[darkrebirth]

I have a athlon 64 3000+ venice (unoverclocked)with 2 x 512mb Patriot (3200) with a DFI LanParty UT nForce4 Ultra-D Sapphire Radeon X300SE 128MB DDR a seagate 80 gb hardrive 7200rpm and a Antec Sonata II case with 450 Watt smart power. Right now i only have One fan in the rear. I was wondering, if i plan to overclock it to 2.5ghz what kinda cooling do i need? (budget wise) would another 120mm fan in the front suffice?
Thanks

(I'm a complete noob at this overclocking thing and still a lil skeptical about it)

[rseven]

to the Forum!
I sure hope that one fan is 120mm. At the least I would cut a hole in the side over the cpu and install a 92mm or 120mm intake fan. This could be done at a very modest expence.

[darkrebirth]

yes, the rear fan is 120 mm also. But is having 3 fanz enough to keep the comp cool while overclocking?

[Bad ConNecTioN]

Really, it would be a smarter move to invest in another cpu cooler. Also, the Sonota does not benefit much from a another fan as the front mount fan is not actually in the front but more in the middle of the case (behind hard drive cage).

You may also want to think about modifying your front bezel to allow more air flow.

[darkrebirth]

So adding a side fan wouldn't be enough??

[darkrebirth]

anyone?

[rseven]

Welcome to the world of overclockers. In here nothing is ever enough. It's only enough till the next upgrade. I would try it as it will help and see where it takes you. The 120mm fan has to drawing air from somewhere. Most likely it's pulling air from some typeof venting at the bottom front of the case. You don't want to feed it so much air as to stop this air flow as that is what's cooling your hard drives., but a side fan would help bring down your cpu temps.

[Electron Chaser]

Originally Posted by darkrebirth

(unoverclocked)

huh?! Is this a word? LOL

Overclocking always overkilled and never underclocked. LOL

Seriously. Add a few more fans they don't have to be something like say, umm, I would use. But a few more fans will definately help. and before we get to far into it, What Heatsink do you have on your CPU?
If it is a stock HS then you had better add that to the list before you begin to OC.

As far as being skeptical about OCing. Well be warned that it is addictive so don't say I didn't tell you. It is a lot of fun and it does have it's rewards as well. Just make sure you spend some time here reading the stickies and asking questions before you decide to jump in.

Everyone here is very helpful so feel free to ask as many questions as you like. Just make sure you read the stickies first to see if they don't answer your question first.

to the addiction, I mean forums

[darkrebirth]

Yup, the heatsink is indeed stock. So i should go buy a new one? What do you suggest?

[Deathknight]

Originally Posted by darkrebirth

So adding a side fan wouldn't be enough??

Its not that adding the side fan would not be enough, its just that the biggest impact upgrade you can make is switching from the stock heatsink and fan to a quality heatsink that is good for overclocking. Your case cooling is going to be dictated by the temps inside your case. If your case temps are very similar to ambient temps there is no need to go overboard. However if running with the door off your case drops your temps a significant amount then you probably need to address the airflow in your case. This doesn't just involve adding fans and cutting fan grills out, you can help airflow just by cleaning up your wiring job too.

EDIT: Your best bet for a heatsink fan upgrade will probably be a thermalright xp-90 (an xp-90c is even better, although it is more expensive)

[darkrebirth]

Zalman CNPS7000B-Cu Heat Sink. is that one better os is the thermalright xp-90 better? How do they compare?

[Ciffer]

without a doubt your first upgrade should be a better heatsink with a good fan and some as5, you should see huge drops just from that. also cleaning up cables is always good for a little added cooling (a lot if your wires are really bad), replaceing stock fans with better fans, larger if possible is always good for a few numbers. basicly anything you can do to increase the amount of air going through your case and anything you can do to reduce restrictions on air movement. side duct is always good. as EC said, its an addiction, you get an overclock then you start looking at your case trying to figure out how you can improve your overclock just a little bit. next thing you know all the parts are out and you dremeling away like a mad man. to say the least you'll never run out of things to improve.