Low Power - No Noise - Gaming Rig

[azanimefan]

not really an option with the intel... what with intel killing it's socketed CPU line in favor of soldering thier chips right to the MB...

Just don't want to give them the money to finish off AMD just yet and then watch them kill our hobby.

As to the A10, i've done a lot of research and i am getting a bit bullish on what i can do with it. Its benchmark numbers scale with it's overclocking nearly perfectly (not all chips can claim that)... and i've just found a review that shows me the nofan successfully cooling an AMD phenomII at roughly 130W TDP... then an OC'ed i5 at roughly 150W TDP... i was worried about using it for overclocking, or on a chip rated at 100W tdp... but with those numbers floating out there... it might be possible to overclock the A10 passively.

Boosting the onboard GPU up to 1.0ghz, would yield nearly 25% improvement in fps, mounting a 6670 with 1 gig GDDR5 ram also overclocked up to 1ghz would probably yield an extra 40% improvement over stock, for a roughly 80% improvement in graphics performance... which would put it at or above a HD7770... that i might be able to do this all passively is a bit of a fun goal to shoot for.

Its not as exciting as an i7 rolling a 7870... but i don't think it would embarrass itself. Particularly if I can get it stable at 4.4ghz or so... on a passive cooling solution, that would be something to behold. Generally, unless i was trying to play the latest games in 1080p, i doubt anyone would notice the lack of power.

I also won't have to worry about the GPU overheating or overheating the case, and killing the PSU and CPU... as the one i'm looking at is a fully passive version.

Now to get the price down to a range to justify the lower specs... since it's no longer a premium PC, i suppose i'll need to look at saving money in the Case, and peripherals.

 

[azanimefan]

Figured it out.

Now i know how i'm going to make it work. Hahah... this is perfect. Simply perfect. I'll even save $$... custom case time. This build will rock too...

I think i'll make a mineral oil submerged system. I'll make the case copper and plexiglass, this will improve (drastically) the heat dissipation of the passive heatsinks, the copper case will work as a "heatsink" and with the proper treatment will look pretty, i can put a handle on it... to make it portable. The window will let me do some custom work on the inside of the PC, to pretty it all up... maybe some LCDs... a SSD, the passive PSU and GPU... replace the heatsinks on board with copper heatsinks to match the nofan... maybe reinforce the case with a stainless steel cage.

put the IO on the top, go with usb for external devices... yeah... this will work nicely. I've got to do some math on this one. But it shouldn't cost much more then the time to fabricate. Weight/size/strength are a concern... feedback is welcome on this idea.

 

[Knufire]

Constant heatload = the oil will eventually heat up. Might take a long time, but it will and stuff will start to overheat unless you're cooling the oil somehow. I'm a fan of custom built cases though.

 

[azanimefan]

Constant heatload = the oil will eventually heat up. Might take a long time, but it will and stuff will start to overheat unless you're cooling the oil somehow. I'm a fan of custom built cases though.

yeah... that's why i was thinking a copper case... if it can't keep the oil moderately warm consistently, i'll cover the surface with copper heat-sinks and increase the surface area... something like that. should work fine, though it will look like a porcupine and suddenly become super expensive... and heavy.

Maybe i'll make a concession to the "no moving parts" and stick a pump into the case and attach a radiator to the outside... maybe... i'd like to avoid those two situations though.

 

[azanimefan]

still on the drawing board. Had a last minute series of holiday expenses derail my plans... then a few last minute change of plans which blew up the expected time i'd have to work on this project.

ugh... on the bright side it's given me time to plan and consider.

some feedback would be welcome on this... but... my ultimate goal in the beginning was low power/no noise/gaming rig. I wanted it to be absurdly powerful for a fully passive rig, which of course meant premium priced parts, so on and so forth.

Well budget concerns with the New Year and time constraints have backed me off this goal a bit. Now i'm only plan D (or is it F now? i'll have to count the revisions). Code Named "get me out of this freakin' dell crapbox ASAP please!"

So budget and performance are now the goals... and discount bins, super sales, charity and salvage will be my friends. So here i am... building a system on a shoe string a part at a time till i can get one up and running. For your all amusement i'll document my progress and expenditures so we can see what type of value i can hustle up and how long this takes me.

=D

Sorry about the torpedoed intent of this thread. at the time money and income was a bit more available... Trust me... once cash is available again, i'll be starting this project back up again.