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Video Card Thread (Mostly Gecube x1950xt)
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harvrdguy
Senior Member
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9. September 2007 @ 02:32 |
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Hey guys,
Dinc - I think you're right about baffles on fans - they restrict flow. I've been reading about it a lot this evening.
Kardson, I finally studied all your fan stuff:
http://www.tweak3d.net/tweak/airflowtweak/print.shtml . . . . and
http://www.heatsink-guide.com/casecool.htm
But some of what I have read seems to point me in a slightly different direction. Let me tell you why.
Here is the picture again from your post above. Look at where we were going to put inlet fan 2, on the side panel where the tiny round holes are now:
...
But in going through your articles, the first article shows a typical HSF on a cpu. It's the same thing that I have now:
................
The red circle indicates lack of flow, because the middle of a fan doesn't move air, like the eye of a hurricane. So the author solves that with a 2-fan HSF.
But . . . In the picture of the 2-fan HSF,
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he shows one fan blowing in, and one fan out, with masking tape wrapped around the heat sink, but leaving the bottom inch without any tape.
Then he says: "You can also have both fans sucking air out from the heatsink and leaving a gap in the masking tape like I pictured above. All my heatsinks are taped in this manner. Doing this actually helps move air through the heatsink. This is because all the air must now be sucked from the bottom of the heatsink where there is most heat. Air cannot come in from the top part of the heatsink because it?s sealed and therefore must enter from the bottom and go through the top -- carrying with it, all the heat from the CPU."
Furthermore, he gets into the whole bit about - do you suck, or do you blow? Here's what he says,
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He recommends sucking!! (He sucks! :=) So, the way I have it right now is correct, according to him. My cpu HSF is in suck mode - it sucks air through the heat exchanger and is trying to blow it out the side of the case. When I take the side cover off there is a blast of air coming toward me. The fan blows hard! So from reading these articles, it's working correctly.
But if that's how I'm going to leave it, then I can't have an inlet fan where we were going to put fan 2,
...
because of course it would fight the HSF. When you think about it, I really don't need a fan 2 at all, I just need to let the cpu HSF blow that hot air out of the case!
The second article you sent me to go read, tells me to how to do it. They talk about making a fan duct out of packaging material, and duct tape.
Here's the picture
................
Then they say: This setup uses a CPU cooler which exhausts air from the CPU heatsink; the air duct leads the hot air to the ventilation hole in the case, so that CPU heat is directly removed from the case.
That takes me back (as regards the cpu fan) to where I was at the very beginning.
...
They're telling me to get the cpu hot air out of the case, so I am right back to where I was before - Mo threw out the conical thing, but even if I can't get it back from him, I should follow Dinc's advice and hacksaw off that super restrictive set of little round holes that won't let the air out!
And if my PC buddy Mo can't find the conical thing, I can easily create a cylinder out of cardboard and flare the edge down so it will somewhat fit the cylinder that is screwed to the case side panel, just like in the picture, and still let me get the side cover on. So I think I have the cpu heat handled - it is going to head straight out of the case! (Although I can see one problem with that - the Gecube tec cooler puts out a lot of heat, so the air the HSF is pulling over the cpu will be warm Gecube air. Well we can probably handle that with overall better case cooling.)
So, let's get back to the rest of the case, and where you want me to put intake fan 1.
...
You want me to put intake fan 1 low in the front - see #1 on the left side of the picture. But then read from A. through D. Looking at the picture above, how can I put the fans in the lower hard-drive bay? Sure I have tons of room, but I don't have any access through the front of the case. I don't get access until I get above the front bottom panel, and up past the floppy window.
Once I'm up there, it is trivial to pop off the two plastic caps and install two inlet fans in the lower part of the wide dvd reader bay. Kardson, I know you would prefer direct flow over the Gecube, but I don't want to tear up the front of my case, and I still think it will work fine. Take a look.
This is what I get, with the idea of just ducting the cpu heat out of the case, and placing the front fans where I can easily install them without tearing up my case.
...........................
And that should give me this airflow:
.....................................
Now you're probably going to say I have a big red circle deadzone at the lower back of my case. But I have a vantec spectrum dual fan card at the bottom blowing straight up onto the Gecube card. So won't that get rid of my dead zone? In fact in the post a little way before this, you sent me the vantec link:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835888112
Here's the Vantec:
...
But then you said something about venting out the case, which the vantec doesn't do, and I remembered an earlier post with another PCI slot fan card that you linked me to, here:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835114024
Oh my god! Look at this thing! When I first saw it, I just thought it was another vantec card. Only I remembered the red flames and I thought that was kind of weird. It's a monster!
..
I went ahead and read some of the newegg reviews. The flame part is a turbine that vents out the back. And you told me, kardson, that it dropped your case temp 12 degrees F. Well that's fantastic. I'll pick it up for sure. That baby will have one part directing air up at the Gecube, while the side nearest the back pulls down and out of the case, creating its own little circle of air spinning around the tec cooler. The result of all of this should be this flow:
........................
For $17 that looks like a great fan card. (Does anybody want a slightly used Vantec fan card?) Ok kardson, what do you think of the new rig?
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(Kardson, I thought I had all this worked out, but now I'm having second thoughts. In looking for that one post of yours where you dropped the case heat by 12 degrees F, I re-read your post about turning the cpu fan around and putting an inlet fan at position 2. You were convincing.
The first of your two fan articles said suck, but the second article said that blowing down on the cpu, instead of sucking, is better if you are going to overclock it. So the two articles actually had a difference of opinion regarding the cpu, blow or suck.
I'm looking at the airflow diagram above, again, and if we did it your way, having additional air coming in from the right side looks like it would be just fine. Two in, 2 out. Or if I have 2 little fans in front, 3 in, 2 out. But I could balance the fans in terms of size to avoid turbulence.
