Which Nforce4 Motherboard has quietest NB cooling?

[tmchow]

I'm building an HTPC and want to build it around an Nforce4 motherboard. I am particularly interested in:

MSI K8N Neo2Neo4 Platinum
Asus A8N
DFI Lan party NF4 UT

Since it's an HTPC in my living room, i need it to be quiet as possible. The machine will have 2x60mm and 1x80mm fans already. I plan on using a 6600GT video card with a Zalman VF-700 cooler.

What particularly concerns me is the chipset cooling on these Nforce4 motherboard.

From this thread it looks like the Asus A8N chipset cooler is really noisy. People are replacing it with the Zalman NB cooler, but are getting really hot temps from it as a result. So the good news is that even the Asus chipset cooler is extremely noisy, it can be replaced at teh sacrifice of much higher temps (and possible interference with VGA cooler)

I've looked at the review of the MSI board, but there is very little mention of the chipset cooler and how loud it is.

THe DFI lan party board apparantly uses a "magnetic levitation fan" which is supposed to be quieter than "normal" fans, but I haven't read anything that substantiates this.

So I'm throwing an open question out to the forum -- which of the above boards is the best choice regarding quietest chipset cooler?

 

[TJmoney]

I haven't hears about the neo4 from MSI, but the neo3's cooling was supposed to be pretty noisy. The fan on the neo4 looks pretty standard.

The DFI uses a nifty magnetic levitation fan thats supposed to be really quiet and last a really long time before it fails. How true this is, I don't know, but DFI looks like your best bet.

 

[tmchow]

So MSI is probably out, since the location of the NB doesn't even allow me to replace the fan with a larger fanless solution (it will interfere with my 6600GT).

I found this other thread: http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview...&STARTPAGE=1&FTVAR_FORUMVIEWTMP=Linear that specifically mentions that replacing stock Asus A8N heatsink+fan with Zalman fanless heatsink and it works. Looks like Asus lucked out here with their location of the NB -- it sits right between the 2 PCIe slots so a taller cooling solution won't hit the video cards.

I guess right now it's down to the DFI and the Asus. Problem with the Asus right now is that the non-SLI version isnt' available and I don't ever plan on using SLI features (so why pay for it?).

I'm interested in other people's experiences specifically with the DFI board. How loud (or quiet) is the chipset cooler? The "magnetic levitation" sounds so mysterious

 

[TJmoney]

A fanless HS is not possible on the DFI, since the chipset is right behind the video slots, so if you want to go fanless, gotta go Asus. Hopefully the DFI fan is pretty silent, I have a board in route right now.

 

[tmchow]

Originally posted by: TJmoney
A fanless HS is not possible on the DFI, since the chipset is right behind the video slots, so if you want to go fanless, gotta go Asus. Hopefully the DFI fan is pretty silent, I have a board in route right now.

yeah, I know. So my choices now seem to be:

Asus A8N -- replace with Zalman fanless heatsink
or
DFI -- keep stock cooling solution

Reason to go with DFI is that they have a non-SLI version available right now and it's like $50 cheaper than the Asus board. Also, reviews of the DFI are rock solid. So if the stock cooling on the DFI is as quiet as advertised, then that will be the one i go with i think.

Unless someone knows when the non-SLI A8N is coming out?

 

[Interitus]

There's a lot of rumors going around that Asus is going to scrap the A8N-E Premium.

I would double check the MSI and passive cooling. I know the SLI version is plenty far enough away from the GPU, dunno bout the Ultra.

 

[bookman]

Check out the Chaintech VNF4 - it has a passive heatsink for the NB too.

 

[amol]

The MSI one is louder than my 3 thermaltake case fans and neopower psu

im thinking about replacing it

 

[northbridgetroll]

I've been researching this same issue. Unfortunately the reviews almost never mention the noise of the chipset fan, but this appears to be a major issue with the NF4 boards. Browsing through the forums, I've heard the most noise complaints from owners of the Asus A8N and the MSI Neo4. The Chaintech board does use passive cooling, but xbitlabs ran a review of this board and they concluded that the passive cooling solution isn't adequate, and that the chipset can reach temps of over 70C, so I would stay away from that board if you plan to do any OCing. In response to the review, chaintech has said they will now ship their boards with fans to provide active cooling, but I haven't read anything about their noise level.

The DFI NF4 appears to offer the quietest solution as I have only heard of 1 or 2 people mentioning it being loud. A user on the DFI forum said that when he put an 80mm fan next to the chipset fan to blow air onto it, the rpms on the nb fan went all the way down to 1000 and the noise was gone. I'm not sure how this would work for the asus or msi boards, but it sounds like a very sensible solution and a lot cheaper and easier than buying and installing a new 3rd party fan/heatsink. For anyone who has the DFI board, please let us know how the noise situation goes.

One thing is for sure. The NF4 chip generates A LOT of heat and unfortunately all the implementers of these boards have gone with aluminum heatsinks which don't provide particularly good heat dissipation and force the fans to run at extremely high rpms. Abit's AN8 will use a copper heatsink, so I might just wait for that one to hit the shelves before I make a decision. Since I would prefer a quiet system with low power consumption I'm also seriously considering going for a VIA K8T890 board. Soltek appears to have produced a very good board with passive cooling and the Abit AX8 should be out in a week or 2. If you're not into SLI, it appears the only real advantages you gain by going for NF4 over K8T890 is SATA II and NCQ - neither of which are likely to give you any sort of a performance boost in the near future.

 

[tmchow]

From pictures I've seen, the Asus A8N-E Deluxe (non-SLI) seems to have NO chipset fan on it.. not sure if that's a pic of the wrong mobo, but I have seen it a few times on a few diff't websites..

I have teh DFI on order, but realized that it only has 2 PCI slots and no Parallel port, which is a problem for my HTPC since I need multiple TV tuner cards and a parallel port for the VFD...sigh.