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CPU Cooler And Case Fans
CPU Cooler (Heat-Sink And Fan)
There were two reasons I became interested in having a CPU cooler other than the one that game in the retail box of the processor. One is that the the first CPU cooler, also called the heat-sink fan (HSF), that I ever used rattled a good deal of the time. Not all of the time, but much of the time. And not a real loud rattle, but loud enough to be significantly louder than anything else making noise in My Super PC. The other was that the processor was running hot under load. The processor should not exceed 60 degrees Centigrade under load, and ideally should be under 50 degrees Centigrade. If it exceeds 60 degrees Centigrade then additional cooling should be considered.
Although this might seem like it should be a fairly simple component, it turns out that there is much more to it. First, there are lots of CPU cooler options out there, and which one is right for you depends on three things.
- Performance. Meaning how well does it do the job of cooling the processor.
- Cost. Always a factor.
- Noise. How much is acceptable? Some come with fans that are much louder than others, but then they perform better.
Second, you need to know that there are actually three separate parts that make up the CPU cooler.
- The Fan. No surprise.
- The Sink. No surprise.
- The thermal compound (also called thermal paste). Surprised? I was! More on this a little further down.
And it gets worse. At the end of it all, the "sweet spot" CPU cooler choice for My Super PC is the Zalman CNPS9500 AM2. The Zalman CNPS9500 cools any speed of AMD Athlon 64 X2 processor effectively. It is very quiet, with a decibel rating of 18dB to 27.5dB, depending on the fan speed used. A "soft whisper" has a decibel rating of 30dB.
Click on any of the pictures on this page to see the picture enlarged.
The Zalman CNPS9500 AM2 that I use for my AMD Athlon 64 X2 6000+ processor arrived in this packaging.
The Zalman CNPS9500 AM2 is big, but that's good since a big CPU cooler means more cooling with less noise. At least, it's good so long as the CPU cooler does not block installing other components, the RAM in particular. That's one of those "It gets worse" things. Not all CPU coolers are so accommodating. The Zalman CNPS9500 AM2 CPU cooler does not block any of the four RAM slots on the ASUS M2N32-SLI Deluxe Wireless Edition motherboard. In this picture you can see the base of the CPU cooler. Not only is there no thermal compound applied to the base at the factory, but it's extremely smooth and shiny. To give you an idea how brilliant it is, I've placed the blue Zalman logo so it reflects in the base. This is a quiet CPU cooler. The retail package also includes an instruction sheet and thermal compound, although I chose to buy Arctic Silver 5 thermal compound separately. Some CPU coolers come with thermal compound already applied from the factory. The thermal compound that comes standard with any CPU cooler is not as good as other alternatives. The thermal compound is important because it transfers the heat efficiently from the processor to the sink. So if the CPU cooler does have thermal compound already applied, it's worthwhile to remove it and apply something better. The "sweet spot" is Arctic Silver 5. I purchased my Arctic Silver 5 from Amazon. A 3.5 gram tube is way plenty for one processor.
Excellent instructions for installing thermal compound can be found by at Artic Silver's home page by looking under the "Support" menu for the "Installation" link which takes you to the Artic Silver application instructions. Before applying new thermal compound, the old factory thermal compound must be removed if the CPU cooler came with it already applied. Although I did not need to clean off factory thermal compound from the Zalman CNPS9500 AM2, I've done it several times before with other CPU coolers. It comes off almost without a trace following the instructions given by Arctic Silver, which include using isoproply alcohol, a clean credit card, lint free cloths, a clean toothbrush and elbow grease.
Installation of the CPU cooler on an AM2 processor is fairly easy following the instructions that come with the CPU cooler.
Here the Zalman CNPS9500 AM2 sits triumphantly installed in My Super PC on my AMD Athlon 64 X2 6000+ AM2 processor!
Case Fans
In addition to the CPU cooler, the computer should have a case fan used for exhaust. The Antec Sonata comes with a 120mm case fan. This larger size - many computer cases are configured for case fans that are 80mm in size or even smaller - make it quieter and allow it to move more air, thus providing better cooling. I would not be concerned if the computer case did not come with a case fan since it lets me pick my own quality, quiet fan. The case fan supplements the exhaust provided by the small fan that comes built into any power supply. One case fan is sufficient.
An exhaust case fan is much more important than an intake case fan. It's very important and even necessary to have an exhaust fan, but an intake fan is not really needed at all. The action of the exhaust fan will pull in air as intake anyway. If intake is provided, it should not exceed the airflow generated by the exhaust.
Any computer should get some exhaust from the power supply exhaust fan. Usually the power supply exhaust fan is not a very powerful fan, not even as powerful as a weak computer case fan. But the cooling it provides is effective nevertheless. From my experience, the additional cooling provided by one more decent exhaust case fan is plenty. In fact, additional case fans beyond this configuration as exhaust or intake give very little extra cooling and are not worth the cost, trouble, or noise. If the power supply has only one fan built into it, which would be an exhaust fan, then it probably will not have a 3-pin connector for the fan. But many power supplies have two fans built right into the power supply, one for intake and one for exhaust. The connection must be made for the exhaust fan to work.
