CPU Coolers, and suitable RAM for A64 overclocking..

[BlueMagician]

I've stuck a few posts into other threads over the last week or so asking various questions about overclocking the 3500+ Winchester A64, but didn't want to hijack them completely, so:


Would the Corsair 2x512MB 2-2-2-5 3200XLPT matched kit do me okay, or is there some blatantly better brand out there for a similar amount of cash?

What is generally accepted to be the best performance cooler for this CPU to allow a good deal of O/C ? I'd like to stick with Aircooling - I'm not experienced enough yet for anything extreme like Vapochill..


Many thanks in advance for you help,
S.

[Betty_Swallocks]

The Thermalright XP120 is probably one of the best air cooling solutions and is very quiet too because of the 120mm fan. I have one on my P4 but I know they fit the Athlon64 as well.
When I fitted my T-Balancer fan controller the CPU fan wasn't running at all and the CPU temperature only went up to 46 degrees. With the fan running at around 650rpm it is steady at 39 degrees when idling rising to around 50 degrees under the heaviest load with my P4 3.0c overclocked to 3.6Ghz.
Whispertec have them for £49 including a suitable fan and a Zalman fan controller.

[shiato storm]

£49! thats quite a bit just to keep things cool isnt it?!

[Betty_Swallocks]

Not if you want to overclock. Watercooling is much more expensive and this is almost as good.

[da_ging]

good air cooling / budget water cooling is a lot closer price wise than you may realise as the waterchill kt03-l20 entry kit (pump, 120mm black ice rad and cpu block) is only £63 delivered!! and will beat all normal air cooling (by normal i mean it will beat all but those using delta fans and alike that shift a gazzillion cfm at jet aircraft noise levels ) the waterchill kit is also upgradable to suit

put it this way i was going to get a thermalright xp-90 and a panaflo 120mm fan which would have cost about £45 untill i realised that for a measly £20 more i could have water with better performance lower noise and the option to cool my 6600gt down enough to actually overclock it

[StormPC]

So da_ging didn't read the part in the post about BlueMagician wanting to stick with aircooling? That means he doesn't want to mess with water and I agree with him. Good aircooling is as good or better than non-chilled water. That being the case it is pretty much correct that the XP-120 is the best air cooler for a CPU if you match it up with a proper fan. It won't fit every A64 motherboard and case but will fit most. The ASUS A8V and A8N-SLI can take the XP-120 no problem. It is expensive though compared with the Venus 12 from ThermalTake. The venus 12 is much more reasonable and cools nearly as well as the XP-120 if you run the 80mm fan at full speed. It moves about 75CFM of air and concentrates it in a small area which copper heatsinks really need. If you want to make sure you have no fit problems the Venus 12 is your best bet.

[BlueMagician]

...about BlueMagician wanting to stick with aircooling? That means he doesn't want to mess with water and I agree with him...
...The ASUS A8V and A8N-SLI can take the XP-120 no problem...

Yeah, the idea of WATER anywhere near PC components has always scared me, tbh..

I should have an A64 3500+ Winnie, and A8N-SLI Deluxe arriving on Monday, so it's was time for me to decide how serious I was about overclocking the beast. I'm looking for the maximum overclock, without going nuts, and I presumed the stock HSF in the AMB box is gonna be the first thing to let me down.

The Thermalright XP90/XP120 coupled with a good fan looks like it'll do the job nicely - Thanks for the suggestions. Any thoughts on a controller that does what it says on the tin, without costing mega-£'s?

Still on cooling, I've been looking at getting a pair of the XFX-6800GT's - I'm presuming that the CPU is going to be the bottleneck rather than a pair of these babies, and as such, won't really need to O/C the GPU's - certainly not upgrade their cooling...?


Finally, any final thoughts on the RAM choice?


With many many thanks for everyones time,
S.

