AM3+ Advice?

Hi

I'm one month out from my absolute deadline to finish a new desktop for college (as in, I move out in a month, and need this computer working). For the most part, all's been good and dandy, I even joined the OC folding team!

Something I noticed when I was putting the computer together was how odd AMD's stock heatsink is, it's got a solid copper base which strikes me as high-quality, but it appears to also be very space-minded and has a very small fan that keeps me up at night with it's noise (oh, and the PWM lead broke off of its mobo connector..)

So I got a Cooler Master 101, which stated it would work with AM3/AM3+.. But it doesn't. At all. There are little grooves for a lever (like the stock one) to hold it down, but it didn't come with a lever, and the stock one doesn't fit
I'm at a loss, I can't return it because I damaged one of the copper pipes while trying to get the stock lever to work with it, and now I'm scared to randomly buy another heatsink..

Is there a specific model heatsink that someone could reccomend to me? I'm looking to spend less than $60 on this next one, I have a smallish case (4-5 inches vert clearance), Corsair Vengeance RAM (tall fins), and would like to do childish overclocking (with the built in utility).

Thanks!,

if you have room for a 120mm fan you should consider one of the corsair water cooling loops. as long as you dont plan on doing anything extreme on it. im having the same problem. but im building a custom water cooling loop. but thats going to take some money.

Thanks YAMA,
I noticed some water cooling sets on Amazon that were just inside my price range

http://www.amazon.com/Antec-Kuhler-...&qid=1342394385&sr=8-6&keywords=am3++heatsink

But again, it doesn't show or mention the mounting brackets..

How are you going about building your own liquid cooling system? I'd be interested to hear about that!

BigBubbaX said:

Thanks YAMA,
I noticed some water cooling sets on Amazon that were just inside my price range

http://www.amazon.com/Antec-Kuhler-...&qid=1342394385&sr=8-6&keywords=am3++heatsink

But again, it doesn't show or mention the mounting brackets..

How are you going about building your own liquid cooling system? I'd be interested to hear about that!

Click to expand...

i actually bought a corsair h60 and it wasnt enough for overclocking. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835181015

and the antec does come with mounts for an am3+ board. (btw am3 and am3+ are the same mount type. so if something is am3 compatible it will work on a am3+ board)

i suggest the corsair. i had it and liked it for regular computing and light gaming.

and theres tons of options for custom water cooling. its kinda hard to say how i went about doing it. but theres tons of links and such on here that will help. ive just been doing a lot of research. check out some of these links. and if your tight on cash and want a real solution do your research part by part and buy your parts when you know enough about it. im tight on cash and i just buy a part a week. only need about 2 more things and im done http://www.overclockers.com/forums/showpost.php?p=6489396&postcount=3

theres two different coolmaster 101's.
theres a intel one and an amd one.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835103074 intel

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835103075 amd

Doh! That makes more sense, I guess they use the same box for both..

I guess I'm going to try to find an air-powered heatsink that will fit in my case, and then bide my time to learn about water cooling.

Thanks!

BigBubbaX said:

Doh! That makes more sense, I guess they use the same box for both..

I guess I'm going to try to find an air-powered heatsink that will fit in my case, and then bide my time to learn about water cooling.

Thanks!

Click to expand...

no problem!! that sounds like a pretty good plan. make sure you use a newegg.com for buying computer stuff. the reviews are much better than amazon

good luck!!!

Bubba, what case do you have? Please put that info in your sig. We can't recommend a HSF for you until we have a idea of the dimensions of the case. If it's a no name case, then is it a mid tower, mini tower, full tower? And what is the outside measurement from side panel to side panel?

Trents, sorry to leave that out!
It's a no-name that I picked up from a thrift store a few years ago (I used to build all of my computers from thrift store handouts. icky, I know).
To me, it looks like a mid tower, it barely houses a psu, atx mobo, and two 5.25 drives..

6.5" wide from the outside..

You will be very hard pressed to find a cooler that will adequately cool that CPU with the space confinements you're dealing with in that case. The only air cooler I would recommend for that CPU as being adequate is the Noctua D14 and it won't come close to fitting in that case. All the good tower style air coolers are around 160mm tall and need a case almost 8" wide. And I don't suppose your case would allow the installation of a water kit like the Corsair H100 either. It would need two 120mm fan holes in the top panel. I think your next purchase needs to be a better case. Look at the one in my Sig or the Antec 300, both of which can often be found for under $60 US.

Besides, your high CPU temps are probably due as much to poor case ventilation as to an inadequate CPU cooler.

trents, x( unfortunately that's my problem, when I first got the case, I painted it myself, and it has a sentimental value that I'm unwilling to lose. It has crossed my mind to modify the case (with a saw) to accommodate a larger heatsink.

The case may contribute to high temperatures, but I'm adding additional fans to draw air in through the front fins and out of the spare PCI slots.



I just did a test with the case closed for a few hours, and then leaving one side of it off. The temp changed 2 deg C.

Man, that's real ghetto! Like it!

Haha, thanks!

Also, as long as I'm messing around with cooling stuff, it would be prudent to mention that I don't know the target temperature range for this processor.. What should I shoot for? Will temps above 60C actually damage the CPU? I can't find much in the included manual for the 8150..

And I've been using an included Gigabyte tool to measure the temps, is there a favorite hardware monitoring tool out there?

60c for the "core" temp would be about the limit for stability. Maybe 70c would be the "safe" limit but I wouldn't go past 65c to be safe.

Cool, thanks!

To accommodate a tall cooler all you have to do is cut a round hole in the side of the case and cover it with an 8" diameter pie pan, painted to your taste and attached with a silicone bead. That's what I did with one of my rigs.

That sounds like a good plan.

Just because I found it, here's one of my original computers i made when I was 13ish.


And another:

Just an update,
At the persistence of a friend, I bought the cheaper pre-assembled liquid cooling heatsink. As you guys mentioned, once I had two fans on the radiator, it barely fit in the case at all.. So this morning I took a hacksaw to the case and made a place for the radiator to hang out. I also drilled a bunch of holes in the side of the case, I'll work on painting them in later.

The result is surprisingly pleasant so far, the temperatures all seem well below their high end. My graphics card hangs out at 65+C temps when running F@H, but I read online that GPUs tend to run hotter than CPUs. Is that correct, or am I damaging the graphics card?

Running F@H (CPU overclocked to 4.1Ghz, GPU overclocked with AMD catalyst defaults):
Temp1 = Case temp
Temp3 = CPU temp
Two GPUs are Radeon 5500 and 6950.

dude the shoe box computer is awesome. i seriously love that. and i did the same thing you did with the coolmaster when i had it that you did with yours. i just cut a hole in the case. and those temps are much better. those temps aren't bad for the gpu's. as long as there is plent of airflow in the case. 95c is probably the max you want to go.

Awesome, thanks YAMA