with a computer case in it.

Play older games.

I use to have an office in a server room and we had 2 airconditioners that ran non-stop 24/7. In no time at all the room could heat up above 90f if the air failed to work.

I could see putting the server in a closet and putting an exhaust fan in the top of the closet. Just need a way to run the cords out the side to the monitor and sound.

That wouldn't work either, in fact it would just add another sources for more heat.

 

[sandorski]

I think the Llano suggestion is best. Might want to wait for the release of Piledriver as that will improve Graphics power considerably and it's just weeks away now.

No matter what you do, your computer is going to generate heat though. Venting the air outside the room would work best, but directly to the outside of the house might not be the best idea as it could actually end up bringing hot air into your room. If you have a basement though, that would be ideal to vent into as it should be cooler than your room(assuming it is directly below your room).

 

[Ken g6]

I do think however that a good solution would be taking my HTPC from my living room and upgrading the cpu and mobo in that, and turning it into a usable desktop for basic work

What are its current specs?

Venting the air outside the room would work best, but directly to the outside of the house might not be the best idea as it could actually end up bringing hot air into your room.

Unless...you made a water cooling loop and put the radiator outside your window. The window would have to be cracked a lot less than with air cooling and the hoses are more flexible. On the other hand, you'd have to watch your component temps in the summer daytime.

 

[mfenn]

I think the Llano suggestion is best. Might want to wait for the release of Piledriver as that will improve Graphics power considerably and it's just weeks away now.

What? For gaming, he would need to get a GPU anyway. When you remove the IGP from the equation, Llano almost as bad as an Athlon II in terms of performance per watt.

 

[mfenn]

Ya, I still haven't taken the time to find out about disabling cores, but I'll do that soon. Is it possible to maybe disable three of them but keep at least part of the OC? I think something like this would keep my gaming potential where its at but drop the electricity usage and therefore the heat output. I guess the point of this post is that I've already chosen, cool and fast.

I do think however that a good solution would be taking my HTPC from my living room and upgrading the cpu and mobo in that, and turning it into a usable desktop for basic work, and then using my computer that heats up everything strictly for gaming (or ripping movies). Then I can just tell one of my roommates to buy an apple TV so they can stream content from my box to the living room.

That means you're going to be spending some money (as you have correctly surmised) What are the specs of your HTPC?

 

[sandorski]

What? For gaming, he would need to get a GPU anyway. When you remove the IGP from the equation, Llano almost as bad as an Athlon II in terms of performance per watt.

He wants less Heat.

 

[Vaulter]

He wants less Heat.

Yes I want less heat, but I also want to keep a <similar> level of gaming performance, which means a standalone GPU and making llano somewhat redundant and pointless, which the other guy understood.

That means you're going to be spending some money (as you have correctly surmised) What are the specs of your HTPC?

Current specs are:
AMD e-350 cpu/mobo/gpu
2 2tb seagate 5200 rpm drives (ripped from external enclosures)
4gb DDR3 1033 Ram
Inside a Thermaltake Element Q w/ I think 200w or 220w power supply (whatever It comes with)
And its booting XBMCbuntu from a flash drive, and sits in sleep mode most of the time.

Unless...you made a water cooling loop and put the radiator outside your window. The window would have to be cracked a lot less than with air cooling and the hoses are more flexible. On the other hand, you'd have to watch your component temps in the summer daytime.

I kinda gave up on the idea of venting the heat outside, simply due to the impracticality of the way I would have to organize my room to not have giant silver hoses running across it, as for water cooling, its a good idea for the hoses' size but the same layout problem as well as its hotter than **** outside makes it not so viable.

 

[Vaulter]

Maybe a small SSD for Windows 7 and MS office, along with a low end llano itx setup for my HTPC would be more cost efficient than changing my gaming platform while maintaining a similar performance level. I don't know what CPU+GPU options intel offers, but I know theyll probably be overpriced.

 

[bryanl]

Lowering the temperature with better cooling alone won't lower the amount of heat the computer adds to the house.

