Quiet 120mm fan

[Adcadet]

I too have a Ninja. It is big and heavy, and I've had some trouble with the retention clips, but I think this is because one of them is not in the fully locked position - something I should have triple checked before I mounted the motherboard, which is hard to then maneuver into a case like the Antec P180 when you have fans nearby and little clearance. I thought form various OC sites the Ninja performed very well, but maybe this was with high flow/noisy fans. I have the single 120 mm fan on the ninja as well as two Antec Tri-cool fans right by it blowing out the back and up the top. My CPU is a 2.13 GHz C2D, and I run it at 3.2 GHz (400 MHz x 8, no voltage tweaks - I was doing 425x8 for a while but Prime95 would throw errors). My temps usually run about 43 C for the CPU and 38 C for the motherboard when I'm doing officy things, but the CPU temp climbs up to about 52 C with max stress. Overall I think this is pretty reasonable.

 

[Mercutio]

My E4300@3.7GHz was idling at 51C, but that was at +.1V and I'm not 100% certain I have a perfect thermal paste application. I toned it down a bit from there...

 

[Sol]

From reviews I have seen the Thermalright ultra-120 performs marginally better than the ninja even with fairly low flow fans like the Scythe S-Flex. With a SilenX 18db fan on one it should be nearly silent and outperform a ninja whilst weighing a little less at 745g (a newer version which is aparently a little better again should be released soon at 790g). The 120 also has a custom back plate with four mounting points so it should be a little more solid than the ninjas two point mount.

If your going for totally passive then the ninja is aparently the king but if you plan to use a fan at all and have any concerns about the weight the ultra-120 is probably worth a look. (Although clearly it's still way over the weight specs for the socket.)

 

[MaxBurn]

Well I guess I am pretty happy. Not running a CPU fan on this, the P180B has the top fan set to medium, the back and bottom are set to low and the video card is the loudest ting in there. This case is so quiet in comparison to what I had before (coolermaster wavemaster). I set the system up for 3gig with no problem I can see. At that speed I see about 35°C on the CPU's as reported by core temp, under load it goes up to around 48-53°C.

http://scottjal.ath.cx:85/ebay/testing.JPG

These case fans are Antec 120mm Tricool and they have a neat little dongle you can set the speed, first time I have used these. On low they are very quiet, medium is a quite tolerable but the fast setting is unacceptably loud.

 

[Adcadet]

Max - will your memory handle more aggressive timings? I see you're running at 5-5-5-15, and perhaps you could get a little more performance without much extra noise/heat by going with something more aggressive. I've been happy that my memory does 4-4-4-12 2T, and I thought I remembered it making a slight difference in some of the online benchmarks.

 

[CougTek]

The Ninja weighs more than double the weight limit (500g) for a socket 775 CPU.

For all you sensitive girlies out there, there's the Thermaltake MaxOrb that weights just 465g. It certainly isn't as efficient as the Ninja Rev.B, but it respects the weight limit specified by Intel for the land grid array 775. It's probably the best performing heatsink under 500g currently available.

Review

At the Ninja's defense, most of its weight is concentrated near its base, so the stress applied to the retention mecanism and motherboard isn't that bad. The reason why Merc complains about its inability to insure perfect stability in extreme overclocking situations isn't the Ninja's inefficiency to cool the CPU, but because the fan blows horizontally, there's no airflow left to cool down the VRM around the LGA/socket. The instability comes from the hot components around the CPU, not from the CPU temperature itself (which is still fine even for a 3.8GHz C2D). In theory, a less efficient CPU cooler like the Thermaltake Big Typhoon would reach slightly higher overclocking results because it blows fresh air down to the motherboard voltage regulators while simultaneously cooling the processor. It isn't even close to match the Ninja for processor cooling alone, but the direction of its airflow should make it a (slightly) better overclocking tool.

 

[MaxBurn]

Ah yes, I am getting there. The memory is TWIN2X2048-8500C5. I plugged those values in as thats what the memory is rated at for 1066/533 but ignored the multiplier and VDIMM for now to see what the CPU does. So what I did was up the FSB to 350 and change memory ratio to 2:3 to end up at 525 on the memory (at rated 2.2v) and 3150 on the CPU. My temps appear to have come down as well (under 50°C loaded according to coretemp) so I am assuming the thermal paste is settling in.

Pretty happy with the thing all in all. Reminds me of my Celeron 300A.

http://scottjal.ath.cx:85/ebay/testing2.JPG

Max - will your memory handle more aggressive timings? I see you're running at 5-5-5-15, and perhaps you could get a little more performance without much extra noise/heat by going with something more aggressive. I've been happy that my memory does 4-4-4-12 2T, and I thought I remembered it making a slight difference in some of the online benchmarks.

 

[ddrueding]

From what I vaguely recall, isn't memory timings an anal-retentive thing? Am I right in remembering that the only significant impact was in synthetic benchmarks?

 

[Adcadet]

From what I vaguely recall, isn't memory timings an anal-retentive thing? Am I right in remembering that the only significant impact was in synthetic benchmarks?

