Cooling Advice - Air Cooled

Discussion in 'Overclocking & Cooling' started by nwdaddy, Jun 7, 2009.

  1. nwdaddy

    nwdaddy Geek Trainee

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    Hi Guys,
    I'm putting a new machine together and I'm currently deciding on components. So far this is what I have:

    Case: CoolerMaster ATX Cosmos S
    Motherboard: Gigabyte S1366 Intel X58 DDR3
    Processor: Intel HNehalem i7 920 S1366 2.66Ghz
    Memory: 12 GB - Corsair DDR3 1333Mhz
    HDD: 4X Seagate Barracuda 7200RPM SATA300 32MB
    LCD: Asus 24" Wide Screen
    Optical: LG 22X DVDRW SATA
    Other: I'm also going to add the additional 120mm fans to the case.
    Graphics: Not A clue

    The system will be used for occassional gaming (Command and Conquer 3) but it's main purpose will be as part of my home study lab. This will need to run a lot of virtual machines, windows server 2003, windows server 2008, Solaris, Linux, and some basis Windows XP Clients.

    I don't know what graphics card(s) to go for as I know nothing about this area of hardware - all suggestions welcome.

    My main concern is overheating, will this case and the 120mm fans be enough to cool this rig or will I have to go down the water cooling route? I've never worked with that before and I'm nervous about safety. Particularly because this machine will run 24x7.

    All comments welcome
     
  2. Zenskas

    Zenskas Geek Trainee

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    Hi there, that case is plenty good enough for your PC with air cooling. If you are not overclocking it will run very cool 24/7. All water cooling is going to do is add to costs, setup time, and ease of use for upgrading and if something goes wrong and needs replacing. As for graphics cards I see you are not into too much gaming so I would recommend either an ATI HD 4850 or lower (HD 4670) or an NVIDIA GeForce GTS 250 or lower (9800GT). Personally I would not mind getting myself a GTS 250 if that helps. It will play most any game on max settings on your 24inch monitor (since you are not playing crysis). Hope this helps.
     
  3. BoBBYI986

    BoBBYI986 Geek

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    Should be fine, just use an aftermarket CPU heatsink. For gaming Gts 250 is fine it's just a renamed 9 Series card. You gonna be using a UPS?
     
  4. Zenskas

    Zenskas Geek Trainee

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    Yeah an aftermarket CPU cooler will keep it cooler in most cases (although in my case going from a tiny stock cooler on my E7300 to an Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro did absolutely nothing to help the temperatures and if you are not overclocking, I can tell you the stock cooler with an i7 920 is plenty good enough).
    Just make sure if you are going to get a GTS 250 make sure it is a version with just one 6 pin power connector and not two. If it has two then it is exactly the same as a 9800GTX+. If it has just one 6 pin connector then it is the newer version with a shorter PCB, lower power consumption and lower heat production.
     

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