Case fans come with either a 3-pin connector that plugs directly into the motherboard, or a 4-pin connector that plugs into a connector coming from the power supply. Either type of connector is fine and I would not prefer one over the other. It's not a good idea to plug a 4-pin case fan into the motherboard using a 4-pin to 3-pin converter. The reason is because a 4-pin case fan is probably a 4-pin case fan in the first place because it needs the extra power that it can draw by being plugged directly into the power supply. On the other hand, it's always ok to plug a 3-pin case fan directly into a 4-pin power supply connector by using a 3-pin to 4-pin converter. Some 3-pin case fans need more power than the 3-pin connectors that some motherboards provide. This is not an issue with quieter, lower rpm case fans and modern motherboards. But with noisier, higher rpm 3-pin case fans and older motherboards, it's something to look at.
If you use the 4-pin connectors from the power supply to connect the computer case fans then there's not much to worry about. It's even ok to use a Y-splitter so a 4-pin connector is not dedicated to a computer case fan. It's not likely that a 4-pin case fan connector will cramp the number of available power connectors coming from the power supply since modern power supplies come with plenty of connectors of all types. It's even not unusual to see a power supply with power connectors tagged as "fan only".
As for brands, I've used Sunon case fans in the past, but I would not be too particular about the brand. Just keep an eye on it's airflow rating, decibel rating, and ensure it's the right size for the case. It should not be difficult to find case fans with a decibel rating under 30dB, which equates to a soft whisper", as a reasonable top-end for acceptable noise level. Case fans are muffled somewhat just by being enclosed in the case, and the noise level of a case fan used for exhaust is further reduced by backing far away since it is located in the back of the PC.
Results
As you'll see below, an exhaust case fan makes quite a difference. I took temperature measurements with and without the case fan to see the effect. The CD that comes with your motherboard may include a utility for displaying the temperature readings of the CPU and System. I used ASUS PC Probe II which was included on the CD that came with the ASUS M2N32-SLI Deluxe motherboard. A free utility like Motherboard Monitor can also be used.
Temperature settings should be checked when the CPU is under load. A widely used "torture test" for the CPU is Prime95. Temperatures definitely rise once this program gets cranking! It takes about 50 minutes for My Super PC temperatures to stabilize and that's when I take the temperature reading. Just a quick note about Prime95 - its primary use has something to do with finding prime numbers, which may be interesting in its own right. However, you can skip all that. Once you download and install Prime95, go to the options pull-down window and there will be an option for "Torture Test". Here are the results I achieved. All temperature readings are in Centigrade. All fan speed readings are in rpm (revolutions per minute). MB is for "motherboard", or the system temperature. PSU is for Power Supply Unit.
CPU
TempMB
TempPSU
FanCPU
FanCooling Components Comments 1 72 57 1844 2509 No case fans connected, but the small power supply fan is providing some exhaust. Youch! These temperatures are too high, especially the CPU temperature. Look at the PSU fan speed. The poor little thing is doing it's best to blow out the hot air. The noise level was very quiet, about like a soft whisper is my unscientific guess. 2 59 45 1326 2547 The 120mm exhaust case fan of the Antec Sonata II computer is connected and set to "Low" speed. As the readings shown, an exhaust fan is quite important. The noise level was very quiet, but not silent. Even quieter than configuration #1 because the small PSU fan is not spinning so fast. This configuration is probably the "sweet spot" for those who don't ever want to tweak fan speeds. 3 56 42 1236 2537 Same configuration as #2, except the adjustable control for the computer case exhaust fan is set to "High" speed. I'm surprised that the higher speed did not make a bigger difference. This extra cooling came with a small increase in noise, but still overall not bad at all and not annoying. This amount of cooling may be appropriate for heavy gaming systems. 4 65 48 1236 1369 For this configuration I added the adjustable fan controller for the CPU cooler fan and set it on the lowest (slowest) fan setting. You can see the CPU Fan speed is much lower than in the other configurations. The adjustable control for the computer case exhaust fan is also set to "Low". The temperature of the CPU is a little too high for my liking, but keep in mind the system is under quite a load. The noise level of the computer was virtually silent. So computers that don't often get a heavy load might find this configuration acceptable. 5 61 46 1308 2376 Same configuration as #4, except the adjustable control for the CPU cooler fan is set to its highest (fastest) fan setting. This is pretty much the same as configuration #2 as the CPU cooler fan speed tops out at about the same rpm. It looks like using the adjustable control for the fan on the CPU cooler is good for lowering the speed of the fan, but not for increasing its cooling capacity by getting it to spin faster. The noise level was the same as configuration #2. The adjustable control for the CPU cooler fan is nice for those who usually don't tax their computers, but sometimes do and could use a cooling boost at a small increase in noise. If so then it makes further sense to use both controls to crank both fans all the way up under load and turn both to Low for normal use. Both cranked up is like #3, and both turned down is #4.
An overview of the maximum processor/CPU temperatures can be found at the Heatsink Guide.
My complete recommendations for building a computer with quality components at unbeatable prices is on my home page at Build A Computer Like My Super PC - Cost To Build A Computer. Here again are the recommendations for a CPU cooler!
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