CPU-cooling assistance

Deminion · October 27, 2014, 09:51:23 PM

Need help with an upgrade for cooling my cpu. Running a AMD FX-8120 8-core Black edition http://products.amd.com/en-gb/DesktopCPUDetail.aspx?id=771&f1=AMD+FX+8-Core+Black+Edition&f2=FX-8120&f3=3100&f4=1024&f5=AM3%2b&f6=&f7=32nm&f8=125+W&f9=5200&f10=False&f11=True&f12=True
Cooling is with the stock 66mm fan, and it runs quite noisy. And on occasions i experience a complete lock-up from the pc, and i have to reboot. Been seeing temps higher than the 61 degrees max, that AMD posts.
Do help please.
Watercooling is not the answer for me.

Chaosphere · October 27, 2014, 10:06:54 PM

Although you said no to watercooling, have you considered one of the all in one watercoolers? They are all contained, so no assembly required more than what you would do for any air cooler - you just mount one part to the CPU, and stick the radiator on a fan slot just like you would a regular 120mm fan...

Something like this for example.

These all-in-one coolers are really much better than the air ones you can get now. They perform well, are no fuss, and you don't need to worry as much about case / ram / cooler size. If you have a free 120 or 140mm fan grill relatively near the CPU, it will likely fit easily.

Tutonic · October 27, 2014, 10:24:00 PM

Another +1 here for the Corsair all-in-one solutions, I went for the slightly smaller H60 (due to case size restrictions).

Easy to install, whisper quiet and keeps the CPU under 60 degrees (which for an i5, is pretty good).

Gorion · October 27, 2014, 10:26:51 PM

Have you cleaned your case/fans/heatsinks recently?

I used to run custom loops, they're a hassle. Switched over to closed loop H100, it's brilliant.

Deminion · October 27, 2014, 10:28:21 PM

Seems like a decent solution, and i do have a 2 fans nearby. Perhaps the one in top of the case could do the trick.

Tutonic · October 27, 2014, 10:28:25 PM

Here's a photo of my H60 just after I initially installed it - I actually ended up placing the radiator at the back of the case as I found the pump behaved better in that configuration, but you can see that even in my pint-size case it's a nice simple setup.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]2848[/ATTACH]

Deminion · October 27, 2014, 10:31:09 PM

Quote from: Gorion;389897Have you cleaned your case/fans/heatsinks recently?

I used to run custom loops, they're a hassle. Switched over to closed loop H100, it's brilliant.

Just cleaned it today, haven't been running for Â½ a year, except for the occasional photowork, which limits it to 2 times.

Chaosphere · October 27, 2014, 11:28:58 PM

I honestly think these all in one solutions give the best combination of performance, ease of use, and cost.

Will never go back to an air cooler now, or a custom loop (which I also used before - too expensive and too much effort!)

sulky_uk · October 28, 2014, 07:09:09 AM

my old intel q6600 is water cooled and now operates as a media centre next to the tv, it has had the same corsair water cooled all in one in it for nearly 7 years now and i never see temps above 40c...even when i was usimg it for arma 3 alpha last year and the q6600 can be a hot beast

Vargen · October 28, 2014, 07:23:25 AM

Quote from: Chaosphere;389901I honestly think these all in one solutions give the best combination of performance, ease of use, and cost.

Will never go back to an air cooler now, or a custom loop (which I also used before - too expensive and too much effort!)

These Corsair closed loops are great if you just need one component cooled and don't want to put the effort in with custom stuff. I've recomended them to several friends and clients so far. To get the same performance and noise levels from an air cooler you need to go really big, and that comes at the price of limiting space and adding weight and stress on the MB/CPU during transport.

For myself I plan to go full custom with my next personal build. Acryllic tubing and all. The most important thing with a custom loop is to plan it out for easy maintenance in the future. Draining system in the bottom and easy refill access to the reservoir.

Chaosphere · October 28, 2014, 08:00:47 AM

I had an 'easy to maintain' loop varg, and although it wasn't a problem per se, the cost just far outweighed the benefits for me personally.

