Need advise on Fan Cooling for my Athlon 64

Hi all.

I have a Athlon 64 processor, with a stock AMD cooling fan. At the moment the PC runs on load at appox 40-50C, which isn't an issue.

The issue is at full speed its really noisy and due to the temp I cannot even think about overclocking my CPU.

So my question is, can anyone recommend what is the current best on the market CPU Fan cooling for Athlon 64 processors?

I'm not interested in Water cooling mind you.

What I'm looking for is a fan that is good at cooling and much Quieter the my stock cooler?

Thanks in advance.

Hi m8, this is currently one if not the best air coolers on the market, and very cheap too.

http://www.arctic-cooling.com/cpu2.php?idx=10&disc

A friend of mine swears by this one...

http://shop4.outpost.com/product/4879250

18-24 dB operating modes, otherwise go with these guys, they make uber quite coolers...

http://www.arctic-cooling.com/

quite a few online retailers carry them, including new-egg.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16835185125
That ones arguably the best one out there right now.

LOL @ Cannon... Yup!

Usually Arctic cooling compound + a zalman works.

I'm using the Artic Cooling Freezer Pro 64 on my overclocked Athlon64 3200+ 'Venice' and under full load it never exceeds 35C.

What's your Venice clocked at Azagoth?, I have an x2 3800 under mine, and it clocks stable at 2.8, and temp never goes above 42 -43 degrees.

I paid about £13 for mine, one hell of a bargain

At the moment it's 2.4Ghz but I've had it at 2.6Ghz before and running stable. Slightly warmer, 40C under full load, but stable nontheless.

Panaflo or Delta. Look at all of the signatures of AMD over clockers.

Also when you post temps also post room temps.

Wow, yours stable at 2.8^^

mine can't even go over 2.3 before the Motherboard bios update.

Yup, its a DFI lanparty motherboard, best 939 motherboard around for overclocking in my opinion It will boot into windows at 2.9 but wont benchmark and crashes, but at 2.8 its rock solid stable.

I own and operated a successful PC business for a number of years. Now that I am in college, I haven't the time nor the space for that anymore, but the knowledge remains.

As a professional recommendation, I would not give you an opinion without first knowing a few more pieces of information.

1). What is the stock speed of your processor?

2). What is the model of the processor (including AMD scale and socket type)

3). What type of core is it? (Winchester, Clawhammer, Venice, Manchester, Toledo, Windsor, San Diego, Orleans, Newcastle just to name them for ya).

Use Newegg.com to find out the core type, and then I will pass on a recommendation to you based on the above info.

Thanks in Advance,

Rahja.

so this Freezer 64 Pro... does it make a lot of noise?

No, it's very nearly silent. Trust me, you'll definately notice the difference over the stock AMD heatsink and fan. The first few day's after I installed mine I had to keep checking to see if the thing was working it was that quiet.

I'm currently running Zalman CNPS7700-Cu and I must say it's perfect. It comes with adjustable RPM speed switch. My CPU is at 30C all the time and it goes to 37C when I play games like Guild Wars on max Graphics. Here are some results:


Max RPM


Min RPM

At min RPM it makes no sound at all. It's pretty quiet at 2.4k too. At least more quiet than stock cooling. I had to buy this because my computer went to above 60C all the time and the plastic on stock fan started hitting the heatsink so it sounded as if a propeller plane is taking off in my room. I keep it at max RPM at all times. Now the only problem is that you have to clean dust every 3 months or so, else it doesn't cool that well. Btw you should specify your socket number too. Is it 754 or 939?

I have this cooler Zalman and I think it's pretty quiet.. Comes with an adjustable fan speed switch. It's quieter than my 80mm fan(s).


Looks pretty wicked too

My first question when I read this is "What about the case?"

The mistake a lot of people make when designing (or building) a system is to not take full consideration of the case. A poorly designed case can add over 10 degrees centigrade.

The Athlon 64 is a rather hot processor, simply because of the speed. Unless your case has at least 3 80mm cooling fans (1-2 front, 1-2 rear, 0-1 side, 0-1 top), I would consider making a change there. And if you have space to put in a fan, put it in. I call fans "cheap insurance". $5-10 is a lot easier to spend, then $100 because your motherboard overheated and blew the capacitors.

