Thermalright SB-E Archon: unimpressive for 2011

[magellan]

I couldn't jam the 150mm fan that came w/my SB-E Archon on because the memory sticks push it up so high that it hits the case lid, so I stuffed in a much higher speed, much higher CFM 38mm x 127mm fan, yet it still doesn't do a very good job of keeping my i7-3820 cool @ 4585 Mhz and 1.4V Vcore, because it idles at ~20 degrees celsius above ambient. I wonder if it would make any difference to flip the orientation of the heatsink so the heatpipes are parallel to the floor? I can't go push-pull because the pull fan would block the intake of my PSU (which is at the top of the case).

 

[doyll]

What are the temperatures on your case compared to room temperature? Maybe your higher cfm fan is moving more air through cooler than is being moved through the case thus causing the heated cooler exhaust to heat up the air inside of case so cooler is injesting it's own heated air.

Cheapy digital indoor/outdoor wired remote thermometers work great. Twist a piece of insulated wire onto probe end so you can possition probe in front of cooler to see what the temperature of air going into cooler is.

 

[magellan]

What are the temperatures on your case compared to room temperature? Maybe your higher cfm fan is moving more air through cooler than is being moved through the case thus causing the heated cooler exhaust to heat up the air inside of case so cooler is injesting it's own heated air.

Cheapy digital indoor/outdoor wired remote thermometers work great. Twist a piece of insulated wire onto probe end so you can possition probe in front of cooler to see what the temperature of air going into cooler is.

The PSU intake (which has a high speed 120mm x 25mm fan) is right behind the SB-E Archon as is the 120mm x 38mm exhaust fan.

I don't actually have any intake fans in this case, but I have noticed dust on the front of the case intake air filters right where the 127mm x 38mm fan is.

I'll take a closer look at the idle temps of my southbridge, motherboard and video card though. to see if they're way above ambient. Thanks.

 

[NiHaoMike]

Keeping the tubes horizontal (or vertical with the hot end facing down, not possible on many CPU coolers) helps performance a little since then the refrigerant inside wouldn't have to work against gravity. Don't expect much difference unless the cooler is defective.

Check to make sure your BIOS fan settings are sane and that you have good ventilation.

 

[doyll]

The PSU intake (which has a high speed 120mm x 25mm fan) is right behind the SB-E Archon as is the 120mm x 38mm exhaust fan.

I don't actually have any intake fans in this case, but I have noticed dust on the front of the case intake air filters right where the 127mm x 38mm fan is.

I'll take a closer look at the idle temps of my southbridge, motherboard and video card though. to see if they're way above ambient. Thanks.

120mm x 38mm fan moves much more air than a 120mm x 25mm fan.. More heated cooler exhaust than is being exhausted from case.. Heat air not being removed from case mixes with cool air in case increasing temperature.. Each time it is re-circulated the air in case gets hotter.

 

[EarthDog]

First, though your idle temps are high, its the LOAD temperatures that are most important. What are those? (Prime 95 Small FFT)

I would look at adding intake fans to the case before I go flipping around the cooler. Proper airFLOW is not an exhaust only setup. Cool air (forced) in, warm air (forced) out.

That said, unless you are loading the hell out of that PSU (you are not if it is the system in your signature), the fan inside isn't really doing much.

EDIT: An Enermax Liberty 620W PSU? Yikes. That thing only has around 430W on the 12v rails and is an older PSU. You may darn well be loading that thing up decently. That said, its fan really doesn't move much air, so I wouldn't worry.

EDIT2: Wait, so you do or do not have an intake fan... read what you wrote here...

I don't actually have any intake fans in this case, but I have noticed dust on the front of the case intake air filters right where the 127mm x 38mm fan is.

As written, and in my current tired state that says you do at the end, but do not in the beginning...

EDIT3: Also consider, you are running 1.4v (I wouldn't go higher!) through that thing... yes, temps should be lower, but do not expect miracles @ that voltage on a 130W processor to begin with.

 

[magellan]

First, though your idle temps are high, its the LOAD temperatures that are most important. What are those? (Prime 95 Small FFT)

I would look at adding intake fans to the case before I go flipping around the cooler. Proper airFLOW is not an exhaust only setup. Cool air (forced) in, warm air (forced) out.

That said, unless you are loading the hell out of that PSU (you are not if it is the system in your signature), the fan inside isn't really doing much.

EDIT: An Enermax Liberty 620W PSU? Yikes. That thing only has around 430W on the 12v rails and is an older PSU. You may darn well be loading that thing up decently. That said, its fan really doesn't move much air, so I wouldn't worry.

EDIT2: Wait, so you do or do not have an intake fan... read what you wrote here...
As written, and in my current tired state that says you do at the end, but do not in the beginning...

