Rebuilding my Core 2 Duo, new case and heatsink (56k, I pitty you)
After running around 65°c on both cores, overclocked to 3.2GHz under full load (as measured by core temp 0.94), I deemed it to bee too hot for my liking, so I did what any responsible adult with a credit card would have done, spent some money and ordered a new case and heatsink. :bigggrin:
Ordered the parts from www.bigfootcomputers.com, and they once again impressed me with their price and service.
I built this system originally in an Antec Sonata II case.
My problem with the case was that I had to remove the 120mm fan that mounted on the back of the hard drive rails because my 8800GTX was too big and I only had a quarter inch or so of space between the end of the card and the drive rail, so the fan that was three quarters of an inch thick, had to be removed so the card would fit, leaving me with only a 120mm exhaust fan and the 80 and 92mm fans that fit into the ducts. The Sonata is a great case, but just didn't have enough cooling for an overclocked C2D system, an 8800GTX and 3 hard drives.
Enter the Thermalright Ultra 120. The pictures don't do this heatsink justice, it's big.
I took most of the heatsink pics with an AA battery in there for a size comparison. Very well finished, the bottom could have been better polished, but it was pretty good.
As you know, with most Thermalright heatsinks, they usually don't supply a fan, letting you chose what you want, slow and quiet, or a screamer. I thought I had added a 120mm 86cfm Panaflow fan, but I guess I just looked at it and didn't add it to my basket, so I grabbed the only 120mm fan I had kicking around. A UV reactive green one, 69cfm, 2400 rpm and 39dBa. I think on my next order I will get the Panaflow one, 17 more cfm, and 4dBa quieter.
Mounting the heatsink to the board required removing the old one (duh) and mounting the backplate that Thermalright supplied. The have parts for both Socket 775 and AMD 64 bit offerings (A64, Opteron, FX and X2). Parts also included the spring-loaded screws, the fan mounting brackets, a pair of anti-vibration rubber strips to go between the fan and the heatsink, a Thermalright sticker and a tube of their branded thermal paste (I didn't use theirs, choosing to go with Artic Silver 5).
After removing the board from the old case, removing the Intel supplied HSF combo and cleaning the old thermal paste from the top of the cpu with some rubbing alcohol, it was time to mount heatsink to the board. Going onto my Asus P5B was uneventful, the backplate went on good, no alignment issues, no clearance issues. I applied some AS5 to the cpu in a very thin layer. Positioned the heatsink over the cpu and then started doing up the spring loaded screws in a criss-cross pattern.
After positioning the fan clips, they just snap over the side of the fan that is closest to the heatsink, preventing any security issues with people wanting to use thicker or thinner 120mm fans.
Next up was the case. The Antec Nine Hundred. It doesn't seem that much bigger than the Sonata II, but the front intake fans that go in front of the drives as opposed to behind them, eliminates any clearance issues. The case does include a bracket that attaches to the back of one of the 2 removable 3 drive racks if you feel the need for more airflow. It can be positioned on either of the drive racks, which means that if your video card is really long (like an 8800GTX or 1950XTX), you can use the lower or higher rack, unless you're running SLi, in which case you'd be SOL. There is also a spot on the door that allows you to mount another 120mm fan, for a grand total of 5 120mm case fans and the 200mm fan on the top of the case.
The case comes standard with 2 front mounted 120mm tri-speed Antec fans, a rear mounted Antec tri-speed fan and the feature of the case, the top mounted 200mm Antec tri-speed fan.
For those of you who can't visualize how big a 200mm fan is, here's a comparison between the 200mm and the 120mm that I have on the heatsink.
As many of the other reviews you may read about the Nine Hundred case are right, you can't mount the hard drives without a magnetic screwdriver. The screw holes are recessed about a half inch, and it's near impossible to get them in there properly without a magnetic screwdriver.
The drive cages have the 120mm fan integrated on the front and the wires for power and the 3 speed switch run down the side of the cage. The cages are held in place with 8 thumbscrews, yes, I said 8. 4 per side. Once you have them all in, there is no way the drive cage is coming out.
Early reviews of this case claimed that the top slot would obstruct the use of the DVI ports. I did a test fit of my 8800GTX in the top 2 slots, and did not have this issue, so Antec must have fixed the problem.