And this is my biggest problem with the "Big Name" computer makers. Dell, HP, Compaq, Gateway, they all have lousy cases, with insufficient cooling capability. However, this is easily fixed, by simply moving the components into a better quality case. Most good case/power supply combinations cost from $75-100.

There are a lot of very good aftermarket CPU coolers out there. A recent development is the "close system water cooling" units. This is where there is a small radiator attached to a CPU cooler. Since the system is closed, you never need to add coolent. Simply replace the current cooler with the unit. Some are one piece, where the radiator sits on top. Others are 2 piece, where the radiator replaces your current exhaust fan. These are not good for overclocking, but are great to lower the CPU temp in normal operation.

I work full time as a PC tech, and have over 18 years of experience at it. And roughly 70% of premature system failure always tends to come from either overheating because of poor case design, poor quality parts, or overworking an under-wattage power supply. If your Athlon 64 system does not have at least a 350-400 watt power supply, I would recommend replacing it. Otherwise you may have a ruined motherboard in just a few months. That is another place where the big box companies take shortcuts. I have seen HP systems die in less then 6 months, because they ship with 200 watt supplies.

@Mushroom, mate, this is about a cpu cooler, RTS asked what is the best air cooler, and we have answered, of course the case does count, but that is not the topic of discussion here.

And what makes you think AMD64 are hot processors?, the have alot better heat management than intel chips(Well not as much since Core duo chips). As mentioned my Amd X2 3800 is overclocked by 800mhz per core with air cooling, and the temp never rises above 43c under full load, and thats with an arctic cooler 64 on it.

As RTS never asked about case or case cooling this is irellevent to the topic.

They are no hotter then a similar Intel processor. But the majority of Athlons are in excess of 3 GHz, that makes them much hotter then CPUs we used just 2 years ago. I use one myself. But cooling is something that has to be considered when you use any processor that fast (or faster).

And the reason I brought up the case, is that could easily be the cause of her overheating. If the case does not "breathe" properly, that will increase interior and CPU temps. In that situation, no matter what cooler you put on will help much, because the interior ambient temp is to high to cool much.

And it is relevant, if that is causing the CPU overheat. If you close all the doors and windows to a hot room, simply turning on a fan will not make that room any cooler.

No Athlon is clocked at 3GHz... Better double check AMDs statistics Mushroom. The highest clocked core is the 90nm Windsor core found on the dual core AM2 Athlon FX-62. However, I do agree with Mushroom, adequate case cooling is essential to a good PC and processor cooling. So Firebat, I would recommend looking at your case cooling also.


But, my personal recommendation is as follows:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16835118115

Just remember though... its not just the cooler, its the thermal inferface you use also. Try this.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16835100401

Warning, it is very thick and hard to apply. GL.

-Rahja.

one of theese beasts

http://www.kustompcs.co.uk/acatalog/info_2604.html

or a thermaltake big typhoon

http://www.kustompcs.co.uk/acatalog/info_2629.html

Yes, there are alot of issue that can take place when talking about cooling. I think bringing up the box specs is valid, but if he's in a room that has no a/c and he's runnning it 90 degrees that can have an impact as well. Whats his power supply? Does he have western digital, seagate, etc. drives installed? Is he running 2 ati 1800's? Lots of stuff can account for heating issues... Just in that he's looking for a fan is a good place to start and most likely enough to meet his needs.

I have the alCu version of that heatsink and it has similar performance to the Cu.

I go by the "Processor Number", and just call that the speed. And that is fairly common. Most of our CPUs have done one form of trickery or another in CPU speed rating for years now. By going by the common speed rating, it lets you compare them equally, without going into the minutia of "core speed Vs clock speed Vs system performance". And an AMD 754/939 3500+ performs just like an Intel P4 3500. And it runs just as hot as well.

And many times, I have seen one problem get misdiagnosed as another. They have a low-end video card, and think a faster CPU will help. Or the CPU is to low to do what they want, so they think more RAM will solve the problem. Or have no video, and think a video card will help, not realizing every capacitor on the board is blown, and the unit is DOA. And even more recently, trying to save money by putting their new Pentium Dual Core in a case circa 1998.

When I approach a problem, I often look back, and consider things I have seen in the past. And since I can not see the unit in question, I start back at some of the basics that people miss. If the box is not maxed out with fans, it can be easier and cheaper to add 1-3 80mm fans then to replace the CPU cooler. I see systems that come in my shop every week that are missing most or all of their fans.