You asked me where the fresh air to cool the cpu would come from, and if I do it the way I have planned here, it all has to come from the front. With the cpu fan ducted to exhaust out the right side, as in this post, there won't be as much heat in the case, only the tec cooler heat. And not even as much of that, because the cpu fan will actually be helping get rid of some of that Gecube heat.
That might give me a cooler tec, but will it give me a hotter cpu? Maybe. Interesting point. If I put two strong fans in front, it seems to me like we would have all the fresh air we need, but you're right, the air being pulled into the cpu heat exchanger won't be almost 100% fresh air coming in the side from inlet fan 2, as how it would be if we did it your way. This way, as in this post, there will be a lot of hot air also from the tec. I don't know if we're talking 6 of one, half dozen of another.
One thing - I can easily monitor the cpu temp with speedfan. I can also change the bios settings. I was playing with that earlier today, looking to see if my motherboard allowed controlling more than just the cpu fan - it doesn't. With the present bios setting, the cpu fan really doesn't get spinning until the cpu hits 60. I can move that down to 50, or even to 40. Do you think I should change that right now at least to 50?
Anyway, I can't believe myself. I was just going to say, "Let's try it this way, and I'll watch the cpu temperature. If cooling the cpu becomes a problem, I'll turn the cpu fan around, and add the inlet fan at location 2." Then I just thought about hacksawing off those round vent holes. Once I hacksaw that off, I can't hacksaw it back on. It's easier to turn the cpu fan around, and screw a fan where I already removed the plastic cylindrical thing from location 2, rather than hacksaw that off and ruin the looks of the side panel. So I think I'll reverse course and do it your way after all. That only leaves one thing I don't want to do - please don't try to convince me that I have to tear up the front of the case and put fans in the lower hard drive bay! Barring that, modifying this whole post with an inlet fan at 2, and turning around my cpu fan, will this work?)
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Thanks everybody again for all the great tips.
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4 product reviews
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9. September 2007 @ 04:19 |
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As for the sucking/blowing argument, It seems to be dependant on which heatsink, which case, which way etc.
The way I ultimately intend my CPU to end up currently is with a huge Thermalright heatsink blowing the heatsink directly to my rear case fan. I figure that's the CPU taken care of. The side fan can deal with the graphics card et al.
At present, my Freezer 7 Pro doesn't fit the right way round due to my oversized stock chipset cooler. Consequently the heat from my CPU exhausts into the power supply, so much so that when I reboot my PC from warm and the speed controller for the CPU fan resets to full speed, the PSU fan increases its speed by several hundred rpm!
I think the blower part of that fan card would be noisy but effective, however, the horizontal fan that accompanies it concerns me, it suggests it blows in, what is effectively the opposite direction. Assuming I'm wrong about that, and it blows downwards, then as long as your bottom side fan is strong enough, that should work well.
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Senior Member
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9. September 2007 @ 07:44 |
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wow sam, you really think 973 is good for a P4? I think it sucks... My laptop, core 2 duo 2.16ghz, 2gb ram 100GB 7200rpm ati mobility firegl v5250 got 750 on 3dmark06! The cpu did the best, 1800, which is great...
Just ordered a Atec 900 case on friday, hope ill get it by monday or tuesday. It has excellant cooling inside, I'll post some specs on the temps when I get it.
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4 product reviews
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9. September 2007 @ 08:16 |
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Only 750 3dmarks? Surely it got more than that?
As for the 973 score, I'm afraid I was joking, sorry to get your hopes up!
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harvrdguy
Senior Member
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9. September 2007 @ 15:05 |
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Hey Sam and Raymond, (Waymon)
You're getting a new case, after all that tidewater install. What do you need more cooling for? I thought you had it made in the shade.
You guys are battling over cpu speed! That's rich!
I'll start worrying about getting the last drop of power out of my over-hot p4 3.2 multi-threading later, once the Gecube beast has been conquered. (Hey guys, if I have 2 cpus, multithreading - I bought this in 2005 - is that the same as dual core? As you can see, I know next to nothing about cpus. The only thing I know is 64 is better than 32 so I should have gone Amd at the time, but they're all 64 now, right?)
Yeah, Sam, the guy who talked about overclocking also did add that it depended on the heatsink, whether to suck or to blow.
At the last minute I decided I didn't want to hacksaw my side panel, but do you guys think a fan will be able to pull air in through those little round holes at location 2? In other words, do I still have to hacksaw it no matter what I do? If I leave the holes as they are, would it work better mounting the fan on the panel with a rubber spacer to get an air-tight fit? I think I read about rubber spacers yesterday. If so, does anybody know where I would get a rubber spacer from?
Sam, in regard to that blitztorm card, I'm confused about your concerns. You said Quote:
I think the blower part of that fan card would be noisy but effective
When you say blower, I'm almost positive you are talking about the centrifugal fan with the flames that blows out the back of the case, right. I think so, because I guess that's the kind of fan that blowers use, from what I read yesterday. So I guess it goes by: centrifugal fan, or turbine, or blower, all meaning the same thing. Am I right?
I had the same identical thought - probably effective, but probably lots of noise. Right now I don't care too much about noise, because of the Medusa 5.1 headphones.
I didn't quite understand the part where you said, Quote:
however, the horizontal fan that accompanies it concerns me, it suggests it blows in, what is effectively the opposite direction.
You lost me there.
We're talking about the standard radial fan, farthest from the back of the case, right? My understanding is that it sits on a swivel, and it blows, (not sucks) anywhere you point it. I might be wrong, but I would imagine that the swivel could be moved almost 180 degrees. I would have it pointed up toward the card, but I don't know at what angle. I think the newegg reviews actually described it working that way. So, do you still see some kind of a problem?
