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TerranUp16
[H]ard|Gawd
- Joined
- Dec 11, 2007
- Messages
- 1,031
The task of choosing a CPU cooler would be rather straightforward for me... if I didn't transport my current rig so much. When I originally built it last summer, I did so as a relatively quick replacement for my old Socket 939 rig whose motherboard had just died after five years of service. I had planned to make this a quick job (was originally going to leave the 8800GTS 640mb SSC in alone and just slap in one 500GB HDD) and was going to leave this home while I built a new, beefier rig that August to take to college.
Obviously, that didn't happen. I ended-up slapping two additional HDD's in RAID 0 in here along with a GTX 280. However, when I originally built the rig it wasn't mean to be moved around much (was planned to just sit at home) and I got a Xigmatek 1283 Rifle cooler to go with it. Well, I've had some serious issues with that all-around (installation, in particular installing the fan, was a little short of a nightmare and definitely resulted in some bent fins). The biggest issue though has been mounting for it. The cooler did not come with a true mounting kit for LGA 775, just the stupid push pins and those immediately proved inadequate. I e-mailed Xigmatek customer support and eventually got a real mounting kit for it but even that has been far from stable and poor contact has resulted in some terrible temperatures- so bad that I'm now using the stock cooler instead.
The mounting might have sufficed if I didn't have to transport my rig around a lot. Quickly after arriving on campus, I found out about the LAN club and of course joined and now often cart my rig to LAN's once every two weeks on average. When I'm not carting my rig to LAN's, I'm carting it home for the weekend or break. As noted above, the Xigmatek didn't like this at all.
But anyway, so I've more or less put up with this for about a year now but atm really want to get back into fixing this issue once and for all so that I can properly OC my Q6700 to the 3GHz mark and potentially beyond. But I'm not quite sure what cooler to get. On one hand, I like Noctua's NH-U12P and have heard excellent things about Noctua's mounting kits (and, total side note, but their fan installation is also leagues ahead of Xigmatek's), but on the other hand, anything like that is one hell of a heavy cooler and that weight is squarely concentrated on a small part of the mobo. The fact that having such a massive cooler on my mobo while moving my rig around a lot can damage my motherboard is not lost on me.
There are perhaps some ways of dealing with that- I've heard of zip ties and such being used to stabilize the heatsink tower and perhaps that would be doable if I could get more info (the only bit of info I got from a friend of mine was that he used some of his metalworking skills to jury-rig something... and I lack metalworking skills xD). The alternative is to look into lighter solutions and there enlies a bit of an issue- the eVGA nForce 750i SLI FTW is my motherboard. A durable bastard but that durability comes at a bit of a price in terms of its cooling fixtures around the CPU area and thus any coolers that take-up a lot of space down low... aren't usable. And the problem is, most of my alternatives to smartly-designed towers like the NH-U12P (it has a very nice gap between its mounting on the cpu and where the fins actually begin to extend so it would rise above my mobo components) use more low-level space (though the Xigmatek 1283 more or less fit albeit very, very tightly so I do have some small amount of room to work with).
So my quest is to find a cooling solution that works well while fitting my mobo and not being so massive that it can kill my mobo when I move my comp around. As far as noise vs. heat, I don't have any noise issues with the Intel Stock Cooler and really my OCed GTX 280 provides the majority of the very little sound that emanates from my Antec 900 currently (yes yes, "very little sound" and "Antec 900" are oximorons but the thing still runs way quieter than any console- including my Wii) so despite my interest in the Noctua, there is a fair bit of leeway in the noise department and heat dissipation is my primary concern. Also, as mentioned before, I have an Antec 900, so anything that works well with a high amount of airflow (for example, I was looking at the SpinQ but upon finding that it's not exactly light and no non-push-pin mounting kit is available for LGA 775 and thus its contact is less than preferable and it doesn't stand movement well... and, well, its price...) works.
Thx in advance for your help.
Obviously, that didn't happen. I ended-up slapping two additional HDD's in RAID 0 in here along with a GTX 280. However, when I originally built the rig it wasn't mean to be moved around much (was planned to just sit at home) and I got a Xigmatek 1283 Rifle cooler to go with it. Well, I've had some serious issues with that all-around (installation, in particular installing the fan, was a little short of a nightmare and definitely resulted in some bent fins). The biggest issue though has been mounting for it. The cooler did not come with a true mounting kit for LGA 775, just the stupid push pins and those immediately proved inadequate. I e-mailed Xigmatek customer support and eventually got a real mounting kit for it but even that has been far from stable and poor contact has resulted in some terrible temperatures- so bad that I'm now using the stock cooler instead.
The mounting might have sufficed if I didn't have to transport my rig around a lot. Quickly after arriving on campus, I found out about the LAN club and of course joined and now often cart my rig to LAN's once every two weeks on average. When I'm not carting my rig to LAN's, I'm carting it home for the weekend or break. As noted above, the Xigmatek didn't like this at all.
But anyway, so I've more or less put up with this for about a year now but atm really want to get back into fixing this issue once and for all so that I can properly OC my Q6700 to the 3GHz mark and potentially beyond. But I'm not quite sure what cooler to get. On one hand, I like Noctua's NH-U12P and have heard excellent things about Noctua's mounting kits (and, total side note, but their fan installation is also leagues ahead of Xigmatek's), but on the other hand, anything like that is one hell of a heavy cooler and that weight is squarely concentrated on a small part of the mobo. The fact that having such a massive cooler on my mobo while moving my rig around a lot can damage my motherboard is not lost on me.
There are perhaps some ways of dealing with that- I've heard of zip ties and such being used to stabilize the heatsink tower and perhaps that would be doable if I could get more info (the only bit of info I got from a friend of mine was that he used some of his metalworking skills to jury-rig something... and I lack metalworking skills xD). The alternative is to look into lighter solutions and there enlies a bit of an issue- the eVGA nForce 750i SLI FTW is my motherboard. A durable bastard but that durability comes at a bit of a price in terms of its cooling fixtures around the CPU area and thus any coolers that take-up a lot of space down low... aren't usable. And the problem is, most of my alternatives to smartly-designed towers like the NH-U12P (it has a very nice gap between its mounting on the cpu and where the fins actually begin to extend so it would rise above my mobo components) use more low-level space (though the Xigmatek 1283 more or less fit albeit very, very tightly so I do have some small amount of room to work with).
So my quest is to find a cooling solution that works well while fitting my mobo and not being so massive that it can kill my mobo when I move my comp around. As far as noise vs. heat, I don't have any noise issues with the Intel Stock Cooler and really my OCed GTX 280 provides the majority of the very little sound that emanates from my Antec 900 currently (yes yes, "very little sound" and "Antec 900" are oximorons but the thing still runs way quieter than any console- including my Wii) so despite my interest in the Noctua, there is a fair bit of leeway in the noise department and heat dissipation is my primary concern. Also, as mentioned before, I have an Antec 900, so anything that works well with a high amount of airflow (for example, I was looking at the SpinQ but upon finding that it's not exactly light and no non-push-pin mounting kit is available for LGA 775 and thus its contact is less than preferable and it doesn't stand movement well... and, well, its price...) works.
Thx in advance for your help.