AM3 cooling question

Insanties_birth · 25 Jan 2010 at 23:07

Plan on getting an AMD build (maybe i5 if it goes **** up) so checked reviews of the phenom 2 quad core 955 and saw a few saying it was noisy and gets hot. I'm planning on getting a Haf 922 case which would have this cooling

- Front Cooling: 1x RED 200mm fan (700RPM)
- Rear Cooling: 1x 120mm fan (1200RPM)
- Top Cooling: 1x 200mm fan (700RPM)
- Bottom Cooling: 1x 120mm fan (Zalman ZM-F3 120mm Silent Case Fan )
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=FG-002-ZA&groupid=701&catid=57&subcat=4

Would I need a cpu cooler to run it quietly? I wouldn't overclock it other than to maybe 3.5ghz down the line and other than that I'd just have a cool running vapor-x 5770, ram a 1tb hard drive and that's it pretty much. No sound card and silent 700w power supply.

So either try and answer if I'd need any more cooling or recommend a good CPU cooler for AM3 please. Thanks very much

JonJ678 · 26 Jan 2010 at 06:41

"Insanties birth", not "Insanities birth"? Amusing place for a typo man

That aside, I'd want thermalright's "TRUE". It's an old design, but it remains brilliant. If you want something more exciting which has much the same performance, the corsair h50 is popular.

Which "silent" 700W psu do you have in mind? My experience of psus is that they're not silent, however they're described by the retailer. There are some passive ones which I don't think would work in this system.

Insanties_birth · 26 Jan 2010 at 07:50

JonJ678 said:
"Insanties birth", not "Insanities birth"? Amusing place for a typo man

That aside, I'd want thermalright's "TRUE". It's an old design, but it remains brilliant. If you want something more exciting which has much the same performance, the corsair h50 is popular.

Which "silent" 700W psu do you have in mind? My experience of psus is that they're not silent, however they're described by the retailer. There are some passive ones which I don't think would work in this system.

It's not amusing, it made me spend a day and a half trying to sort out my account before realising I missed the extra i lol. Unfortunately I entered all my details and linked it to my store account too so I don't think I can change it

I'd rather go for what works over what's exciting lol.

I was thinking of getting one of the OCZ power supplies so StealthXStream or ModXStream. Only mentioned it since I figured a supposedly silent one should be running a little cooler.
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-030-OC&groupid=701&catid=123&subcat=
or
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-032-OC&groupid=701&catid=123&subcat=

el Kuarlos · 26 Jan 2010 at 14:07

Get the 125watt 965 for sure- it is far better bang for buck.

As per cooling a lapped and pressure modded TRUE will sort it easily.

Insanties_birth · 26 Jan 2010 at 14:44

el Kuarlos said:
Get the 125watt 965 for sure- it is far better bang for buck.

As per cooling a lapped and pressure modded TRUE will sort it easily.

Is there no slightly cheaper option? £70 sounds like quite a lot for just a cpu cooler to me and I appreciate I could overclock it more then but I'd prefer to not spend that much really. Or am I just being cheap and not getting what I need?

el Kuarlos · 26 Jan 2010 at 14:52

Lol, you arent being cheap, you sure as heck dont <need> it although I can tell you form experience it is nice to have- heatsinks dont really degrade, and the fact the TRUE has been around nearly the same for YEARS without anything significantly beating it shows they dont exactly go obsolete either. You can probably get it for £55-60 and being able to stack it on top of any processor you own for a good amount of time makes it a bit of an investment too. Should I want to sell mine I will clean it off and try to sell it for more than I paid for it as the lap job and pressure kit make it worth that.

You can go for stock, it should do the job fine, and it shouldn't add to your noise much as it will spin at low speeds (rest of your fan should keep things cool meaning the fan controller will kick in)

If you want I am about to flog a zalman9500 for a few quid, it does a pretty comparable job to my TRUE, until you start ramping up the clockspeed and is very easy to install, noise on it is low at low speed, and thats all you will ever need.

buttkinz · 26 Jan 2010 at 15:44

hmm, if your only upping the speeds to 3.5-3.6ghz id just buy a simple arctic cooling rev2 cooler, cheap as chips and quiet to boot.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HS-035-AR

Insanties_birth · 26 Jan 2010 at 16:18

el Kuarlos said:
Lol, you arent being cheap, you sure as heck dont <need> it although I can tell you form experience it is nice to have- heatsinks dont really degrade, and the fact the TRUE has been around nearly the same for YEARS without anything significantly beating it shows they dont exactly go obsolete either. You can probably get it for £55-60 and being able to stack it on top of any processor you own for a good amount of time makes it a bit of an investment too. Should I want to sell mine I will clean it off and try to sell it for more than I paid for it as the lap job and pressure kit make it worth that.

