quiet Dual Athlon: an oxymoron, or possible?

paws

I'm going to build myself a new machine soon, but before I do I thought I might ask your good selves what you think first.

I do lots of 3D and graphics stuff, so dual AMDs sound good: dual Xeons are too costly.

The big difference I want with this new machine is noise levels. My current machine is a bit of a beast noise-wise: dual 366s@550, full-tower case (supermicro 750a) and a bunch of fans (make unknown) inside.

I'd guess trying to make a dual AMD system almost silent is about as hard as you can get, since the chips run so hot. This is why I'm also considering watercooling the CPUs (and maybe the gfx card (GF4), northbridge etc.)

If I do go with watercooling, I'd probably get a kit (forgive me!): I don't mind spending a bit more to get a working system. But would a watercooling kit fit in a mid-tower case? The mid-tower blue Chieftec cases look lovely but mightn't be big enough. Anyone have any experience with watercooling kits, or do you roll your own?

If I did go with aircooling, can anyone recommend a good, quiet, heatsink/fan combo and quiet case fans? I hear PAPST stuff is good, but has anyone tried them out?

Has anyone tried acoustic damping materials?

Quietpc.co.uk has a bunch of stuff, but is any of it any good?

Thanks for listening! Lots of questions I know, but don't feel obliged to answer all of them -- any advice is much appreciated.


paws

PPC

Could try dual Zalman Flowers but it might be pushing it.
You could also get 2 Alpha PAL 8045s or ThermalRight AX7's with Papst fans. Really quiet.

Try on OcUK Forums aswell as people are always thinking of new methods there.

po0k

I remember reading a review on those flowers.
They're apparently pants for cooling (maybe changed since) and there's till a big fan over them (or beside em in a tower case).

Water cooling is quiet, as long as you keep the water/coolant cool. Get a massive radiator witha very large reservoir (takes longer to ehat it all up) or get a radiator with a very large surface area and efficent quiet big slow fans, or a combination.

Hard drives will also make alot of noise, enclosures maybe an option, but not for faster models.
I've heard that Seagate Barracudas are the quietest 7200rpm dirves on market, and aren't al that dfar off IBMs for performance.

You could 'suspend' the drives in 5¼" bays with suitable elastic material ( dressmakers - heatons or where ever) or use rubber grommets to isolate em from the case frame.

There are countless things you can do to quieten the system, just take inot account performance and thermal factors.

Gerry

Very possible to get a quiet dual amd aircooled system. As has been said, just get heatsinks like the alpha or ax7 which take 80mm fans, then all you have to do is find quiet pabst or panaflo fans for them. You can run the fans on a lower voltage as well, while still keeping the chips cool enough. What you have to think about is the efficiency of the airflow through the case. Are fans "fighting" against each other, eg if you have an exhaust fan and a cpu fan, they could both be trying to pull the same air through. Often it suits better to have cpu fans pulling air out of the heatsink, and the alpha pal 8045 works nicely in that setup.

If you are going for watercooling, you will have to spend a good bit on the fans to ensure that it is actually quieter than a good aircooled setup.

On fans in general, I haven't used the pabst myself, hopefully getting some soon. The panaflo's I have seen, and are worth the investment. Panaflo have a number of different models for each size of fan, eg the H1A is usually the performance model, and the L1A the quietest. Even the H1A is quiet though, compared to your usual shoddy fans.

Noise damping material, well I'm not going to shell out for the car audio stuff, but I have tried the foam from component packing. (The sponge like stuff) Seems to help a bit for noise, and can reduce vibration greatly if you squeeze it into mountings.

Syxpak, on the drives, the new ibm 120gxp seems much quieter than the 75gxp. It is way quieter during activity as well. Theres still a bit of high pitched noise, I'll be investigating ways of getting rid of that.

paws

The more I think about watercooling, the more of a hassle it might turn out to be. I don't mind hassle, but not if it might end up being possibly noisier than an aircooled rig.

Aircooling sounds the way to go, so I'll look into that. One thing I didn't mention last time: the PSU. Everyone seems to sell Enermax PSUs, but I've heard a lot of people (mainly at arstechnica) say that Antec TruePower PSUs are quieter and perhaps more stable. I couldn't find any Antec TruePower PSUs in Europe for love nor money, until Antec themselves pointed me to computer2000.co.uk, who supply a bunch of companies here (more "system solution providers" than normal comp. parts retailers). In the end Motherboard can get order an Antec 430W TruePower for me for 128 euros inc. VAT. Friendly service too.

Thanks Gerry/SyxPak/PPC, very helpful info. Only worry now is GF4 cooling fans, but that's another thread


paws

PPC

At the mo i got a Chrome orb on my GF3 and i have the card maxed i think and it does grand but i am running extra fans aswell.

It seems grand but noisey.