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Except each 285 has it's own cooler. The 295 shares it's cooler between two chips. Sure, the cooler is probably more efficient, but there's a limit to the amount of heat you can remove with just air in a two-slot cooler, and you'll hit that limit a lot sooner with a 295 than a 285.

Yeah, I was going to mention that, but you beat me to the punch. :) Anyway, this is exactly why you need one of these. Custom designed for solving the above mentioned problem.

jdb2

Case: Koolance PC4-1036
Motherboard: Tyan Thunder n3600M
Raid: 3ware 9650SE-24M8
Hard Drives Seagate 750GB
RAM water cooled
Power supply: Koolance 1200W

Case: Koolance PC4-1036
Motherboard: Tyan Thunder n3600M
Raid: 3ware 9650SE-24M8
Hard Drives Seagate 750GB
RAM water cooled
Power supply: Koolance 1200W

Koolance has had liquid ram coolers available for some time now. Granted, it's not integrated directly, but this is hardly a new idea

You mean like this? I can't find any hard drives with built in water blocks but there are plenty of after market ones. In fact there are water cooling blocks for damn near everything; voltage regulators, north/southbridge, RAM, hard drives, etc... I'm only pulling from koolance but there are many after market water cooling kits for everything that produces noticeable heat.

You mean like this? I can't find any hard drives with built in water blocks but there are plenty of after market ones. In fact there are water cooling blocks for damn near everything; voltage regulators, north/southbridge, RAM, hard drives, etc... I'm only pulling from koolance but there are many after market water cooling kits for everything that produces noticeable heat.

You mean like this? I can't find any hard drives with built in water blocks but there are plenty of after market ones. In fact there are water cooling blocks for damn near everything; voltage regulators, north/southbridge, RAM, hard drives, etc... I'm only pulling from koolance but there are many after market water cooling kits for everything that produces noticeable heat.

You mean like this? I can't find any hard drives with built in water blocks but there are plenty of after market ones. In fact there are water cooling blocks for damn near everything; voltage regulators, north/southbridge, RAM, hard drives, etc... I'm only pulling from koolance but there are many after market water cooling kits for everything that produces noticeable heat.

You mean like this? I can't find any hard drives with built in water blocks but there are plenty of after market ones. In fact there are water cooling blocks for damn near everything; voltage regulators, north/southbridge, RAM, hard drives, etc... I'm only pulling from koolance but there are many after market water cooling kits for everything that produces noticeable heat.

http://www.koolance.com/shop/default.php?cPath=29_ 56&osCsid=28547a1202b3942d29d4a39bc4ed1984

rj

Ya, leaks suck. My Koolance setup has been great for about three years, except with I over tighened the fill plug and it was leaking outside the case. There was no threat to my machine, just had to replace the resovoir. As for your leaky water blocks. SOrry to say, but you must have had some really cheap connectors on it or or peiced together your own hose, fasteners and blocks from different sources. http://www.koolance.com/shop/product_info.php?cPat h=29_44&products_id=114 is just one example of the blocks I use. The hose gets pushed on the end and then the metal fastener screws on top of the hose. There is no way it will come off or leak unless you loosen the fastener.

As an early adopter of SLI and the 6800GT series cards, all I have to say is FUCK YOU NVIDIA! :P

I had to buy this:
http://www.koolance.com/shop/product_info.php?cPat h=28_41&products_id=267

and two of these: http://www.koolance.com/shop/product_info.php?cPat h=29_46&products_id=174

just to make it work at all. Fans did NOT work.

At least with their new power efficiency they are finally ready for the mainstream market.

As an early adopter of SLI and the 6800GT series cards, all I have to say is FUCK YOU NVIDIA! :P

I had to buy this:
http://www.koolance.com/shop/product_info.php?cPat h=28_41&products_id=267

and two of these: http://www.koolance.com/shop/product_info.php?cPat h=29_46&products_id=174

just to make it work at all. Fans did NOT work.

At least with their new power efficiency they are finally ready for the mainstream market.

Koolance http://www.koolance.com/shop/default.php?cPath=28_ 43 has some great cases, though they stay with the blocky cases they do a very nice job of integrating the radiator, resevior, pumps and fans cleanly into the case. They look like the cases are custom built by Koolance even though they are standard cases that are modified.