Thanks guys,
Rich
Wait, right after I posted this, I think I understand, Sam, what you were saying. It blows in the opposite direction as the blower. Yes, I think it does. The blower pulls air - I believe from the sleeve - and blows it out the back of the case. The radial fan just pushes air up, I guess air from the very bottom of the case. I don't know exactly what kind of turbulence or laminar flow that arrangement would make - I thought it would be kind of a circular flow of air. Maybe your concerns are valid, maybe it fights itself if you don't angle the swivelled one correctly. Now we're really getting technical. By the way, for heat dissipation, isn't turbulence better? Or is smooth laminar flow always better? What I read yesterday seemed to say you don't want turbulence, but I actually studied fluid flow in engineering school, and I thought there were times when you did want turbulence. Turbulence creates drag on an airplane wing, so you want it when you're landing. Is that good for heat dissipation? Maybe not.
This message has been edited since posting. Last time this message was edited on 9. September 2007 @ 15:18
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9. September 2007 @ 16:20 |
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harvrdguy: Unfortunately no, Hyperthreading doesn't count for much other than a bit of extra stability. It's a single core processor. My concerns about the new fan card were which way the other fan blows. Am I right in thinking it's one normal fan, and then the blower next to it. If the other normal fan blows down towards the floor, great, if it blows up, that kind of defeats the whole process.
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Senior Member
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9. September 2007 @ 16:42 |
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well I'm getting the 900 because, firstly, I need a new case... The one I have now has a crack in the plastic clear shield, that is very visible. It has a dent in the top, and the front comes off from small vibrations. oh, and the front dorr that swings open wont stay closed because the hitch is snapped in half. So yea, I test my cases to make sure they're durable and that they will last.
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4 product reviews
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9. September 2007 @ 16:49 |
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The 900's a pretty nice case, just bear in mind the black metal sides get easily scratched. Mine seems half silver now, rather than black!
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Senior Member
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9. September 2007 @ 17:12 |
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oh, ok. I'll be careful with this one then... Also, my laptop did get 753 on 3dmark06...
Really random question, but do you think I can play crysis on low-medium with my computer? Just askin, I was kinda lookin forward to that.
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4 product reviews
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9. September 2007 @ 17:30 |
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The X1950XT weould, I doubt the laptop would be able to.
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kardson
Junior Member
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10. September 2007 @ 07:28 |
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Miss a couple days and now I have to write a book :)
Waymon,
Do you always use Fraps while playing BF2? That WILL bring your FPS down a little.. and I would like to see us setup as much the same as possible.
Harvrdguy,
I'm sure you know by now but The Medal of Honor Airborne demo requires a Shader model 3.0 compliant card.. Unfortunately alot of people didn't realize that before downloading the demo. Though the Gecube card IS shader model 3.0 compliant and should work with it... I've played the demo @ home. 1440x900 w high settings FPS dips into the low teens.
My online name in BF2 is Kardsen i believe, I honestly can't remember right now and I'm at work. My real name is Travis W.
Most online games require some sort of alias.
Depending on the game, I go by.... Kardson, Kardsen, Kardsin, Somalian_Hitman, Yarmoth and on forums I ussually go by tpwalker980
sammorris,
Actually my power supply has a fan in front, underneath, and in back. But the reason I recommend the top fan as intake is because he has the 120mm backfan as exhaust already. Haven't that top fan as intake will create a nice little path of airflow.
Though feel free to experiment and see what happens with system temps with different configs. With aircooling there really is no ONE way to do things. Find out what works best for you.
Quote:
As far as I can tell, the Gecube is set up for side exhaust, and even bottom exhaust better since it does exhaust heat right into the case (arguably if it didn't there'd be no problem) and blowing cold air onto the card only ensures the processor has to take all the heat from the graphics card, back to the A/C argument.
Thats the other reason I said top fan intake bottom vent exhaust.. and front intake..
Harvrdguy,
It looks like you have a pretty good idea on airflow now.. Most of it is just good knowledge and trials.. Try it the way that is the easiest first. If you don't like the results start experimenting with the more .. err Labor intestive :) ideas. And finally if you STILL don't like the results start cutting holes in your case. You could always hack out the vent/grill the case has then mount a different grill on the outside of the case... something like these
http://www.frozencpu.com/cat/l2/g36/c221...Fan_Grills.html
1 they do not restrict airflow as much as the little holes in the case... They provide a little extra safety for your fingers (not much though OUCH ), cover up some hacksaw cutting mistakes, plus add a little "bling" to the look of the case :)
Rubber spacers aren't meant for a airtight fit. They are actually used to reduce vibration transfer from the fan to the case, thus lowering noise. Also I BELIEVE the right word is "Case Fan Gasket" :)
I DO NOT ENDORSE/RECOMMEND ANY RETAILER I POST... I just did a quick search on google with the above word and found this as the first link
http://www.endpcnoise.com/cgi-bin/e/std/..._Case_Fans.html
You can probably find them cheaper if you search around...
FYI... This is my Case
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ShowImage....k+Computer+Case
Though the fan hole on the TOP of my case is covered by my Power Supply
My next case will be a Full Tower instead of a mid tower. I NEED MORE ROOOOOM
Never argue with an idiot. They drag you down to their level, then beat you with experience.
This message has been edited since posting. Last time this message was edited on 10. September 2007 @ 07:32
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harvrdguy
Senior Member
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10. September 2007 @ 18:02 |
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Hey Travis (Travis P. Walker I presume? - kardson) Sam (sammorris) and Raymond (waymon),
We've got everybody's names now. Travis, I loved your last post: Quote:
Miss a couple days and now I have to write a book :)
LOL! That's how I feel!