EDIT3: Also consider, you are running 1.4v (I wouldn't go higher!) through that thing... yes, temps should be lower, but do not expect miracles @ that voltage on a 130W processor to begin with.

I have a 120mm x 38mm attached to my video card that is ~0.5" from the bottom grill work/filter in the case. I imagine it must be bringing some air into the case, but that's it as far as any intake fans go. I can't shove any intake fans in the floor pan of the case because the video card fans (with shrouds) stick out too far and are too close to the bottom of the case (which has filtered vents).

The enermax I have is rated at 576 Watts on the 12V lines. I also replaced the intake PSU fan w/a high speed Toyo 120mm x 25mm and attached a 60mm x 25mm fan to the exterior grill work as an exhaust fan. When I'm gaming the heat coming out of that 60mm x 25mm fan is noticeably warm.

I use orthos for testing and I've only loaded up 2 cores (4 threads) at once, which resulted in temps 43 degrees above ambient.

The internal temps (for SB and motherboard sensors seem consistent and not much above ambient).

The thermalright 150mm x 25mm fan the SB-E Archon comes with, doesn't
seem all that impressive as far as CFM or static pressure.

 

[EarthDog]

Really not sure why you would add another fan to the GPU or the PSU. The fans they come with do a more than admirable job in keeping things cool... especially since you, for whatever reason, replaced the fan inside the PSU.

43C above ambient doesn't tell me what your load temperature is as we do not know your ambient. I will assume around 22C? Also, You have a quad core, you need to load up all four cores at once. Orthos is pretty old school as far as I am concerned...I really do not see people use that much. I would stick with Prime 95, AIDA64 personally. Make sure you are loading up all four cores and 8 threads at once for stress and temperature testing.

 

[magellan]

Really not sure why you would add another fan to the GPU or the PSU. The fans they come with do a more than admirable job in keeping things cool... especially since you, for whatever reason, replaced the fan inside the PSU.

43C above ambient doesn't tell me what your load temperature is as we do not know your ambient. I will assume around 22C? Also, You have a quad core, you need to load up all four cores at once. Orthos is pretty old school as far as I am concerned...I really do not see people use that much. I would stick with Prime 95, AIDA64 personally. Make sure you are loading up all four cores and 8 threads at once for stress and temperature testing.

I think loading up two cores is more representative of the kind of loads I get in RL.

The stock cooling solution on my 6950 wasn't good enough to keep up w/my overclock. I have to keep by 6950 at less than 71 degrees C or it locks up (when overlocked and gaming).

 

[EarthDog]

I think loading up two cores is more representative of the kind of loads I get in RL.

While that likely is true, that method of stress testing goes against the grain. Think about it... loads are shared across cores in that, the same core isn't used for the same set of instructions. Also, not all cores are created equal. So while 3 of four may be stable at a certain speed and voltage, another may not. So if you test cores 1 and 2 but leave 3 and 4 out of it, you have a higher chance of running into instability because you didn't load up all the cores and test all of them.

Choose your poison of course, but it is commonly held that stress testing includes all cores regardless of the loads you may be putting on the PC.

 

[magellan]

While that likely is true, that method of stress testing goes against the grain. Think about it... loads are shared across cores in that, the same core isn't used for the same set of instructions. Also, not all cores are created equal. So while 3 of four may be stable at a certain speed and voltage, another may not. So if you test cores 1 and 2 but leave 3 and 4 out of it, you have a higher chance of running into instability because you didn't load up all the cores and test all of them.

Choose your poison of course, but it is commonly held that stress testing includes all cores regardless of the loads you may be putting on the PC.

OK, I'll load up orthos on the rest of the cores too -- via imagecfg.

 

[magellan]

OK, one more question on this topic, I test fitted the thermalright Ty-150 fan and discovered it'll just fit between the RAM and the SB-E Archon. Now the Ty-150 fan is a really underwhelming fan (84.2 CFM, 1100RPM, 0.2A) relative to what I have on there now (static pressure .472" H2O, 148CFM, 3300RPM, San-Ace 109P1312S101, 127mm x 38mm fan, 1.3A). But, if I were to mount two Ty-150's in a push-pull setup would it match the cooling abilities of my one high speed 127mm fan? Also, if I mounted the Ty150's as low as they would possibly go would they be capable of providing some airflow to the VRM heatsinks?

 

[keny]

In my experience adding a pull fan to the cooler makes a small drop in temps (2-3c) and if you can push at a higher cfm, then that's where the cooling is at, the pull fan hardly does much extra cooling as most of the sir is passing through and only a small amount is "helped" through by the pull fan, I only use one fan in my frio as it almost matches the two fan setup and it doesn't fit above the ram if they have heat spreaders anyway.