The best thing they offer is temperature monitoring hardware that will increase the fan speed when the temp starts climing and will shut down the PC if it goes past the limit (very nice if something breaks down it will shut it off before letting it roast). I got one from them for an Athalon 1ghz CPU that would idle at 120f, with this system it would idle at around 85f and wouldn't get over 105f unless I had the wood-stove stoked (in which case the room temp was over 100).

When I do my next upgrade I'll be getting a new case from them to go with it, even if the CPU I get doesn't generate all that much heat.

While a freon-style coolant based system running with no compressor (as implied in the parent) wouldnt be very effective, there are some compressor based systems. Most notably is the asetek vapochill which is a compressor-driven phase change cooler hooked up to a CPU pad. The same company makes widgets that are essencally case-sized airconditioners. These are NOT low-noise solutions like water cooling though, as compressors (think of a refridgerator or airconditioner) are loud.
As for using another liquid in a compressorless system, there really isnt anything practical that would work better. Of sane materials, water is best, the only liquid (at room temperature) more thermally conductive than water is Mercury, and that would be very heavy, and pose a substantal health risk. Koolance provides a good explination of this situation from the perspective of computer cooling. The coolest ones are that inert 3M material they show that is ALLMOST as thermally conductive as water, and completely inert (safe if it gets on your system, and even for submersion cooling, unfortunately the stuff costs about $500/gallon).

A good end-user
You can give me all the excuses you want, but it comes down to this - Macs cost so much more because they:
1) use chips that regularly cost several hundered dollars more than equivalently powered end-user chips, even at warehouse pricing (for high end PCs),
2) Apple spends an awful lot of money developing new manufacturing techniques for physical "pretty",
3) Apple benefits from the inherent elitism of their users, allowing them to charge more for the hardware with no questions asked, while claiming that any price drop is a "discount".
4) Apple spends more money on developing specialized hardware than is strictly required. In reality, a custom BIOS is all that's needed to lock the OS against all but the most dedicated geeks from arbitrary platform-compatible hardware, but Apple gets a bit more tenacious about this and it affects their R&D costs in a Bad Way.

I believe that ATI should have taken the lead here and included this or simular cooler in their reference design for the X800 series. Unlike a muscle car, a gaming rig should be QUIET. When you're dealing with a very expensive $500+ card a great deal of attention should also be put on the cooler. If it ends up costing more, so be it...at this price point they should not be stingy with anything.

No matter how good this cooler seems to be it will still only be as good as the best air coolers. This card works but still hovers at very high temperatures. I've just purchased this: http://www.newegg.com/app/viewProductDesc.asp?desc ription=14-102-502&depa=1
with this cooler: http://www.koolance.com/shop/product_info.php?prod ucts_id=175

Watercooling solves any issues that heat can cause.
The system also cools an AMD643400+(1MB), 7 250GB Maxtor (7y250P0), Asus Board and has a hose to cool off my lower power HTPC. It's quiet, it is small, it is a very good all around solution that never gets above 102f idle/116f load.

and I'd add the following caveats.

Looooong build time. I have one of the black models with the top-mounted fans, and it took the longest to build of ANY computer I've built. Like most of the geeks here, I build my own systems, and occasionally systems for colleagues/friends. Once you've built a few dozen systems, you can throw them together in record time... not the Koolance. The koolance literally took me most of the day to assemble, due to some unforseen mounting problems (see below).

Not silent... in fact, it's downright obnoxious on the high-speed setting (though you don't notice it with your headphones on, playing a bit of HL2-Deathmatch). To be fair, however, the cooling performance is quite good... the GPU temps on my 6800GT hardly budge, even while 3D gaming on maximum settings.

And while we're talking about cooling the GPU... they only recently came up with a decent waterblock for the Nvidia 6800 line of graphics cards. Prior to that new waterblock I just linked, you could cool the GPU with their combo chipset/video waterblock, but not the memory. Also note that their prior "video/chipset" waterblock would NOT fit the 6800's mounting holes... I had to gently enlarge the mounting holes in the graphic card by hand with a drill bit. If you think enlarging holes in a big-bucks graphics card like that isn't disconcerting, you're a richer man than I.