Sam you've got a great post on the bottom of page 19. I don't know how I missed it before. You had me laughing out loud too, for real.
Quote:
Here I am minding my own business and suddenly I'm starting fights? :S
That was funny! Raymond and Travis, he's talking about you guys. We're all waiting for the big BF2 matchoff.
(What are fraps?) Yeah, you should turn that off waymon before you fight it out (fps-wise) with kardson, otherwise it won't be apples and apples. That matchoff is gonna tell us - do we worry about omega, or stick to the ati drivers and try to figure out what is wrong with waymon's computer?
Travis (kardson) dude, you've got so many names, how do you keep it straight. I try to use harvardguy everywhere because that's my web site (.com). Here they wouldn't accept 10 characters so I dropped the second "a". Then I keep a text file where I list all my identities everywhere I register, which hopefully is harvardguy everywhere, to try to keep things simple. Sometimes when I play Day of Defeat I use Ricardo. One time, I had just gotten on, and I was still ultra-rusty, so I was doing my typical start-up Thompson SMG "spraying and praying" and a guy typed "Ricardo shoots just like a Mexican." The other guy typed "Well, that makes perfect sense." I had to laugh. I pictured myself out there with Pancho Villa! I'm not Mexican but I have been trying to learn Spanish for the longest time, Richard is Ricardo in Spanish, and yes, sometimes it takes me a while to warm up before my aim improves and my reflexes kick in.
Sh*t Raymond, your case if falling apart! That was funny. Quote:
The one I have now has a crack in the plastic clear shield, that is very visible. It has a dent in the top, and the front comes off from small vibrations. oh, and the front dorr that swings open wont stay closed because the hitch is snapped in half.
"and the movers dropped it down the stairs one time so the whole corner is caved in, and ............"
Seriously dude, it looks like you were ready for the new box. Kardson is about to have me start drilling holes all over my case, but at least, for now, I don't have to tear the front panel apart. Thanks kardson - Travis, your links are very helpful, dude, and thanks also for clueing me in about "fan case gasket" - it definitely helps the google searches to use the right terminology.
Back to Sam's funny post at the bottom of p.19. Actually I was shocked to read: Quote:
Kardson: An intake fan at the top? Interesting, for me top fans work far better as exhaust, that seems logical due to the heat rises argument, but if you get better results, that's interesting.
I thought I was the only one who worried about heat rises!
...........................
Anyway, we seem to all be okay on vent out the bottom side (position 3 above) like Travis recommended. And one or two intake fans pulling in the front top (1 but up on top) where it will actually line up with the back upper fan, 4. (which I'm going to beef up), and also intake fan at 2 on the side (unlike what the picture says) and turn the cpu fan around to blow down at the cpu. Looks like all you guys are pretty much on the side of cpu fan blows down toward the cpu.
Finally, from the way Dinc and all you other guys are talking, I'll be hacksawing anyway, and getting a new grill, which will add some minor protection and especially some bling to my cheap-ass case! Thanks Travis!
And you're right Sam, Quote:
Harvrdguy: you think Kardson scares you?
You're every bit as scary as Travis, maybe even more. You guys change fans like I change socks. You guys have a mountain of experience - which is great for a newbie like me! I want to pick up some pwm-friendly fans that don't growl too much. Speedfan hooked me on pwm control, (even though I set the cpu fan - the only mobo one I could control back to thermal cruise.) For fans I already have Travis' two links for that saved, and on the mcubed forum there is a thread called "pwm-friendly fans" where he classifies them as "silent" "low growl" etc. (more about mcubed in my next post.)
So, Sam, you're getting 2570 on cpu 3dmark6? That's kind of a screaming cpu you've got there. (You sure suckered us all in, especially Raymond, with calling his 973 kickass - sort of tongue in cheek, right? Are you a pool shark too?) Here's google: Quote:
The Newisys 4300-E provides the performance, availability and manageability required for business-critical workloads. With four Dual-Core AMD Opteron processors, the Newisys 4300-E features up to 64 gigabytes of DDR400 memory
Holy moly, 4 dual core processors? WTF! What are you doing Sam, running nuclear reaction simulations? Jeeeeeezusss!
Come on, fess up Sam, on 3dmark 6, when all of us are getting .2 or .4 fps or some such very low sh*t like that on the cpu tests, what are you getting? In fact, with that screaming cpu, what is your new 3d mark 6 score? (You quoted 5500 for an old single core you used to have.) Are you over 10,000 Sam? Come on, out with it bud! No use being coy. We all need to know what we're up against! You already have a case that refuses to heat up even when you turn the fans off - how fast is this rig of yours. I'm bracing myself to be really impressed!
(By the way Travis - I noticed your 16 fps on firefly forest - I get 8 with the 850 - plus you're running in shader 3 mode - that's great! I can't wait for the Gecube!)
No wonder you laughed, Sam, about my laughable p4 3.2 32-bit. So, Sam, you're telling me that "unfortunately" I don't have dual core. Well, ok, Mo told me I didn't. If I did, I'd have a much faster cpu, is that it? So clue me in, Sam, what is multi-threading and why does speedfan show two cpus? You said it's for reliability. So you're telling me that I have a single core cpu pretending to be two cpus? How does that help me on single-threaded video games? It doesn't, right? Basically I'm screwed until I upgrade, right?
I get the feeling that I'm going to be another one of those dudes whose cpu will be the bottleneck once I get the Gecube. Let me ask all of you guys about memory. I'm running 1 gig total now. I have two memory slots on my MS-7103. Will it help me to put on a $67 1 gig stick and run 1.5 gig? That would allow me to set my agp aperture to 256mb to help the Gecube with texture storage, (I think kardson explained that to us once) and I would be left with more than I have now, right? Or should I not be so cheap and go for the other $67 stick, and max out at 2 gig? Is max memory really going to help me play Airborne better? What does everybody say about that?
