X-Qpack efficient cooling solution on air

[Zap [PCGO]]

Hi folks,

Well, so I decided to move from server case with 5 fans(old system before lappy) to a Q-Pack with one fan.

It's gonna sport 2x 7200rpm harddrive, Radeon x1900xt, Opteron 165 (shoot to OC to 2.5ghz), tforce6100-939.

Now my processor and ram hasn't come from monarch yet, so I can't fire her up and see, but I've been worried about heat issue. I was told that SFF will be much hotter than normal sized pc(well duh haha), so how does everyone go about cooling it on air?

What I mean is that the system will have 1x 120mm default rear fan, Zalman 7000B for cpu, and stock cooler for the x1900xt.

I wanna ask about little things like, how much difference does it make if the zalman fan blows UP from the cpu than DOWN onto the cpu... if the fan can be flipped at all? Should I have the 120mm fan do INTAKE or should it be OUTTAKE?

Any tips and tricks on cooling with this set up? The stuff I ordered seem to be very popular, so maybe someone else has a similar or same set up that can share me your experience such as results and temperaturs and such?

I certainly don't want to have 2 hdds producing heat along w/ an overclocked opty 165 and the x1900xt to make my system unstable due to insufficient cooling...

Thanks!

PS: I've ALWAYS had this question -- would I experience problem (if at all) if I stick an ATI video card into an nVidia chipset motherboard?

 

[WarlordOne]

On high the exhaust fan does a great job of pulling air in through the side vents and the vent by the handle. You may be surprised by how well it does. The only issue is that the120mm is Noisy! Running @ WOT it's annoying. I keep mine @ 43% and allow 63% when temps rise but, I'm using a Mobile processor and that rarely happens.

I would try running everything in normal configuration note the temp and then start tweaking things. Like switching the exhaust fan into an intake and such. But, I don't think you'd gain anything without adding more fans, vents, etc.