So now they've made a custom waterblock for those graphics cards... I have NO idea if they've fixed the mounting holes/screws size mismatch yet.

So $540 + shipping for a case that you can't even buy without the gay window in it. No thanks.

I have to agree. Watercooling is a sure way to quiet things down, especially if you're overclocking and therefore using monster fans on your CPU and GPU. I bought a Koolance Exos and was able to get rid of the fans on my CPU, GPU and one blowing over my overclocked memory since case temps are way down. Went from listening to an airplane to listening to my hard drives.

Get a koolance solution. It's not even necessarily DIY anymore.

I'd say, find a mom and pop shop where they don't come off as used car salesmen, and see what they can hook you up with. Assuming you don't want to build it yourself.

You can with Koolance. People told me I didn't need liquid cooling when I bought my koolance case, but we keep seeing more and more articles pointing towards liquid cooling in the future.

There's more to watercooling than just staying cool; there's staying cool QUIETLY.

I run a pair of Athlon MP 2000+'s in a Lian-Li case. I started out with a pair of stock fans, but the thing ran WAY hot - my BIOS halted the system twice before I got the picture. So I replaced the stock fans with a pair of Antec Tornados, or Hurricanes, or Freight Trains, whatever they were, kept those processors at a decent temperature, but the noise was unbelievable.

I've since switched to Koolance's awesome Exos watercooling system. My CPU cores sit at about 35 C in this unbelievably hot non-air-conditioned room (about 32 C in here now) with the fans just a hair above minimum. I bought the system with the sole intent of minimizing noise and it's been perfect for the task.

Annoyingly loud systems are not just a new phenomenon, either; I recall many a time my parents shutting down the old P2/300 so they could watch a movie on the TV in the same room. While not obnoxious, its noise level was irritating.

As for the bragging rights, I like to brag to people that don't know me too well that I've personally extended my own lifespan, without going into detail and mentioning that my roommates would kill me if I had kept the old fans. n_n

There's more to watercooling than just staying cool; there's staying cool QUIETLY.

I run a pair of Athlon MP 2000+'s in a Lian-Li case. I started out with a pair of stock fans, but the thing ran WAY hot - my BIOS halted the system twice before I got the picture. So I replaced the stock fans with a pair of Antec Tornados, or Hurricanes, or Freight Trains, whatever they were, kept those processors at a decent temperature, but the noise was unbelievable.

I've since switched to Koolance's awesome Exos watercooling system. My CPU cores sit at about 35 C in this unbelievably hot non-air-conditioned room (about 32 C in here now) with the fans just a hair above minimum. I bought the system with the sole intent of minimizing noise and it's been perfect for the task.

Annoyingly loud systems are not just a new phenomenon, either; I recall many a time my parents shutting down the old P2/300 so they could watch a movie on the TV in the same room. While not obnoxious, its noise level was irritating.

As for the bragging rights, I like to brag to people that don't know me too well that I've personally extended my own lifespan, without going into detail and mentioning that my roommates would kill me if I had kept the old fans. n_n

Something like this?

You mean like these guys did?

weylin

Water cooling!

It's certainly different, using water to carry off and circulate the heat. Obviously, it requires a large degree of trust, as one leak can short out your entire system in a heartbeat. I've been around these beasts, and they certainly seem quiet enough.

I imagine they would be great for overclockers :D

I'm not sure I understand exactly what you're trying to say, but I think I've got it. It doesn't actually take all that much power, esp. compared to some other components, to cool a case. Koolance cases, for example, only use about 10W. See: Koolance FAQ. Hope that helped.

Thanks. :)

I did a bit more surfing and found it, that's a pretty nice thing, all metal-brushed like that, looks nicer than the Klax one too, but I don't think the site I'm looking at (watercooling.de) stocks the Koolance block, and it would be expensive if I have to get it from outside of Germany. Aah, Koolance does have partners in Germany, it's just that their menu doesn't show up in Opera, made me wonder how I was supposed to get into their Product Listing.

I bought a case from Koolance a couple of weeks ago because my new dual Athlon MP 2000+ was so noisy (I could hear it from everywhere in the house). The high-rpm fans on the CPUs made a lot of noise, and I had to leave the case open because the temperature inside got so high it caused a hard drive to fail after one night of operation (apparently heat makes hard disk failures more likely).

