What really needs active cooling?

I was browsing in my local Mapplin to-day, and I came accross fans and cooler kits for the most obscure parts of computers, including the RAM (how do those Termaltake coolers work with RAM that already has heatspreaders anyway?), the motherboard chipset, and the hard drive.

Now, I do plan on overclocking my system when I build my new one (somewhat conservatively, though - I don't want to overclock away stability or longevity); which of those three things really needs active cooling in a well-ventalated case?

I wouldn't worry about cooling the RAM if you are only planning on doing a modest overclock, or if you have heatspreaders. Buying a special hard drive cooler is also unnecessary, but having a case fan blowing air over it will help prolong its life. Now northbridge active cooling is definitally a good idea when you are going to be doing any overclocking. Buying a northbridge cooler with a fan is going to help your overclock, although if you aren't going to be overclocking much than the stock heatsink (and some have fans too) might work fine for you, depending on the motherboard you buy. The Vantec Iceberq chipset coolers do a very good job, and they aren't too loud either.

Welcome to the forums. The Northbridge I would say would need the most cooling then the hard drives and then the memory. I almost put the hard drives as the most needed as most of them heat up the case fairly fast. Of course I've seen others with a well ventilated case not need a hard drive cooler that's why I put the chipset first. Most active motherboard coolers are just for show if you ask me. Some companies I've seen just put a fan and heatsink and no paste. The coolers for thermaltake come with a heatspreader you can put on the memory. If you already have heatspreaders then the fan will help cool them down.

Thank you

In all honesty the CPU and GPU are the only things that really NEED active cooling. I consider ram-cooling gimmicky, and extra HDD cooling is pretty pointless unless you have constant disk use (fileservers for example, not just loading up a game). Extra NB cooling is nice, but I wouldn't say necessary. Whatever comes with the mobo is usually fine, just replace the cheapo paste with AS3 if you're really concerened.

If you had to upgrade one NB is really cheap. A Crystal Orb is like $10 or a really tall Zalman sink would do the trick.

--Illah

Thank you all for your help I think that I'll get a North-Bridge cooler and leave the RAM and HDD alone

Hmm, I've just checked, and the motherboard that I am going to buy already has a Northbridge fan. Ahh, that's a few pounds saved

I should remove it, clean off the goo, and apply better goo though, right?

Yes I would remove all the paste if there is any at all (I've seen no paste too many times) and reapply a good paste like AS3. This will help.

Thank you.

CPU and Video Card need most attention bar none. If u feel your overclock is limited by the NB than try adding better cooling to the NB otherwise just the CPU and Vid Card is enough.

I would also get some ramsinks to put on the mofsets. I found some one day in a local shop and tested them out - I couldn't believe how hot they got and I wonder how the mofets were disappating the heat without them! I'll eventually find a small fan to rig above them to help cool them.