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Air-cooling setup (need help)

T

Tunasam

n00b
Joined
Jun 28, 2005
Messages
37
I'm in the process of putting together this system:
Antec P180 Case
Antec TruePower II 550W PSU
Asus A8N-SLI Premium
BFG 7800GTX
2 GB Corsair DDR Memory
Maxtor Diamondmax 300 GB HD
Generic DVD-RW
SoundBlaster Audigy

Now the process Im debating on buying is the AMD A64 X2 4200+ because of its price to overclock abilty ratio.

If you read on anandtech, you can easily turn a 4200+ into a 4800+ and beyond on air cooling.

Is this case, with 3 120MM fans (is there a 4th? cant remember) and an 80mm slot for the video card with that weird black side cooling thing, going to be good enough to OC the 4200+?

Ive read there isnt much room with the P180 and the A8N Premium (Im not going to SLI just yet, maybe around X-Mas) so what CPU cooler would be the best? Also, I havent pickd up the extra 120MM fan or 80MM and I wa wondering what the best out there is, I dont care about noise, I want a cool system.

Your thoughts on my setup, the 4200+, and the cooling stuff would be greatly appreciated :)

-Tuna
 
Disclamer, I dont own that case, have been busy lately and had not investigated it so your post made me wonder and I looked at the drawing here:
http://www.antec.com/pdf/drawings/P180_manual_techdata.pdf

I really really really like the design of this case !!! There is only one thing I might not like and without one to play with I cant be sure, I will get to that in a moment.


What I like, With the power supply below you should have no trouble with power supply interference mounting as big a cooler as you can buy. (as to cooler vs motherboard components vs video cards clearance you would have to check the coolers website.) I like the way they made platform for the power supply to sit on so if it has a bottom fan it will be usefull.

4 120 mm fans - one in middle of the power supply compartment, one lower front of motherboard compartment, one top of motherboard compartment, one rear of motherboard compartment.

hmmm might have a bit of a flow balance problem there, 2 blowing out (top and rear) with only one blowing in in motherboard compartment. Not sure there is room to mount a "thick" 38mm fan with high cfm air flow in the front which would help balance the airflow. You really should have more cfm in that going out when sizing your fans so you dont suck air in all the cracks etc. A fan controller might be helpfull as you could adjust speeds and do the "smoke" test. Adjust speeds so that the case does not suck smoke from a cig into cracks. Taking to time to think about the sizing and fan placement and getting the proper fans in the proper places would be better imo.

Wonderfull opportunites to later mod the case for water cooling, The bottom PSU compartment seems nicely suited for that that as well as opportunites at the top rear to mount external rad.

Hard drives mount right in front of nice 120mm fan without a bunch of restrictive sheetmetal in the way. yummy !


Only worry is that the front panel will not allow good airflow for the front fans. Cant tell from the drawing but the small space at the bottom of the panel and what might be small vents along the side is not a lot of open area for 2 x 120mm fans to draw air from. Could be easily modded if you could stand to cut the pretty front panel to let those fans breath. Closer look shows small vents running up the length of both sides of the front fascia, might not be too bad but I still would want those fans to breath a bit easier. I am crazy about airflow.

No comment on the other stuff, I think the case is extreamly nice.

ohhh looks like a LONG way from the PS to the power connector of the mother board. Might worry about that a bit. Pretty sure someone makes a 24 pin PC power cable extender. Cant remember where I saw it, sorry.

I hope the top baffle/diverter for the top mounted fan is metal. Be a shame to mess up such a nice case with cheesy plastic.

Oh the weird side cooling slot thing is just a plastic holder for their "tool box" check the drawing in the link above and you will see. It can be easly removed according the the drawing and I would rip it out first thing. :D

Still all in all one of the top case designs I have seen lately. Now wonder what that beast costs ? $140 ish without power supply, Not bad at all for all those features. Have not seen anything better at that price in a mid tower and I look for cases suited for overclocking all the time for my customers.



One final comment, I dont think you could do much better than this case for air cooling a dual die chip and if you did do better it would cost a ton of money. But, if you really really want to OC the crap out of that dual chip, I would go watercooling to start with. I am a bit worried about the rear and top fans starving the cpu cooler or messing up its designed airflow, there will be a lot of fairly powerfull fans ending up in the upper left part of the motherboard compartment. Not too sure how well they will play together, Perhaps even try the rear fan sucking in if it ends up lining up with the cpu cooler. Lots of options
 
wow, what a case! It looks like there is room for 2x 120mm fans on the front! Can it be true?!?!

Hmm, wwparrish, do you think a 120.2 radiator would work in the front of the case? Right now I have the Cooler Master Stacker slated as my watercooling case, because I haven't been able to find another suitable case to put a 120.2 rad in w/o modding. It's an ok case, but I would prefer to be able to get something smaller.
 
wow good question Russ ! Going to take another look tonight sure wish the drawing had some dimensions on it. I have a bonneville core sitting right here looking for a home. Pretty sure it would take some cutting, but I think you are right !!!

wth didnt I think of that. :p
 
hmm seems I was wrong, that is a weird fan duct over the card slots. Still, just held on with a couple of screws, bye bye.
 
I think a 2 x120 core would fit easily in the front. You would have to hack up the floppy drive bay but there seems to be room to get a jigsaw in there with touchup by a dremel. Of course you would loose the lower drive bay, but it looks very do-able with plenty of room for the pump in the lower compartment. Down side is the loss of the HD drive bay but there is still room up top for 4 drives.

I am still not happy with the airflow problems the closed front facsia causes. I would probally cut a fairly large rectangle in the front and dress it up with some aluminum speaker grill.
 
what about just opening the door in the front? Would that fix the airflow problem?

Also, can someone send me some NewEgg Links for cooling supplies? Which CPU cooler, and which 120MM fan should I get?

Are the Tri-Cool Antec stock fans good enough to OC the X2 4200+ a little? Or should I replace all of those too?

Thanks for the input guys.

-Tuna
 
First I'll give you my suggestions for hsf: scythe ninja, xp-90, xp-120. Now here's a great review of 16 different hsf w/various fans compared to stock amd hsf. Hope that helps.
 
And as for the fans, panaflos move a ton of air, as do the tornados if you can stand the noise. I recently got the TT and they move a lot of air with very little noise. (the blue leds also lot nice in my case) :p Thunderblade

I'm also thinking about the TT Tsunami case .....looks like a good aluminum case w/plenty of room.
 
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