better cooling = better performance?

[Neil]

i see that there is a host of differnt manufacturers out there like thermaltake that sell aftermerket heatsinks and fans...

some claim better heat dissipation because by means of differnt materials used like copper and/or higher rpm fans or larger diameter fans...

so is it worth the money to upgrade the cpu heatsink/fan that came with the computer? or are these products more geared to overclockers?

also, i just saw a case that had a fan in the front, top, side and 2 in the back...i would assume that this is for better air circulation, so is it also safe to assume that more fans the better?
when is it too much?

[brad]

A lot of it caters to overclockers and folks that are just plain paranoid about their temps and will do anything to lower them regardless of cost.

Free and unrestricted airflow in through the front of the case and out the rear is enough for a case. General rule of thumb for most systems is that the case temp shouldn't be more than ~10C above room ambient. Here's a AMD doc that details a good case layout, and applies equally well to Intel based systems.

http://www.amd.com/us-en/assets/cont...docs/23794.pdf

Be aware of the manufacturer's temp specs for your CPU and go from there. I run an Athlon XP2600 at 2656 Mhz. CPU temp hits the mid 50C area sometimes, no biggie. Case temp runs ~10C higher than room ambient, no biggie there either. There's a bunch of stuff in this box.

[timmy]

If your system has been running OK, without inordinant amounts of crashes, lockups, and errors, you should have anything to worry about. In this case, getting a different cooler for you cpu will not give you any increase in performance.

On the other hand, if you overclock, tweak, or install any new components, this could affect a system that is close to designed temperature limits. Also, if you upgrade OSs, from DOS based Win95, 98, or ME to Win2K or XP, you may possibly put a very marginal system over the edge, since the newer OSs use resources more efficiently and make your system work harder.

So, unless you are installing a new video card, sound card, hard drive, or somthing like that, and your system is working fine now, don't worry about your heatsink cooler until you hear the fan bearing starting to sound off...

[Neil]

here is what i am running...

p3-1.2 GHz (tualtin)
512mb (133Mhz)
(2) 40GB hard drives
GForce4 Ti 128MB 8x AGP
DVD drive
CD-RW drive
Sound Blaster Live
network card

in addition to the the cpu fan/heatsink and the power supply exhuast fan, i have a front side fan that blows in and another fan on the back the blows out...

here are my measurements i took when i first booted up the pc after being off for about 8 hours...

cpu temp : 20C/68F
system temp : 19C/66F

after playing UT2003 for over an hour:

cpu temp : 32C/89F
system : 27C/80F

[brad]

Nothing to worry about there.....

[sonyfier]

This is a subject where there is no clearcut yes and no answers. The fact is that there is too many variables.

Where I am it's late summer and I've had quite a few days in the mid 40's celcius and I've finally found the formula that works for my system under the most extreme days and managed to keep the covers on. I don't have airconditioning in the house so inside temps have been quite high.

First off forget about Thermaltake fan products unless you like noise and are into overclocking heavily, for normal use and with some careful thought to case airflow and circulation they're not needed.

One of the complaints of the genuine AMD HSF is that it is marginal at best and in some climates like Australia it is considered totally unsuitable. I used to believe this also until recently when I got my case airflow working well (for my situation)

One of the first things to do and very often forgotten is to look at the case itself........ Most if not all cases have a fan guard that forms part of the case and is basically just a set of holes drilled, these are incredibly restrictive for intake and exausting air, opening these up with a holesaw and buying aftermarket guards can make a huge difference to inside case and cpu temps.

With my setup below in sig I have quite a reasonably quiet AMD system even though I have quite few fans in use.

My case is a very overcrowded Mid tower design with far more drives and heat sources than it was designed to carry. Through a few minor mods I've enabled it to carry the limit of HDD's that my motherboard supports (8)

I have an 80mm fan that is mounted in the middle of two of the 5¼" bay covers and I have two hard drives mounted in those 5¼" bays with adaptors, the air is blown through and over those two hard drives and because of line of site the air once passed through the drives is directed at the CPU so it to benefits from that airflow.

In the bottom of my case I have used drive bay extenders to mount my other two hard drives below the normal hard drive cage and directly in front of the 92mm fan I have in the bottom of the case.