Anyway, to change the subject, I hear you, Sam, I will never unplug or plug those molexes with the power on. (Hey guys, Travis, you have all these great links, where do I get some long molex extensions so I can take my side cover off easily with two fans mounted on it?)
Sam, on your newer post you said the second fan on the blitztorm, the non-blower fan, should point down? I believe it will swivel to the down position, but everybody prior to you had said "point it up at the Gecube." What would you want to achieve pointing it at the bottom of the case? Stir up the cool air down there and mix it into the hotter stuff up on top? We're venting right at the bottom there, a little closer to the back of the case, through the new exhaust fan (position 3 on Kardson's drawing).
You would have me swivel the thing to point down and maybe slightly toward the back, to help draw air out that back exhaust, position 3? Hmmmm. I see. I never would have thought of that.
The new intake fan at 2, is directly above the new exhaust at 3, but a good portion of that 2 intake is being sucked by the cpu fan right behind it, so the short-circuit they talk about (between 2 and 3) won't happen.
So most of intake 2 goes into the cpu heat sink and is spread all over the motherboard. We've got that intake coming from the upper front, and some additional case venting out the upper back. So Sam is suggesting, instead of blowing up at the Gecube, swivel the radial 180 degrees or so, to pull warm air down and backward, so exhaust 3 blows it out the case. That is some good, innovative (my favorite word again) thinking! What does anybody else think about that? Like Travis says, I can always pop the side off (especially with molex extensions), change the swivel angle, and look at all my temperatures again. Nice work, Sam - it's worth messing with!
Hey Travis, yeah the Airborne demo got me into this whole mess. (It's not a mess, thanks to you guys I'm getting a new college education on how PC hardware works - satisfying my techie needs - like bjorn.com's motto. :=)
Well, your Airbone demo fps in the teens ain't great, but I'm sure that's what I'm getting on some of the stuff I run. You're running pretty good res at 1400 x 900, - what kind of a wide angle monitor do you have? and at all high settings. I do like to run 1600 x 1200 on my sony crt monitor, and I'm sure the Valve Source engine drops me down below 20 sometimes, although I don't turn up the settings all the way. On Lost Coast with 4XAA, the video stress test says I am getting 42, but v-synch will drop me down into the mid-30's - that's shader 2 of course since I still have the x850xtpe. More lately I have been borrowing my brother's apple cinema (f**king gorgeous LCD display!!!!!!) and running at 1280 x 1024, or on the newer games, 1600 x 1024. I don't run the settings at max.
I played around with ATT and the one setting that kills me is AF. Anisotropic filtering. Anti-aliasing doesn't hurt me too much, and I can do v-synch (which hurts me a lot on the lost coast video stress test) but I turn on the ATT triple buffer, which their tweak forum help said allows you to run v-synch (to match top of frame with bottom) and eliminates the v-synch performance penalty, and according to the ATT bench results that does seem to be true. Anyway, when you play the airborne demo, is it annoying with fps in the teens, or is it playable (except maybe really intense action - smoke, etc) for the most part?
Later this week I'll go through your new links, Travis.
See all of you guys later, (I'm coming right back on with my mcubed post)
Rich
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10. September 2007 @ 18:48 |
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Hyperthreading makes your P4 artificially appear as a dual core. Consequently, although there's no performance boost, if a program crashes it can only use 50% of your CPU, so your system won't completely lock up.
My reason for the concern over the fan card blowing up is because it effectively pushes air over the card and towards the processor. Surely we want to avoid that? if you've got air going out the side at the bottom, surely it makes sense to blow the graphics card's heat downwards so it can escape without heating up anything else?
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Holy moly, 4 dual core processors? WTF! What are you doing Sam, running nuclear reaction simulations? Jeeeeeezusss!
I didn't post that, not guilty!
My 3dmark score is 6755. See my signature for my system specs.
I run all my games at 2560x1600 where possible, if that resolutions' not supported, i go with 2048x1536 as 4:3, because my monitor adapts that to a 4:3 size image, rather than stretching it, so it's still as crisp, just a smaller picture.
As for Anisotropic filtering, it's a big performance hit, depending on how much you enable it, if you suffer too much of a frame drop, try using only 2x or 4x rather than the full HQ 16x.
here are a couple of pictures of my PC. They're a few months old, so the socks have changed (that picture shows the nexus fan at the side, still sucking in with the dust filter, and the noctua fan at the back - it's on but the flash means the fans look like they're not spinning!
Note the big heatsink on my X1900XT, the HR-03. No fan present!
http://img208.imageshack.us/img208/79/hrsideviewwo3.jpg
This second picture's further out. if you don't understand the desktop, I won't explain! lol
http://img124.imageshack.us/img124/6086/distanceviewtu2.jpg
if you're interested in the 3007WFP, here's what sits on my desk:
http://img208.imageshack.us/img208/8320/interfaceqk5.jpg
I haven't had that desktop image for ages, but my camera's not with me at the moment.
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harvrdguy
Senior Member
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11. September 2007 @ 00:23 |
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Hey guys,
This is a post about the fan controller called MCUBED T-BALANCER and about how I am going to control all those new fans I will be adding to my case,
per Sammoris, Kardson, Dinc, and Waymon.
So, Sam, Travis, Dinc, and Raymond, you've got me into some heavy research on how all this stuff really works, and how I can "turn on the AC without overheating my engine."
I swear I am just about to slow down on all this new technology for a while, because I think I'm there now. With everybody's help, we've worked out all the new fans I'll be putting in my case, and where they're going to go. The only thing left is, when are kardson and waymon going to do the BF2 matchup? Yeah when????