You can go for stock, it should do the job fine, and it shouldn't add to your noise much as it will spin at low speeds (rest of your fan should keep things cool meaning the fan controller will kick in)

If you want I am about to flog a zalman9500 for a few quid, it does a pretty comparable job to my TRUE, until you start ramping up the clockspeed and is very easy to install, noise on it is low at low speed, and thats all you will ever need.

Thanks for the offer but I'll stick with the Arctic cooler freezer recommended by buttkinz due to being pathetic at installing parts in my pc

This way I can just order it as part of a PC build and have it put in for me.

Probably anyway. One of the reviews seems a bit against it
'Bought this for my phenom2 965 be and although it was very quiet the stock fan done such a better job very disapointed in this fan. i did retry fitting it 3 times but eventually gave up processor was running 10c higher with this fan over stock'

Would that be correct or was his more than likely just not working right?

eddyc · 26 Jan 2010 at 16:33

Insanties_birth said:
Thanks for the offer but I'll stick with the Arctic cooler freezer recommended by buttkinz due to being pathetic at installing parts in my pc This way I can just order it as part of a PC build and have it put in for me.

Probably anyway. One of the reviews seems a bit against it
'Bought this for my phenom2 965 be and although it was very quiet the stock fan done such a better job very disapointed in this fan. i did retry fitting it 3 times but eventually gave up processor was running 10c higher with this fan over stock'

Would that be correct or was his more than likely just not working right?

I can recommend the hyper tx3. I have a phenom II x2 550 with 1 extra core and overclocked to 3.8ghz and get load temps of around 40 with this. Very pleased.

It is bloody loud at full pelt though so you will have to have speedfan to bring it down a notch when you are idling. You can also add another 92mm fan to get it even cooler.

Bit of a hassle to install (instructions are terrible/non-existent for AM3) but you wont have to worry about that if ocuk are doing it

.

el Kuarlos · 26 Jan 2010 at 16:57

Probably anyway. One of the reviews seems a bit against it
'Bought this for my phenom2 965 be and although it was very quiet the stock fan done such a better job very disapointed in this fan. i did retry fitting it 3 times but eventually gave up processor was running 10c higher with this fan over stock'

Would that be correct or was his more than likely just not working right?

No way 10 degree increase over stock would happen with any aftermarket cooler.

Insanties_birth · 26 Jan 2010 at 17:12

eddyc said:
I can recommend the hyper tx3. I have a phenom II x2 550 with 1 extra core and overclocked to 3.8ghz and get load temps of around 40 with this. Very pleased.

It is bloody loud at full pelt though so you will have to have speedfan to bring it down a notch when you are idling. You can also add another 92mm fan to get it even cooler.

Bit of a hassle to install (instructions are terrible/non-existent for AM3) but you wont have to worry about that if ocuk are doing it .

I don't like the idea of it being loud unfortunately. I guess I'll stick with the arctic freezer one for now but thanks for the recommendation.

el Kuarlos said:
No way 10 degree increase over stock would happen with any aftermarket cooler.

I didn't think it would either but just making sure. Thanks for the advice.

eddyc · 26 Jan 2010 at 21:27

Insanties_birth said:
I don't like the idea of it being loud unfortunately. I guess I'll stick with the arctic freezer one for now but thanks for the recommendation.

Its only loud when full on but if you are going to be keeping it doing lots all the time then you are probably right to go for a more quiet one.

I have my cpu usage around 60-70% most of the time for encoding and it only occasionally has to activate the main fan because I have a swif2 920 on it as well which is totally silent and keeps it cool for most of the time.

Let us know how the arctic freezer works out.