Koolance systems have a large radiator on top of the case, where three large fans blow the air out of the case through it. Accessories include CPU coolers, chipset coolers (for motherboard and graphics card), and hard drive coolers so that you don't need additional fans in your case in addition to the radiator fans and the power supply fans.

I took me several hours to assemble the system (in particular because you have to apply some kind of gap filler to your hard drive's PCB and let it dry - scary at first but apparently quite efficient and innocuous), but I can now say that it was worth it: the machine looks great, is quiet and cold. It's on the expensive side though, about $350 for the case with accessories (2 CPU coolers, 1 drive cooler, 1 second hard drive kit) without a power supply.

I built my latest system with one and it's been running like a champ. Dumps a lot of heat into the room though. I recommend them if you're interested in having a quieter system. Especially if you can build your own system, but don't feel up to doing your own water system.

I'd like to make some comments from the point of the research I've done so far on this subject, in relation to some of the things you've said.

First, on hard drive failure:
Hard drives fail. This seems obvious to me, I was a network admin in college and I saw a lot of hard drives fail. Pity the poor fool who tries to transport them.. click click, click click.
My Tip: Burn. CD burners are cheap, reliable, and the media is super cheap. Yeah, an entire movie won't fit on on CD. But you won't be playing from the CD, the idea is merely to have a copy on permanent media in case of HD failure - then put it back on the new HD when you get it. So, make sure you have your media box hooked to your LAN and copy those files to your CD burning machine. No burner? Buy one. - Note: My Pine drive shipped with Nero full version, thus I recommend buying one, because otherwise I would have bought it seperately anyway.

Noise:
Computers are noisy. This is probably the biggest hurdle to overcome in a entertainment center pc.
My Tip: abandon convention. To combat noise, I'm looking at using a specialized watercooled case. I realize this case doesn't fit the traditional entertainment device size/configuration - but I've abandoned that notion and just committed myself to buying the quietest setup I can find and figuring out a way set up my entertainment center around it so that it doesn't look out of place. I have to admit, at first, a "dumb terminal" type setup seems like a good idea, but most of the stuff has to run from the client, not the server. You basically aren't buying yourself any help because your powerful video card and processor have to be on the client anyway, and those cause heat - so even a dumb terminal is going to be noisy.

TIVO Functionality:
A must-have. Clearly an entertainment PC is only going to be more than a fancy looking DVD player if you include video capture and playback.
My Tip: ATI All-in-Wonder. The ATI All-in-Wonder is still the best video capture card on the market. Note that it comes with a remote. NVidia has one now, but reviews are not as glowing. Program guides for both are free.

Output:
TV resolutions aren't very good. My research suggests that even new, fancypants TVs resolution isn't good enough to use for a computer.
My Idea (not advice): projector. Currently I'm considering buying a high resolution computer projector for about the same cost as a very nice TV (a.k.a $2,000-$3,000). I've seen one of these at one of the places I've worked, and I was impressed. It showed both a 1024x768 computer screen and DVD playback very well. (Comon, I *HAD* to play a DVD on it!) The only issue here is obviously light - projection does not work well in a room with a lot of light. Even though otherwise this is an ideal solution (huge screen, relatively low cost, high res) - I'm not sure I can live with the tradeoff. I imagine for normal TV viewing I will still go with the regular TV I already own. My super-sneaky idea for a "close" monitor - build a flap to come up closer to the projector. I doubt the text would be readable, though. I'm still mulling over the possibilities.

Koolance has been building this type of system for quite a while now. The parts are almost identical except Koolance incorporates the radiator at the top of the case with with 'blowhole' fans moving the air and a digital temperature readout. Their more recent designs are modified Antec/Chieftec/Alienware tower cases (you can even get them with a window... geez...). The original cases were somewhat more impressive as they incorporated a liquid-cooled power supply as well. One amusing 'coming soon' product on their website is a liquid-cooled 1U case. I keep imagining a whole rack of these units and one word springs to mind: waterfall.

I've been running a Koolance PC2-601 case for a month now and love it. It's an Antec SX1030 with a fully-integrated watercool system. No milk jugs and aquarium pumps here, and a full-size radiator that can handle anything, and a CLOSED water system.