 

[mfenn]

Current specs are:
AMD e-350 cpu/mobo/gpu
2 2tb seagate 5200 rpm drives (ripped from external enclosures)
4gb DDR3 1033 Ram
Inside a Thermaltake Element Q w/ I think 200w or 220w power supply (whatever It comes with)
And its booting XBMCbuntu from a flash drive, and sits in sleep mode most of the time.

OK, so basically you need to upgrade the CPU/mobo and probably move one of the 7200RPM HDDs from your gaming PC to this. Any gaming will be handled by your gaming PC, so a low-end IGP is fine.

I'd recommend:

i3 2120 $115
Biostar TH61 $80

I actually run an i3 2100 with the stock heatsink w/o fan in an Apex MI-008 (same thing as the Element) and the temps are fine. This is in PA though, so you may need to run the fan on the heatsink in AZ. At any rate, the dual-core Sandy Bridge chips have impressively low heat output.

 

[Topweasel]

What? For gaming, he would need to get a GPU anyway. When you remove the IGP from the equation, Llano almost as bad as an Athlon II in terms of performance per watt.

It can game and it isn't that far behind his 5770. But far enough that it might be an impedance on some of the games he plays. Trinity would put it at about level or better then the 5770 if the performance goals are accurate.

 

[Topweasel]

Maybe a small SSD for Windows 7 and MS office, along with a low end llano itx setup for my HTPC would be more cost efficient than changing my gaming platform while maintaining a similar performance level. I don't know what CPU+GPU options intel offers, but I know theyll probably be overpriced.

Go with what Mfenn said above. I reccomended Llano because its a viable if a little slow gaming solution to what you have. Once you move away from that, the power usage on even the cheapest Llano doesn't make sense if you are worried about heat output. The one thing I would say is Mfenn specced out an i3. Might make sense to continue to move down into the SB Pentium range.

This guy is 30w.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819116407

 

[entfy]

I live in Arizona, and my computer is in my room which is about 9ft by 9ft, at the very end of the hallway far from the air conditioner. If I want to get my room to a comfortable temperature while I'm gaming I have to really pump up the AC which one time I did it for a full month raised the utilities bill by quite a bit and my roommates weren't too happy. I also wasnt sure about water cooling as far as the total cost to silence/heat reduction ration.

Sounds like your real problem isn't the computer heat but the ambient heat + the addition of heat from the computer that isn't helping. These should help a lot!. I think that will solve your issues faster than any component upgrade. :thumbsup:

 

[OVerLoRDI]

Your computer isn't extra ordinarily hot. You are running a midrange graphics card and a semi warm cpu. Your machine is quite tame compared to many others within this thread.

I think you should expend energy improving your air flow in your room, not trying to eliminate 20-25 watts of computer usage.

The ac vent with fans is a solid idea. Or just put a box fan in your door way and suck cooler air from the rest of the house.

 

[ElFenix]

Hmm? PSUs of any wattage can get certified with any efficiency label, and the higher the efficiency, the less they draw watts from the wall. That's the whole point - with higher efficiency, you take less AC watts from the wall to supply the same amount of DC watts to components, and in the process the PSU produces less heat.

i think what he meant was that, from an engineering standpoint, it's more difficult to make a low wattage PSU meet higher efficiency standards (on a % basis) at a given percentage-load than a higher wattage PSU. it's part of the reason the first gold and platinum certified supplies were higher output.

 

[mfenn]

Go with what Mfenn said above. I reccomended Llano because its a viable if a little slow gaming solution to what you have. Once you move away from that, the power usage on even the cheapest Llano doesn't make sense if you are worried about heat output. The one thing I would say is Mfenn specced out an i3. Might make sense to continue to move down into the SB Pentium range.

This guy is 30w.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819116407

A Sandy Bridge Pentium is definitely a good idea from a budget perspective, but it won't really save much power. The difference in TDP numbers can be misleading, because that's taking into account absolute maximum load. In reality, the PC will be idling 95% of the time, and all Sandy Bridge dual cores have very similar power draw under idle.