And beside the big matchup, the only thing left is, how do I control all those fans? Right? Speedfan won't help, because I can't plug them into my mobo. The MS-7103 has only one pwm controllable fan plug, for the cpu fan, and one more non-controllable plug, for the back exhaust case fan that I'm going to upgrade.
I probably just should have asked you guys, but I forgot to. So I did some intensive fan controller research over the weekend.
First of all, I am going to be changing out the vantec spectrum pci fan card:
.................
In its place is going the blitztorm card that Travis told me about which I already ordered. With either of these cards, (because the Gecube takes the AGP plus two more PCI slots,) I won't have any more PCI slots. Travis dropped 12 F with that fan card, so I have to have it!
I will be adding 5 new pwm (pulse width modulation) controllable fans. Sam, you actually mentioned the Sunbeam controller a little while back at the top of your post, at the bottom of page 19. I don't know if it is the same sunbeam fan controller that I found over the weekend, but in any event, I know that Sunbeam takes a pci slot. I was super excited to find the Sunbeam PCI controller (to hell with Travis' fan card if I need that PCI slot - just kidding Travis :=) I googled to find some reviews. I was even more stoked when, in the first review I came across, they mentioned another controller, the Mcubed T-balancer.
They said these were the only two software-controlled PC fan controllers they knew about.
So hot diggity! I can keep Travis' mean looking blitztorm,
.......
and get a fan controller anyway. They make a pci slot version of the controller, but their regular model sits anywhere in the case, in one of my many free 3 1/2 " slots, or even on the case bottom. I don't need to mount it in one of the 5 1/2 inch bays, where I will be putting two fans, so I can read the display and turn the control knobs, (forcing me to throw out my present reader and pick up a combination reader and burner) like all the other controllers I found. This thing has no display, and it has no control knobs.
As I said, it's the Mcubed T-balancer, made in Austria and introduced at the end of 2004. I read almost every review on the thing. I foolishly googled it forever to find them all, but the reviews are all at the main website here: http://www.mcubed-tech.com/english/index.htm
Most of the reviews talk about the original classic model that they still sell. It won all kinds of awards - one site gave it two major awards - the first for any product they ever reviewed. They have introduced a second more advanced model of the controller. So now they have two, the original classic, and the new BigNG. (Weird name. Why didn't they name it the BigMF? Wait a second! I just had a craaazy thought. Are they using the "N" word? That just popped into my deranged head. Hmmmmm.... This is Austria ...... No, let's not even go there. I'm wrong. We'll let bygones be bygones, and we'll tear 'em up in MOH Airborne. Right Sam? But damn, that is a craaaazy kind of funny, actually, Dave Chappelle thought. I might even call it that - to myself! :=) Sorry about that diversion, or should I say delusion, the BigNG, heh, runs about $13 more than the classic model.
As far as I can figure out, I don't need the BigNG now, but in the future I will regret it, if I don't buy it, so that's the one - the new big one - that I will buy now.
...
It has all of the functionality of the classic, which is pwm control for up to 16 or maybe 20 fans (through splitters - there are a total of 4 fan channels on the classic) and a bunch of temperature sensors - 8, or maybe 16.
The difference between the two is that the BigNG also provides analog device operation, if you want it. In other words, it provides the additional extra capability of running everything, not just through pwm control, but also through regular analog control. That's why it has a heat sink and the classic model doesn't.
Sam, am I correct so far?
The analog additional capability, in my present circumstances, wouldn't do anything for me above and beyond what the classic offers, but for the future I'll be joining Raymond with watercooling. Mcubed makes all kinds of flow controls, that plug into the controller, to give you full control of water cooling. (But for flow control, you have to have the BigNG model, because you'll be controlling devices that won't be pwm controllable, through the BigNG's ability to provide analog control, in addition to digital - pwm - control.) Plus you can run lights, everything. (I'm not going to run lights - I'm never going to need that much "bling" sorry Travis :=)
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(By the way, Raymond, and everybody, I have to apologize, this is turning into one of my long-winded posts again. One of the reasons that my posts grow and grow is that I type really fast. One of my relatives was sitting in the other room at her house recently, and I was typing out a set of instructions on her computer in the hallway, and all of a sudden I heard - "Rich, is that you?" I said "Yes" I had no idea what she was talking about, I was barely breathing. She said, "How fast do you type anyway." I laughed! She heard the keyboard clicks going like heavy rain on a tin roof and she was amazed. "Christ, I don't know! What's fast? 60 or 70, 80 or 90, maybe 120!" I don't know. High school keyboarding - touch typing - I have to look only at the numbers. Frankly, I almost refuse to use pen and paper, because, first, my handwriting is illegible and second, printing is painfully slow. So when I get going, like excitedly talking about this little Mcubed beauty, the fingers start tapping and the words just spill out. Plus I have written a lot of documentation for my assistants, and for myself. Every time I learn something about the computer that I want to be able to find later when I have the same problem, I create illustrated documentation for myself, and then I give the wordpad text files every kind of shortcut name that in the future I might look under, and I keep those shortcuts in a folder called Shortcuts. Basically, it's what's known as diarrhea of the mouth, but in my case, it's diarrhea of the keyboard. So sue me! Just kidding :=) I just wish the fast typing made me a good counter strike player, but there is no correlation =(
So as I said, the controller has no knobs or displays, which I didn't want it to have - you look at it through the computer and its usb interface. It can control 4, (or is it 5?) fan circuits, with up to 4 fans per circuit, and up to 8 temperature probes, (or is it 16) and a mess of other stuff - you can plug expansion devices into the thing. Anyway, it has its own microprocessor - it won't forget what you have it set to if windows crashes.
...