I'm oc'ing an Athlon 1800 XP to 2100 and it's holding 36c at the lowest fan speed. It's also cooling the MB chip, Nvidia chip, and two hard drives. Amazing. The Koolance is so madly overbuilt it's hilarious. Two pumps for backup, a sweet control panel, and no ungainly hoses sticking out of the case.

Best of all, the system itself is almost silent! I can't hear the pumps at all, and the top fans spin so slow as to be a whisper. The power supply fan drowns out the whole thing.

Tired of messing with crazy hoses and, uh, cotton string? Pony up the whopping $275. Given that a regular SX1030 is almost half that, it's a hell of a deal. The smaller version is even cheaper. I'm sick of hearing that pro watercooling is expensive or difficult. I finally have a fast machine that doesn't sound like a vacuum cleaner, and it's not like I broke the bank.

I own a manufactured liquid cooled case. The performance is excellent and at 350 wtih powersupply, was really fairly reasonable. If you're interested in liquid cooling the case has performed in a superb manner. (keeping the 2000+ sitting it it at around 120f. When I get the new 200w cooling unit I expect it to drop even lower, as the fluid temp is still only 10f above room temp.

In answer to the obvious question, no I'm not planning on overclocking, because unlocking the palamino clock is too much trouble. for those interested in the case I purchased it can be found at Koolance I got the 602 which is a modded antec case, that antec claims is a soho fileserver case.

If you didn't want to go with water-cooling, (such as ripping apart a koolance 1U case), you could instead just go with a convection-cooled style case similar to the Mac cube (iCube?).

Plycon sells a nice assortment of different heat-syncs, the one you would be particularly insterested in is this one, it's designed to use a moving air current to cool the CPU rather than a direct fan. If your using a slower or underclocked CPU, it probably won't take very much to keep it cool.

Your biggest problem will most likely be finding room for a large enough heat-sync that doesn't require a fan of some sort.

Hey Cliff, the link is incorrect.

Easy choice for cooling a small case. Get a liquid cooling system like one from Koolance. It would be quiet and cheap and sounds like what you want. But I don't think Koolance offers solutions for small cases so try a different company. Liquid cooling is the most efficient way of cooling a small case so go with it. Then you can add a fast processor, hard drive, and other extras and not worry about heat.

Check out Koolance for a similar product that's been out for over a year now, they're up to the 2nd revision that's much safer and elegant than the original POS.

Liquid-cooled PC cases have been around for a while.
Here are some links to other companies that sell them:

Koolance
Ioport
PC Case Gear

And, by the way, here's how to build your own computer water cooler.

Here's one made in the United States and is highly regarded by many OCers and it looks better IMO.

http://www.koolance.com/

Koolance have been doing this for the past year or so. Their cases look *alright*, but not great :( They have two models, the 'silent' model and the overclockers model. Both are at least "pretty decent." [H]ard OCP have a review of the first one, and I think the overclockers model too.

If you want something for the higher-end CPUs, Koolance has had a pre-built waterblock tower case for a few months now. Try one of those.

For $200, just get a Koolance PC2-C case. Cools perfectly, huge capacity, pre-assembled solution. I got one a month ago, and it is wonderful. Plus, it comes in a very nice-looking case, with a space for the tank, radiator, fans, etc very nicely planned out. Plus, they offer hard drive and video chipset coolers as add-ons that you can simply put in-line.

Better yet, go with the case sold from Koolance.com It's a liquid cooled setup. This will be my next case/cooling solution. My friend got one a couple months back. I couldn't believe how quiet it was. And for about $200, this is a nice setup. He raves about the low (and stable) temperatures in his system. He also moves his system around a lot, so it's a pretty sturdy setup.