At the rear of the case I have one 80mm fan as well as what's in the power supply. All fans are Panaflow quiet low rpm types.
Because I have more intake fan CFM then exaust, I have a positive airflow or pressurised case which limits dust intake and forces air and heat with it out of any crevices or gaps.

What I find best is to have an exchange of air rather than creating a wind tunnel effect or negative air pressure which you would have if you had more exaust than intake.

With standard AMD HSF the CPU has reached a maximum of 58C on the hottest of days and on colder days is in mid 40's

Drives have not exceeded 42C and are usually under 30C
On colder days the Samsungs are running under 20C

I'm finally very happy with the temps everything is running at. The only thing I need to add now is a couple of 12v switches to turn the fans off in winter.

What I did wasn't out of paranoia but out of necessity and it works.

In case anyones curious about the drive bay extenders i mentioned, the link is below to a review.
http://www.dansdata.com/lldrivemounts.htm

As far as better performance with a cooler system... You may find a few extra points if you're a benchmark junkie with a cooler system but nothing of practical use or noticable in the real world. My IBM drive seems to benchmark better running 10C cooler than it did before so heat certainly plays some part in performance. The real benefit to good cooling is stability and it needn't cost the earth trying to get a cool running stable system.

[sean tudor]

I am using an Arkua 7528 cooler on an Athlon XP 2400+ & 2.0GHz (no overclock).

At an ambient room temperature of 22C I get 47C idle and 50C at load.

On my same system I previously had an Athlon XP 1900+ (1.6Ghz) and got 49C idle and 55C under load.

I am running with covers off as my house has air-conditioning.

[Neil]

thanks for all the info!

i will be focusing on creating better airflow within the case...
drilling out the case vents is a great idea!

what do you all think about switching to the floppy and ide round cables to help with airflow?

btw, after 3 hours straight of ut2003

cpu : 33C/91F
system : 28C/82F

i started to get some video glitches =( nothing major, just annoying

[sonyfier]

Originally posted by Neil
thanks for all the info!

i will be focusing on creating better airflow within the case...
drilling out the case vents is a great idea!

what do you all think about switching to the floppy and ide round cables to help with airflow?

btw, after 3 hours straight of ut2003

cpu : 33C/91F
system : 28C/82F

i started to get some video glitches =( nothing major, just annoying

I use the round cables and consider them a necessity with a smaller case and so many drives like I have. Some people have posted problems on the net with cross talk and interference etc because of the wires being so tightly bundled together but so far I've experienced no problems with generic ones I bought here at EYO. My advice though if you're concerned about the possible problem is to buy some decent branded ones.


Another thing you can do to tidy up the case and improve airflow which I've done is to enclose all the other case wires such as power supply leads in flexi tubing. I've enclosed a link below for display purposes only to explain in graphical terms the products use so you can find it locally to you. http://www.pccasegear.com.au/prod207.htm.

The tubing is very cheap when found and is yet another mod that doesn't need to cost the earth but yeilds good results and makes working inside the case so much easier as well. Have Fun

[q9]

Most people would be better off spending the time cleaning the dust out of their heatsink and fan once a month, than worrying about anything else.

My system gets pretty unstable once the dust gets built up.

[PhreakyTweaky]

I do the same thing as you just described! I go a little further an make sure that the whole tower is cleaned out!

[sonyfier]

Originally posted by q9
Most people would be better off spending the time cleaning the dust out of their heatsink and fan once a month, than worrying about anything else.

My system gets pretty unstable once the dust gets built up.

A generalization and a good indication your fans and airflow is not setup correctly. If your case was setup with positive pressure and filters on the intakes you wouldn't need to do that once a month and stability problems from dust build up wouldn't happen.

I wrote what I have specifically with Athlons in mind which run hot. The last thing any novice should be encouraged to do is constantly fiddle around with the HSF on a Athlon core cleaning it once a month. These cores are just too easily crushed or chipped fitting HSF units. In such cases it's better to address the dust causing problems and leave the HSF alone as much as possible.

I would also add that cleaning the inside components needs to be done with some care and thought to what you're using for the job. It is very easy to zap a card or electrical component with a static charge. Compressed air is the best method rather than using any brushes (especially with plastic or synthetic bristles) or vacuum cleaner etc

[q9]

Air flow is ok, but dust storms and dirt roads don't help.