Hello All,
This is my first post, so please be gentle
After building PC's from scratch for many years using basic methods, I have decided to get into this OC area, mainly because I am building myself a ESXi whitebox, which I want to squeeze every single bit of performance out of the hardware I am going to purchase, and also so that I learn more, as working in a dull I.T. job every day I need some I.T. pron which I hear OC is full of!
I have decided on the following core components for my whitebox so if anybody wants to comment/pass advice, feel free to do so!:
Intel Core Quad Q6600 - I chose this over the more recent i7 (was looking at the 920 and 860 models) mainly down to the cost of P45 based motherboards being more in my range then the X58 based boards. Also the Q6600 has a much better L2 cache on it then the more recent Quad Core processors.
ASUS P5Q Deluxe - This board to me is a middle-way, so that I can learn the OC basics before moving onto the more extreme boards.
8192MB DDR 1066 Mhz RAM (4 x 2048MB) - Geil GX24GB8500C5UDC.
Gigabyte 8400GS 512MB GDDR2 DVI PCI-E 2.0 x 16 GFX card - It's poor I know but for ESXi the GFX card is not a big consideration.
WD Caviar Blue 1TB 7200 32MB 3.5 HDD - I cannot find anything that runs at 7200 RPM with 64MB cache, the WD Green is the same size storage wise and has 64MB cache but no specs on speed as the Green Range seems to run on the principle that the disk speed slows down/speeds up to conserve energy...
OK now you have all smirked at my core setup, this is my n00b questions, being my first journey into OC my concern is cooking everything so I have spent a lot of time looking at airflow to cool the processor. The problem with the P5Q Deluxe board is there is very little room for a non-stock CPU cooler kit due to the capacitors being very close to the CPU socket. I was originally looking at a Artic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro Rev 2 CPU fan but I cannot find any detail as to if the direction of the fan can be changed as it on the side of the heatsink not on the top like stock fans, without this information I do no want to take the risk, as if I cannot change the fan direction then it will be emitting the heat from the CPU directly on to the copper heatsinks surrounding the CPU. Also I am unsure as to if there is enough room to allow for the non-stock bracket etc to fit.
This made me question further the actual airflow as if I was pushing air in from the left hand side of my case and extracting air out from the right hand side of the case, which to me sounds like a OC setup that would work, then the airflow is going to push the hot air from the motherboard heat sinks and the CPU against the expansion cards fitted which will block the flow resulting in these cards becoming warmer than they should? Therefore I have decided to use an airflow based on pushing cold air from the front of the case and extracting warm air from the rear of the case (see PIC below)
Is this a good design for airflow, does having the one fan pushing cool air into the case, and the one fan extracting air from the case cause a dead area where no cooling is being achieved?
Also what is the best value for money CPU cooler that uses a top mounted CPU cooling fan of the same quality/budget range as that of the Artic Freezer?
Finally does anybody know of any websites that show cases (not hugely expensive £200 cases) where you can see what possible airflow designs are available on cases?
Thanks for any information you can provide!
spar1GreP
This is my first post, so please be gentle
After building PC's from scratch for many years using basic methods, I have decided to get into this OC area, mainly because I am building myself a ESXi whitebox, which I want to squeeze every single bit of performance out of the hardware I am going to purchase, and also so that I learn more, as working in a dull I.T. job every day I need some I.T. pron which I hear OC is full of!
I have decided on the following core components for my whitebox so if anybody wants to comment/pass advice, feel free to do so!:
Intel Core Quad Q6600 - I chose this over the more recent i7 (was looking at the 920 and 860 models) mainly down to the cost of P45 based motherboards being more in my range then the X58 based boards. Also the Q6600 has a much better L2 cache on it then the more recent Quad Core processors.
ASUS P5Q Deluxe - This board to me is a middle-way, so that I can learn the OC basics before moving onto the more extreme boards.
8192MB DDR 1066 Mhz RAM (4 x 2048MB) - Geil GX24GB8500C5UDC.
Gigabyte 8400GS 512MB GDDR2 DVI PCI-E 2.0 x 16 GFX card - It's poor I know but for ESXi the GFX card is not a big consideration.
WD Caviar Blue 1TB 7200 32MB 3.5 HDD - I cannot find anything that runs at 7200 RPM with 64MB cache, the WD Green is the same size storage wise and has 64MB cache but no specs on speed as the Green Range seems to run on the principle that the disk speed slows down/speeds up to conserve energy...
OK now you have all smirked at my core setup, this is my n00b questions, being my first journey into OC my concern is cooking everything so I have spent a lot of time looking at airflow to cool the processor. The problem with the P5Q Deluxe board is there is very little room for a non-stock CPU cooler kit due to the capacitors being very close to the CPU socket. I was originally looking at a Artic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro Rev 2 CPU fan but I cannot find any detail as to if the direction of the fan can be changed as it on the side of the heatsink not on the top like stock fans, without this information I do no want to take the risk, as if I cannot change the fan direction then it will be emitting the heat from the CPU directly on to the copper heatsinks surrounding the CPU. Also I am unsure as to if there is enough room to allow for the non-stock bracket etc to fit.
This made me question further the actual airflow as if I was pushing air in from the left hand side of my case and extracting air out from the right hand side of the case, which to me sounds like a OC setup that would work, then the airflow is going to push the hot air from the motherboard heat sinks and the CPU against the expansion cards fitted which will block the flow resulting in these cards becoming warmer than they should? Therefore I have decided to use an airflow based on pushing cold air from the front of the case and extracting warm air from the rear of the case (see PIC below)
Is this a good design for airflow, does having the one fan pushing cool air into the case, and the one fan extracting air from the case cause a dead area where no cooling is being achieved?
Also what is the best value for money CPU cooler that uses a top mounted CPU cooling fan of the same quality/budget range as that of the Artic Freezer?
Finally does anybody know of any websites that show cases (not hugely expensive £200 cases) where you can see what possible airflow designs are available on cases?
Thanks for any information you can provide!
spar1GreP