... familiar. Anyways, here are some obligatory links:

Koolance
Overclockers.com
[H]ard|OCP

I build myself a quiet PC about 18 months ago. It has been upgraded a bit since (only the fans - they do get lounder as they get older and a new fan is not that expensive). The only thing that I can hear right now is the IBM Deskstar 7200RPM harddrive. I seriously consider switching those out with one of the new Seagate ultra quiet Barracuda IV disks which is mentioned somewhere in this thread also. Here is what I have:

Case: I bought a Noisecontrol case. They aren't cheap, but they are pretty okay and have a "door" in front of the your CD-drive which takes away a lot of the noise. I'm pretty happy with the board

Fans: I'm using fans from Papst (they are mentioned somewhere here also. They are great and I highly recommend them!) As said before, I can only hear my harddisk now, if I pull the plug in the harddisk, I can't hear my PC, even with the case open it's practically quiet.

You could also watercool your PC, Koolance is looking pretty okay and their latest version have gotten pretty good reviews.

Some people says that noise is not a problem and they don't think the noise from the computer is a problem. I think they haven't tried to use a quiet PC. You get used to the noise that comes from you PC, which makes you more or less ignore it, but when you first try a quiet PC - you don't want to go back!

Besides that, I plan on upgrading my current Celeron with one of the new Athlon XP processors. I haven't upgraded yet, because boards with the new VIA KT266A chipset has just arrived and furthermore boards with the new Nvidia Nforce chipset is finally starting to arrive. The Nforce is currently looking pretty good imho. Take a look at this review.

Question: What is the most quiet CPU fan for an Athlon XP?

My question is: When are they going to come up with a heat sinking device that runs like the engine block on a car (I.E. the water/freon/liquid nitrogen/liquid helium/butane actually flows in channels built for it within a heatsink block) I've seen some research on such things. The problems are few and unique. You need the channels large enough to actually permit liquid to flow and never block, but small enough not to destroy the structural integrity of the chip. I've seen some research projects on this, and they are interesting, but not ready for the consumer by a long shot. They are, honestly, only a few times better than sticking that old heat sink on top-- and much cheaper. Unless, of course, you're talking about mail ordering something less novel but still highly nifty.

I was lucky enough to build an audio workstation for a friend of mine. The box needed to be very quiet - but due to SCSI length limits, I could not just run a KVM switch through the wall. I'd done a little watercooling of my own for the CPU, but koolance gave me some great ideas for cooling off things like HDDs & power supplies. Last I checked, koolance won't sell you a PS or HHD cooler alone, but they are not too hard to build if you have access to some simple milling equipment.

Anyhow, I got waterblocks for anything running hot and ran waterlines to another room for cooling. As long as the water is near room temp, you really don't have cond. issues...

Water cooling is just like building a PC for the first time. Use care... once you've done it once or twice, you wonder why everyone does not do it. Happy hacking.

• Liquid cooling. The Koolance and CALM System cases are the obvious examples, but for higher cooling capacity other folks have built liquid-cooling solutions that require few or no fans. (Pump noise is easier to deal with since you can enclose a pump in an airtight space.)
• External fans. Essentially, this approach is "don't eliminate fan noise, just put it somewhere else." An air duct or tube runs to the PC, and at the other end, possibly off in some entirely different room, is the fan.
• Fanless power supply. There are (generally fairly low-wattage) power supplies that dissipate their heat by convection. Typically you'd use one in a case where it's practical to cut or drill holes above the PS. I've seen talk, though not examples, of people putting two of these into one PC to get around the limited wattage; no idea if that'd be practical.
• High-wattage power supply. Get a 550W power supply with a temperature-regulated fan to power your low-wattage PC. The fan will tend to run at low speed since you won't be running anywhere close to capacity.
• Voltage reduction on fans. This works equally well for case fans, CPU fans, power supply fans, etc. The typical quick-and-dirty technique, though it's not ideal, is to splice in the 5V lead in place of the ground, effectively reducing fan voltage to 7V (assuming it was a 12V fan). The fan will spin more slowly, generating less noise.
• Underclocking. If you don't need a tip-top performance PC, reducing the CPU clock speed cuts down on heat. If you underclock far enough you don't even need separate CPU cooling at all. Same goes for graphics cards and, to a lesser extent, motherboard chipsets.

Just to name a few. And of course you typically want a low-RPM hard disk (though the new quiet Seagate drive sounds promising), low-rotation CD-ROM drive (use a drive with Zen's TrueX multibeam technology and you'll still have fast reads), etc.

Apple's iMac Cube is proof that it's possible to build a computer with no fans whatsoever. Hopefully it's a harbinger of things to come.