Mounting the board was uneventful, there was an ample supply of brass standoffs and screws for mounting the board. Lots of room to move around inside the case with the 2 drive cages removed, and even with them in, there is still plenty of room.
The heatsink sits tall in the case, sticking up a quarter of an inch or so above the bottom brace for the side panel, thankfully the side panel doesn't sit flush with the bottom of the brace all the way across, or I would have been doing some "mod" work on my brand new case.
After building in this case and also the Sonata II, I must say that I greatly prefer the side to side drive rails that Sonata II uses, it makes for a much cleaner install allowing you to put the drives in with the connectors facing the motherboard and allowing you to run the cables behind the drives.
With the Nine Hundred, Antec chose to put the power supply mount (power supply not included with this case) on the bottom of the case. They have included the notches required for mounting your power supply in either orientation, and they also have small rubber bumpers on the bottom that eliminate any vibration from the power supply.
All that was left to do was mount the video card and hook up the cables. The Nine Hundred has a small tray on top for storing smaller items like mp3 players, flash drives and other stuff, that is where the front USB, Firewire and audio plugs are. The cables included for the USB are long enough, but the one for the front audio was a big stretch, barely making it due to the location of the front audio headers being close to the back of the case on the P5B.
Everything else went well, the ATX power cables and the CPU power cable were long enough, some people have complained they had issues with the CPU power cables, but that seems to be a mix of power supply brand and location of the CPU power on the board.
Clean routing of the power cables was tough, and I am not currently happy with the way they look, I need to redo it, but not sure which way I want to as of yet. This is partly my fault, when I picked a power supply for my system, I went with a 700W OCZ, but didn't think to get a modular one, so I am stuck with several extra bundles of wires that aren't needed. Maybe I just need to add more drives and make use of the extra molex and SATA power connectors
The final verdict is that the new case and cpu have helped dramatically. My motherboard temp is down to 29°c from 46°c (as measured by Asus PC Probe II) and the cpu temp is down, a lot. It was hovering at 65°c, and now runs at 47°c (as measured by Core Temp Beta). That's a whopping 18° difference!
Anyone looking for a case with room for upto 9 3.5" drives and massive cooling, I highly recommend this case.
Ordered the parts from www.bigfootcomputers.com, and they once again impressed me with their price and service.
I built this system originally in an Antec Sonata II case.
My problem with the case was that I had to remove the 120mm fan that mounted on the back of the hard drive rails because my 8800GTX was too big and I only had a quarter inch or so of space between the end of the card and the drive rail, so the fan that was three quarters of an inch thick, had to be removed so the card would fit, leaving me with only a 120mm exhaust fan and the 80 and 92mm fans that fit into the ducts. The Sonata is a great case, but just didn't have enough cooling for an overclocked C2D system, an 8800GTX and 3 hard drives.
Enter the Thermalright Ultra 120. The pictures don't do this heatsink justice, it's big.
I took most of the heatsink pics with an AA battery in there for a size comparison. Very well finished, the bottom could have been better polished, but it was pretty good.
As you know, with most Thermalright heatsinks, they usually don't supply a fan, letting you chose what you want, slow and quiet, or a screamer. I thought I had added a 120mm 86cfm Panaflow fan, but I guess I just looked at it and didn't add it to my basket, so I grabbed the only 120mm fan I had kicking around. A UV reactive green one, 69cfm, 2400 rpm and 39dBa. I think on my next order I will get the Panaflow one, 17 more cfm, and 4dBa quieter.
Mounting the heatsink to the board required removing the old one (duh) and mounting the backplate that Thermalright supplied. The have parts for both Socket 775 and AMD 64 bit offerings (A64, Opteron, FX and X2). Parts also included the spring-loaded screws, the fan mounting brackets, a pair of anti-vibration rubber strips to go between the fan and the heatsink, a Thermalright sticker and a tube of their branded thermal paste (I didn't use theirs, choosing to go with Artic Silver 5).
After removing the board from the old case, removing the Intel supplied HSF combo and cleaning the old thermal paste from the top of the cpu with some rubbing alcohol, it was time to mount heatsink to the board. Going onto my Asus P5B was uneventful, the backplate went on good, no alignment issues, no clearance issues. I applied some AS5 to the cpu in a very thin layer. Positioned the heatsink over the cpu and then started doing up the spring loaded screws in a criss-cross pattern.
