What is "cool" and fast

[egale]

I am tired of my HOT P4 650 system. Unless I have fans going that sound like a jet engine going, the thing idles at 40 degrees and the mb sits at 38 degrees. With loud fans, I can get it to idle at 38 and the mb at 37. This is with an SI-120 cooler as well.

So, I guess it is time to start thinking AMD. They have passed Intel in performance and they run cooler. Being unfamiliar first hand with AMD, I have been doing a little research but really need recommendations.

I will take my EVGA 7800GT video card, Audigy 2 ZS sound card, P150 case with 2 Silenx 92mm in the front and a Silenx 120mm in the back plus my Seasonic S12-500 PSU from my Intel system. I also want to transfer my SI-120 cooler.

I was thinking about an X2 4600+ cpu and A8N-SLI PREMIUM but I am open. I need a setup that runs cool, quiet, fast and hopefully a good value.

 

[Hard Ball]

If you can get a dual core opteron instead, such as the 175, which OCs like a beast.

 

[GuitarDaddy]

AMD's overclock like mad, just get the 3800+ and overclock it to 4600+ speeds, or get the 4200+ with 1mb l2 cache and overclock it 4600-4800 speeds. Will save you some dough.

But don't expect to see a drop in temps because dualcores run a little warmer, and your current idle temps aren't bad. But the performance win PWN

 

[egale]

I can't help but think that my mb temps are way way too high. Do you have some idea as to what sort of temps I would except to see and could I use lower fan speeds to keep the noise down?

 

[GuitarDaddy]

Usually the hotest and loudest thing in the case will be the video card, your could look into getting a aftermarket GPU cooler like the Artic or Zalman. And yes you could turn you CPU fan down also as long as your temps don't get out of control.

And what kind of case and fans do you have? Good airflow in the case and quiet 120mm case fans always help

 

[egale]

I have a P150. I have 2 92mm Silenx fans in the front and a Silenx120mm in the back. I have also tried a Panaflo L1A (loud but kept the temps down a couple of degrees), a Papst 4412FGL (not too loud but temps went up a couple of degrees) and now the Silenx (quiet but temps up again a couple of degree). I replaced the PSU with a Seasonic S12-500 and the Intel stock hsf with an SI-120 with a Silenx fan.

Right now with the Silenx fans, the system is quiet enough but the temps are high.

 

[stevty2889]

Seeing as how you have a 7800GT I imagine you do some gaming. Do you do anything else with your rig? An X2 may be an overkill if all you do is game, but if you do video encoding, or cpu intensive multitasking, then definatly get an X2. Otherwise you might as well get a single core, like a 3700 or 3800+.

How high are you load temps, do you get any throttling?
I've pretty much given up on trying to keep a prescott cool, as long as it doesn't throttle under load. I can't make my Pentium-D system any more quiet though, because it hits 70c under load, and sounds like a vaccum cleaner. My X2 4200+ with the stock heatsink, overclocked to 2.618ghz in my Antec Sonata II is very quiet, and gets heavy load temps of 51c.

 

[egale]

I do quite a bit of photoshop work.

At load, the temps will hit 60 and the mb temp rise into the mid 40s. Intel's max temp recommendation for the case is 38.

 

[stevty2889]

The MB temps is usualy the PWM circuits on the motherboard, rather than your actual case temp, so your actual case temp is likely lower. Load temps in the 60's are about normal for a P4, ~72c is where throttling will kick in. I've found that the larger heatsinks that are supposed to be so good, don't work as well for me as the Thermaltake Jungle 512 when it comes to LGA775 chips. It kept my 3.4ghz 550's load temps in the low 60's, where I was throttling with an XP-120 with a 93cfm 120mm fan.

 

[imported_Truenofan]

if you want wait for the yonah cores to come out, if you read the anandtech review, they put out less heat than the x2's and they are right on amd's ass in performance. its up to you.

 

[n7]

I think it's kewl that you want to switch to AMD, but really, you could also just invest in some quieter 120 mm fans, & maybe get a TT Big Typhoon.

That being said, if you want to jump to dual core, then the X2 is most certainly the way to go.

I'd suggest a 4400+, or a 3800+ if you are willing to OC.