Are you guys familiar with this thing? They say that they are now compatible with speedfan, in terms of sharing their information with speedfan and letting you use speedfan to run everything (since speedfan already picks up all the mobo stuff that is controllable which mcubed doesn't do - it just controls the stuff you plug into it - which could be the cpu fan if you want - I don't plan to do that for now.)
My thinking is that since I'm adding 5 new fans, I could put the little front ones on the same molex with a splitter, then add the other three to the mcubed, and control all 4 positions - the two front ones would be pwmed the same - no problem. They ship you 6 analog sensors and two digital sensors (or you can buy 6 more digitals.) The digital sensors apparently are reasonably accurate, within +/- 2 degrees C. So they say, "use the digitals to calibrate your analogs." That is just now beginning to make sense to me. You can put an analog where a digital won't go, because at 1" square by 1/4" thick, the digitals are too big to be taped to a tiny side piece of the cpu like the analog, or between the fins of a heat sink, for example.
...
The analog sensors are thin foil sensors. They say that the sensors are subject to wide deviations, so you have to calibrate them. To help you do that, they provide a linearizing function in the microprocessor, and you can use a digital sensor placed temporarily near the analog sensor, to them close to the accuracy of the digital sensors. From the web store link at the main site, I get this quote:Quote:
But with linearising analog sensors get so precise, that they come close to the digital sensors.
I could put the analogs around in various places, sticking up in the air I guess - they don't necessarily need to be taped to a chip or to a heatsink. Where do you guys think the 8 sensors should go?
Anyway, when I'm all done I believe I will have complete control over all my case fans, letting my cpu HSF run auto on thermal cruise the way it does now (Travis and Sam, do I change my bios and drop it to 50 C at full throttle or leave it at 60 full throttle?) and ramping up my 5 new fans when things get hot in the case (Gecube running Airborne.)
The overall cost of the thing, is about $75 for the new one, plus shipping from Europe, which runs, what $30? So I think I'll just add it to the shopping list - let's see now: memory, (2 sticks or 1? $67 per gig, I have 1 gig now, I could buy 1 for total 1.5 gig, or 2 for max 2 gigs) 5 fans, grill, bigNG, fan case gaskets, Gecube. About $700 will do it, I think. Sell a house, lol.
See you guys,
Rich
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harvrdguy
Senior Member
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11. September 2007 @ 00:53 |
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Sam,
Sorry about the misquote. I googled your system signature but I think I turned it around and typed AMD 4300 E, and I got some quad core server stuff. Scared the beejeezus out of me. Glad to see that you're still on the same planet with the rest of us. Not that you have anything puny - you're kicking everybody's ass with your dual core at 6755 3dmark. THAT'S A HIGH SCORE SAM!
So I see what the multi-threading does, very interesting. You said there is no performance boost, but is there also no big performance hit? I understand that video games are single-threaded, versus business applications like pagemaker, word, excel, etc. which don't task my system anyway, and I don't run any CAD stuff or anything else that's heavy - just heavy video games like all of us. My question is, on a single-threaded video games, am I using my whole 3.2 Ghz P4, or is this multi-threading "let's cut the computer in half" stuff, actually causing me to game with half of a computer! WTF!
Because if that is what is happening, should I be thinking of expanding the memory, or should I be thinking - go get a new computer chip, preferably something that will migrate later with me to PCI-express?
You're running some amazing resolutions Sam. I'm envious. I won't catch up with you for a few years until crossfire, water cooling, and dual core - hell quad core by then, 4 gigs - well maybe 8 by then.
Yeah, pointing the radial fan up and blowing the tec cooler heat into the cpu probably isn't good - but wait, we're reversing the cpu hsf and blowing down toward the chip, so the cpu is protected. Well still I get your point. Why head it over in that direction at all? What if I point up and toward the back of the case, 45 degree slant. That will push the air over to where the back exhaust fan is. I'll play with it a bit. You're almost 7000 3d mark, Sam! That's a kickin machine!
Rich
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AfterDawn Addict
4 product reviews
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11. September 2007 @ 02:25 |
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The sunbeam I mentioned took a 5 1/4" front drive bay, not an internal product.
There are a few software controlled fan controllers around, I haven't dabbled with them because they're usually quite expensive over here it seems.
Which PWM fans are you going with? I know noise is a non-issue for you, but we can at least make sure you're getting reasonable fans.
I have in fact seen the M-Cube before, but there's one thing I dislike about that T-Balancer big <socially unacceptable phrase> which is that rather than use a USB header, it uses a cable. Which means either you're going to need to find a very nifty cable, cut it and do some soldering, or have a cable that runs out a hole in the back of your case, and back round to one of the USB ports...
I don't exactly kick everybody's ass, there are people on this forum, and at my LAN part that get 12,000+ in 3dmark06.
What you've got to remember is that the only real difference in our PCs is that I use a more up-to-date motherboard. My graphics card is in the same series as yours, my CPU is currently on sale for £65, it's not exactly top-end, it's what you should call 'value performance'. Granted the monitor isn't, but hey.
As for the fan card blowing up, bear in mind it's going to be thinner than the gecube, not as long, and sit BELOW it. Consequently, the airflow you'll be getting is just going to blow straight onto the purple fans on the TEC, which surely creates a conflict as they want to blow in the other direction.
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kardson
Junior Member
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11. September 2007 @ 07:06 |
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are you sure the purple fans blow out and not in?
mother...f... My house is gonna smell like cigars again!
Never argue with an idiot. They drag you down to their level, then beat you with experience.
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AfterDawn Addict
4 product reviews
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11. September 2007 @ 07:26 |
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Well i'm not sure to be honest.