[Betty_Swallocks]

I always tend to go over the top and get the best that I can afford so I've just fitted an Mcubed T-Balancer. This is a controller that goes inside the case and is programmed with a Windows program. Once you have set it up the unit remembers what you have set it to so you don't have to have the program running. It controls the fan speed not by adjusting the voltage but by using pulse modulation.This means that it can take them right down to 10% of full speed. The temperature probes (up to 8 of them) adjust the speeds automatically based on the parameters you have set for it.
I've got my case fans, my CPU fan and my Northbridge fan connected to it and under all but the most extreme circumstances my PC is amost silent.
The CPU fan runs between 650 and 900rpm and the previously very noisy NOrthbridge fan is down to less than 1500rpm.
If it wasn't for the lights inside the case you would have a hard job telling that it was on from across the room.
It is on the expensive side though at £45 quid. Depends how much you value quietness. I thought it was worth it.
It has to be said that a simple manual controller in a drive bay would do the job, albeit without the automatic temperature control.

[da_ging]

tbh installing a waterchill is easier than installing some air cooled heatsinks ,certainly nothing to be scared of

a pair of 6800gt's!! i'd have thought that the cpu would be the bottleneck with 1 6800 nevermind 2 of them

i hope you have a beefy psu to power this all

as for the ram as you are overclocking some corsair 4400 looks nice there's also the crucial ballistx which ppl say is good and the ocz gold im using is alright aswell - do you have any plans to use the ocz booster tho?

[StormPC]

da_ging, you're missing the point. He doesn't want water.

Today's games care more about the GPU speed than CPU. In all video games timing is critical to playability. Before a game runs it tests system speed and modifies the timing loops so the game will run properly. If your CPU is faster it just raises the value of the timing variable and makes the computer count higher to make up for the extra processing speed. Obviously you couldn't run a game at the full speed of today's processors.

Bottlenecks are always present in computer systems. There is no such thing as a system where the components are perfectly matched to each other and to every application you could possibly run. This being the case I don't really understand the reason for the bottleneck question. The quick answer is as da_ging pointed out. If you are just using a non-overclocked Winchester the CPU will be a bottleneck in certain 3D graphics applications, but not all.

I've found (during testing of the A8N-SLI with single and dual 6600 and 6800 GTs) that even the dual 6600GTs are quite a bit faster than a single 6800GT on most videogames. If you have the money dual 6800GTs would last you for quite awhile.

[weebroonieuk]

have u messed about with a decent watercooling system storm ? they trounce any air system going and mine is almost silent , i would have gone for a phase change if it wasnt fot the fact they have a compressor and fan where as i have no fans atall ....
well except in my zalmann psu which i will be replaceing with a fanless anyways

[BlueMagician]

...I've just fitted an Mcubed T-Balancer...

Sounds like a nice toy! Not sure I need the automation, but I will check it out all the same.. Thanx.

...i hope you have a beefy psu to power this all...

I was looking at the Antec NeoPower480, but haven't made the purchase yet, so I'm happy to take suggestions.

...some corsair 4400 looks nice there's also the crucial... ...do you have any plans to use the ocz booster tho?

Although far from new to computing (I'm a Network Manager) I'll be the first to admit that I'm green on overclocking - no matter how much I research, I'll always jump at the chance to speak with those more experienced, so I know I'm doing things right.

I have seen RAM voltage boosters, but I'm not sure how far I want to go with the O/C, so it may be overkill..

...this being the case I don't really understand the reason for the bottleneck question...

I intend to run games at as high a resolution as possible, with all the eye candy that I can get my hands on, so I figured for now it was worth spending money on GPU rather than CPU. My comment was purely a shout to make sure that I wasn't going about this all ar*e about face..


I appreciate everyones comments - please keep em coming.

At least, having paid for the mobo and cpu today, I'm commited to actually doing this rather than talking about it - I'm all excited...

S.

[Byatt]

Since there's currently a stunning bargain on the Thermalright 948-U on komplett (£9!) I couldn't recommend anything else - lob a decent fan on it and you'll have either a quiet cooler at stock or an overclocking tool with a bit more noise.

http://www.komplett.co.uk/k/ki.asp?sku=302130&cks=PRL

There's better out there, but that is best cooling per buck by a mile at the moment.

[BlueMagician]

Please excuse me for being a lemon and asking potentially stupid questions, but, there is a need to go for memory spec'd higher than PC3200 then?

If I go PC4000/4400, presumably with looser spec timings, will this have a detrimental effect on running my system at stock speeds if I choose not to overclock straight away?

S.

[RDL]

Well, for the Athlon 3500 you are just as well getting low latency 2-2-2-5 3200 RAM and loosening the timings slightly to get that extra speed.

[ocvn]

Hyper 6 is the best choice for OC.