The all-in-one coolers offer performance close to that of a custom loop, with similar noise levels possible in certain situations, for a fraction of the cost.

I think the one real thing they do provide is the option for loops containing CPU and GPUs, which is both useful for reducing noise but also somewhat redundant as GPUs (CPUs too really, but GPUs in particular) get more and more energy efficient and thus make less heat. Soon we won't have 2-slot GPUs, there will be a shift towards 1 slot with tiny fans, or even fanless cards. Imagine the equivalent of a gtx 980 in performance with a passive 1'-slot heatsink - a realistic option over the next few years.

Of course, you can also get near silence with custom loops as the sheer cooling space you can throw at it allows you to use very low speed fans. This comes at the cost of case size and weight of course, but for a home-only rig that is usually not a problem.

Oh and an added bonus point for custom loops... they can look very pretty indeed!

Vargen · October 28, 2014, 08:19:36 AM

Quote from: Chaosphere;389908I had an 'easy to maintain' loop varg, and although it wasn't a problem per se, the cost just far outweighed the benefits for me personally.

The all-in-one coolers offer performance close to that of a custom loop, with similar noise levels possible in certain situations, for a fraction of the cost.

I think the one real thing they do provide is the option for loops containing CPU and GPUs, which is both useful for reducing noise but also somewhat redundant as GPUs (CPUs too really, but GPUs in particular) get more and more energy efficient and thus make less heat. Soon we won't have 2-slot GPUs, there will be a shift towards 1 slot with tiny fans, or even fanless cards. Imagine the equivalent of a gtx 980 in performance with a passive 1'-slot heatsink - a realistic option over the next few years.

Of course, you can also get near silence with custom loops as the sheer cooling space you can throw at it allows you to use very low speed fans. This comes at the cost of case size and weight of course, but for a home-only rig that is usually not a problem.

Oh and an added bonus point for custom loops... they can look very pretty indeed!

All this is spot on, but personally I prefer custom loops because they are fun to make and look amazing, while also keeping currently available GPU's at more acceptable temperatures. I consider custom loops more a hobby than anything else

TeaLeaf · October 28, 2014, 09:03:51 AM

I had a specific use which was to have a high performance PC run almost silently in what is my home office (which doubles as my gaming room). I went the custom route for all of the above reasons, it could handle SLI, overclocking and still maintain very low system temps at negligible noise levels.

As for maintenance, my previous custom loop water-cooled PC was a major pain in the rear to maintain. However, when I designed my current water-cooled PC I added these to the loop between each component:

These dry connects allow you to break your loop down, replace individual elements of the loop, all with minimal effort and none of the usual mess associated with custom loops. Having installed these once, I would never build a custom water-cooling loop again without including dry connectors.

Gorion · October 28, 2014, 03:12:20 PM

Those quick shut-offs are nice.

Didn't have them in my custom loop, and it's such a bloody annoyance. But, they're not worth it unless you're going extreme clocks nowadays. I even read somewhere that we're going to see stock closed loop vga coolers from AMD; and that will also spread to nVidia.

DannagE · October 28, 2014, 04:22:51 PM

You know where I stand on this, watercooled and overclocked!

However it all depends on your hardware and what you want to do with your hardware. This is how I look at now -

Heatsink with quiet fan ideally stock clocks. But you can get some monster CPU coolers with dual 120mm/140mm fans that cool better than the corsair systems. You just need the space!
Off the shelf closed loop, headroom for clocking whilst keeping noise down. Or to throw a spanner in the works - http://bit.ly/1xAzQmf which is very much like the corsair loop but you can change the fittings, tubes, dyes etc. And is pretty cheap :O
Full custom loop, more headroom for overclocking and you can tie in your GPU. And pretty colours if you want

Like Chaos said, you can get high spec now that's got low thermal output.

Gorion the AMD 295x2 had a closed loop system on it as standard, they needed it! You just needed a lottery win to buy them when they came out.