After positioning the fan clips, they just snap over the side of the fan that is closest to the heatsink, preventing any security issues with people wanting to use thicker or thinner 120mm fans.
Next up was the case. The Antec Nine Hundred. It doesn't seem that much bigger than the Sonata II, but the front intake fans that go in front of the drives as opposed to behind them, eliminates any clearance issues. The case does include a bracket that attaches to the back of one of the 2 removable 3 drive racks if you feel the need for more airflow. It can be positioned on either of the drive racks, which means that if your video card is really long (like an 8800GTX or 1950XTX), you can use the lower or higher rack, unless you're running SLi, in which case you'd be SOL. There is also a spot on the door that allows you to mount another 120mm fan, for a grand total of 5 120mm case fans and the 200mm fan on the top of the case.
The case comes standard with 2 front mounted 120mm tri-speed Antec fans, a rear mounted Antec tri-speed fan and the feature of the case, the top mounted 200mm Antec tri-speed fan.
For those of you who can't visualize how big a 200mm fan is, here's a comparison between the 200mm and the 120mm that I have on the heatsink.
As many of the other reviews you may read about the Nine Hundred case are right, you can't mount the hard drives without a magnetic screwdriver. The screw holes are recessed about a half inch, and it's near impossible to get them in there properly without a magnetic screwdriver.
The drive cages have the 120mm fan integrated on the front and the wires for power and the 3 speed switch run down the side of the cage. The cages are held in place with 8 thumbscrews, yes, I said 8. 4 per side. Once you have them all in, there is no way the drive cage is coming out.
Early reviews of this case claimed that the top slot would obstruct the use of the DVI ports. I did a test fit of my 8800GTX in the top 2 slots, and did not have this issue, so Antec must have fixed the problem.
Mounting the board was uneventful, there was an ample supply of brass standoffs and screws for mounting the board. Lots of room to move around inside the case with the 2 drive cages removed, and even with them in, there is still plenty of room.
The heatsink sits tall in the case, sticking up a quarter of an inch or so above the bottom brace for the side panel, thankfully the side panel doesn't sit flush with the bottom of the brace all the way across, or I would have been doing some "mod" work on my brand new case.
After building in this case and also the Sonata II, I must say that I greatly prefer the side to side drive rails that Sonata II uses, it makes for a much cleaner install allowing you to put the drives in with the connectors facing the motherboard and allowing you to run the cables behind the drives.
With the Nine Hundred, Antec chose to put the power supply mount (power supply not included with this case) on the bottom of the case. They have included the notches required for mounting your power supply in either orientation, and they also have small rubber bumpers on the bottom that eliminate any vibration from the power supply.
All that was left to do was mount the video card and hook up the cables. The Nine Hundred has a small tray on top for storing smaller items like mp3 players, flash drives and other stuff, that is where the front USB, Firewire and audio plugs are. The cables included for the USB are long enough, but the one for the front audio was a big stretch, barely making it due to the location of the front audio headers being close to the back of the case on the P5B.
Everything else went well, the ATX power cables and the CPU power cable were long enough, some people have complained they had issues with the CPU power cables, but that seems to be a mix of power supply brand and location of the CPU power on the board.
Clean routing of the power cables was tough, and I am not currently happy with the way they look, I need to redo it, but not sure which way I want to as of yet. This is partly my fault, when I picked a power supply for my system, I went with a 700W OCZ, but didn't think to get a modular one, so I am stuck with several extra bundles of wires that aren't needed. Maybe I just need to add more drives and make use of the extra molex and SATA power connectors
The final verdict is that the new case and cpu have helped dramatically. My motherboard temp is down to 29°c from 46°c (as measured by Asus PC Probe II) and the cpu temp is down, a lot. It was hovering at 65°c, and now runs at 47°c (as measured by Core Temp Beta). That's a whopping 18° difference!
Anyone looking for a case with room for upto 9 3.5" drives and massive cooling, I highly recommend this case.
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Comments
does it really fit?
Fits fine, there's about a quarter inch between the top of the heatpipes and the window.
or you planned that really REALLY well