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harvrdguy
Senior Member
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11. September 2007 @ 11:53 |
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I always assumed the purple fans blew in. Light up that cigar and tell us kardson.
That is a beautiful case you've got there, kardson Mo has never sold a case that nice! Man! No wonder you were talking about bling Travis! There is no way that anything I do to my case will give me something as nice as yours!
But the outside grills on that link you gave me, look pretty good actually.
Sam you crack me up, Quote:
but there's one thing I dislike about that T-Balancer big <socially unacceptable phrase> which is that rather than use a USB header ......
Come on, I was just kind of kidding but if that's what they mean I give them props for being funny. But I just googled NG - here's what I came up with:
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RELAX NG is a schema language for XML
So it's probably the language they code the bigNG microprocessor with. (But I like my and Sam's version better "the bigN*" or the big <socially unacceptable phrase>)
Sam, they say that you can plug their usb into a header on the motherboard - depending I guess on the mother board. Are you saying I probably won't be able to find a header like that. Oh, well, I can run the cable around the back side and plug in the front if I need to (Travis wants me to start drilling holes in my cheap ass case anyway.)
Hey Travis (kardson) any progress on the big matchup with waymon? (What are fraps?)
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harvrdguy
Senior Member
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11. September 2007 @ 12:00 |
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So Sam, am I going to benefit by more memory on my P4?
Why didn't I get an amd board when I had the chance?
Anyway, how much memory should I get for the P4? 1 stick for $67, giving me 1.5 gig, or max it to 2 gig with 2 sticks?
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harvrdguy
Senior Member
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11. September 2007 @ 12:28 |
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Jeezus Sam, you've got a beautiful case too! Is that a brushed aluminum front panel? Very impressive! What does a really nice case like that cost?
http://img124.imageshack.us/img124/6086/distanceviewtu2.jpg
http://img208.imageshack.us/img208/8320/interfaceqk5.jpg
Did that cat land okay? "HAY GUYZ. WUT BUTTON 4 PARASHOOT?!1!"
Sam, I swear, you are one funny guy!
You guys have some really really nice cases. How does waymon's new 900 stack up? Are we talking on the order of $300 for cases like these, or is it more?
Sam, is that the 30" Dell, around $1500, that you're running? Oh, yeah, I followed the other link, it is the 30" Priced now at $1275. Wow! Again those resolutions you're running are strong. When I borrow my brother's apple cinema I can't believe the quality difference in the picture - so much brighter! I don't even want to game anymore on the trinitron.
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harvrdguy
Senior Member
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11. September 2007 @ 12:54 |
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Sam,
I don't know what pwm fans I should get.
Travis (kardson) gave me a nice link. Should I worry about silent fans that much? I'm going to use the controller to slow them all down for everyday operation.
When I need them to ramp way up, I'll have the headphones on, shooting nazis, or crysis space aliens. So everyday quiet may not be too much of a factor - they'll be running so slow, they'll be quiet, except for some pwm growling. A guy on the mcubed forum had a "pwm friendly fans" thread under the "classic" T-balancer section, which looked interesting.
The first fan that Travis sent me to was a Phabst. I have read that it is one of the very best - a quiet fan with a teflon spindle, giving it the low noise of a spindle fan but the reliability of a two ball bearing fan. A little pricey - but 5 fans at an extra $5 each, $25 total, not too bad I guess. I could always take them to the new future case someday. Maybe I will eventually be in an environment where I won't be using headphones. So you're right, I should get some "reasonable" fans.
So what brand of socks do you like, now that you've "tried them all?" :=)
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harvrdguy
Senior Member
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11. September 2007 @ 13:05 |
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Travis (kardson)
Raymond (waymon) can turn off fraps with msconfig, then turn it back on later, after the big matchup. Do you think it slows down fps more than ATT? (I would hope that ATT would hardly take any cycles at all - at least that's what I would hope.)
Of course you guys have to have something looking at the fps.
Rich
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kardson
Junior Member
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11. September 2007 @ 13:53 |
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FRAPS is used to record games... sorta like a ingame head cam :)
Never argue with an idiot. They drag you down to their level, then beat you with experience.
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Member
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11. September 2007 @ 13:58 |
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hrvrdguy, do you need PWM-fans?
I personally have the ones from Arctic Cooling.
2 of the 80mm with their patented construction, which means the fans have a rubber suspension in a way which sounds great, or sounds like just wind actually.
I also had a 120mm in a conventional construction, but that one made a pretty loud buzzing noise.
I traded it for the same one, but it just did the same, now I sent it back for an L-version which should turn slower, which is ok for intake I guess.
I would get a 120mm with the patented construction, but I can't put that one on the inside since it would blow outwards too.
Plus, it's way too thick for most locations.
But it's weird they make that noise since they're made to push a lot of air but still be low-noise.
I guess my case just amplifies it, since I don't hear the fan outside the case, but when I put my ear close to it, I hear the same as when it would be in the case.
Anyways, if you really mean PWM-fans, those are PWM.
They have the 4-pin PWM-connectors and can be controlled by the motherboards that support it.
Unfortunately, there are very little motherboards that do, so of course mine doesn't, that's always my luck.
BUT, I can simply connect them to the 3-pin fan-connectors on my motherboard instead of having big Molex-plugs hanging around.
And they're sleeved in black rubber too, which looks kool and tight, and it won't bother the airflow much, especially since they're round.
The only downside to me seemed that the wiring is just slightly short.
It depends on where you want to put the fans and where the connectors on your motherboard are, but with the more standard locations it would probably work out fine.
The only annoying thing to me now is that, since the wires are a bit short, I have to sneak my hand in to disconnect the side-fan before I can remove the whole side-cover away from the case when I need to be in there...
This message has been edited since posting. Last time this message was edited on 11. September 2007 @ 14:04
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