That's about what I remember, and why after dialing in the tighter timings I stopped. I'm wondering if I should bother clocking my memory up. It's at 1:1 with the FSB at 400 MHz (I do like the symmetry) at 4-4-4-12-24 2T, which is what it's rated for. Anybody think it's worth it to try pushing higher?

Here's my memory: http://www.geilusa.com/products/showSpec/id/65
Oh, and the most important specification of my memory - that the head spreader is in "racing orange"

 

[ddrueding]

...that the head spreader is in "racing orange"

Ha! Got you beat. Mine are green camo

 

[Mercutio]

I have Geil DIMMs in Red, and Orange and Blue. I don't know what the difference is but they are all PC800... I think one of them is 2.0V - 2.4V or something. Whatever.

I spent a very long time messing with my game rig today - trying different fans, mounting positions and even thermal compounds. I can get the CPU temp down to "only" 44C at idle with the CPUs cranked all the way up to 3.7GHz and a .075V increase to the CPU, but as Coug suggested, I can't keep the system temp that low. Even with the P180s back and top fans on "high" (something I'd never do for very long), the system temp sticks at around 47C, same as when those fans are on low. It's the Ninja. It is in fact the Ninja in the way of decent cooling for non-CPU components.

On the plus side, I have it rock-solid now - even six hours of two video encoding sessions didn't bring about unacceptable temps. If I didn't have to put up with my noisy LiteOn SATA DVD-RW drive, the machine would be absolutely silent, too.

 

[Adcadet]

I've got a Ninja rev B with the included 120 mm fan on the bottom of it blowing up, I've got the top mounted 120 mm fan blowing out, and I've got the rear 120 mm fan blowing out all in a P180. All of the Antec Tri-cool fans set to high, and it's definitely not quiet but I wouldn't call it loud, either. The the Asus PC Probe II that came with the motherboard (Asus P5N-E) has always listed the motherboard temp in the high 30's C, and I don't think I've ever seen it go about 43 C. How high are your motherboard temps going?

 

[Mercutio]

My fans are set back to low now, and my CPUs are over 100% overclocked...
System temp is 46C, CPU is 44. I tried blowing the fans "toward" the outside of the case but I did not find it helpful (as in, it didn't cool any better for me). My fan is mounted on the bottom of the cooler and blowing air onto my video card.

I tried removing the top fan and putting the fan on top of the cooler, and on the back-side without the back fan. Blowing out the top worked pretty well for CPU cooling but my system temps stayed higher. I figured the way I left it was my best option.

So, like I said, I turned my fans back down. It just didn't make sense to leave them on high speed and all annoying.

 

[MaxBurn]

What CPU temp utility are you all getting your temps from? I have noticed that the core temp program can almost be ten degrees higher than what the Gigabyte Easy tune software reads on the CPU's. I think it is reading different points in the CPU as you get a reading for each core.

 

[CougTek]

the head spreader

I always keep one in the trunk of my car, along with a shovel and garbage bags. Knowing that medecine men cary one too in your part of the world is a little disturbing though.

Also, how and why would you fit it inside your computer?

 

[Bozo]

Ha! Got you beat. Mine are green camo

Mine are Amish black...

Bozo :joker:

 

[Adcadet]

I always keep one in the trunk of my car, along with a shovel and garbage bags. Knowing that medecine men cary one too in your part of the world is a little disturbing though.

Also, how and why would you fit it inside your computer?

Simple: computer = major source of frustration in my life.

 

[sechs]

From what I vaguely recall, isn't memory timings an anal-retentive thing? Am I right in remembering that the only significant impact was in synthetic benchmarks?

I can't tell the difference between ECC on or off, let alone between different timings. That should tell you something.

 

[Mercutio]

OK, the Ninja sucks for my needs. I can get all kinds of stability until I need to use my video card to do something 3D-y... probably because my CPU fan is blowing hot air directly on it.

The stability comes back nicely if I switch to a PCI Radeon 9250 but that's a bit limiting for gaming.

I have a Silverstone SST-NT06 here. Maybe I'll try that next.

 

[ddrueding]

This is probably your best bet for keeping the motherboard cool; I'm considering one for my soon-to-be Gigabyte GA-965P-DS3. I can't stay away from the C2D OCing goodness...

 

[Mercutio]

What the hell is that?

 

[ddrueding]

It's a platform-type downward-firing heatsink big enough for 2 120mm fans. Including the fans it's over 1kg.

 

[Mercutio]

For $50 and considering that it doesn't come with any crappy sorts of fans, that thing might actually be worthwhile for me.

 

[ddrueding]

Yeah, I liked the looks of it as well. My only concern was how it's size would impede the airflow of the exhaust fans, and the airflow to the GPU. I have a passively cooled 7950GT, and it gets fussy if there is no airflow over it.

 

[CougTek]

New article about a methodology change at SPCR :
http://www.silentpcreview.com/article734-page8.html

I linked the conclusion.

 

[ddrueding]

Nice article. There is still room for improvement (as is argued in the forums by the back-seat, hind-sight drivers), but overall I think it's very well done.

I also like the conclusion that as soon as the CFM is enough to match the heat-carrying capacity of the heatsink, additional CFM doesn't help.