Prospective Aria buyer wonders about heat and noise

D

DanK

Gawd
Joined
Apr 21, 2004
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948
Hi everybody,

A friend of mine is building a new PC, and he's leaning towards a microATX / Aria combination. Other than the cube-ish case, his only other requirements are that the motherboard have a PCI-Express x16 slot, for future expandability, and that it should be very quiet (while keeping the important parts cool enough). That said:
  • Should he go with Intel or AMD? It seems like AMD is slightly better in the temperature department these days, especially with Cool'n'Quiet, but I'm not aware of any microATX motherboards with PCIE for Athlon 64s that support the feature.
  • My friend seems to believe that watercooling of both the CPU and the videocard (with the associated extensive modding of the case to fit the radiator, pump, and extra fans inside) will be necessary to meet his noise and temperature requirements. Is air cooling a possibility?

What are his options? If you own an Aria, what's worked for you?
 
Unless he needs it for encoding, AMD all the way.

ARIA & MSI RS480M2 or FoxConn NF4K8MC would both fit in the ARIA and support PCI-E.

You would have some limited overclockability with the FoxConn, but the northbridge fan would be noisy. If he doesn't overclock, the MSI would perfect.

As for using watercooling to keep the noise down, I don't see the point. You would have the pump noise from the watercooling, the fan for the rad and the fan for the power supply, not to mention the maintenance, modding and risk. With aircooling, you buy a quality aircooler and run an ultra low speed fan over it. How could that be any noisier?

As for heatsink, the Zalman 7000CU would be perfect, although you might have to double-check it works with the MSI in an ARIA, I heard someone worried about it, due to the socket location. The Zalman's have a silent setting. A Swiftech MCX6400-V with low flow 92mm would work admirably as well.

As for the video card a Silencer would help keep down the heat of both the card and temps and they are very quiet as well. The GlacialTech Northpole 1000 is supposed to be silent and supposedly performs better than the Silencers. Downside is that it does not exhaust the hot air and would make the PSU fan work harder/create more noise. NCIX.com has them.
 
sleepeeg3 said:
Unless he needs it for encoding, AMD all the way.

ARIA & MSI RS480M2 or FoxConn NF4K8MC would both fit in the ARIA and support PCI-E.

You would have some limited overclockability with the FoxConn, but the northbridge fan would be noisy. If he doesn't overclock, the MSI would perfect.

As for using watercooling to keep the noise down, I don't see the point. You would have the pump noise from the watercooling, the fan for the rad and the fan for the power supply, not to mention the maintenance, modding and risk. With aircooling, you buy a quality aircooler and run an ultra low speed fan over it. How could that be any noisier?

As for heatsink, the Zalman 7000CU would be perfect, although you might have to double-check it works with the MSI in an ARIA, I heard someone worried about it, due to the socket location. The Zalman's have a silent setting. A Swiftech MCX6400-V with low flow 92mm would work admirably as well.

As for the video card a Silencer would help keep down the heat of both the card and temps and they are very quiet as well. The GlacialTech Northpole 1000 is supposed to be silent and supposedly performs better than the Silencers. Downside is that it does not exhaust the hot air and would make the PSU fan work harder/create more noise. NCIX.com has them.
Click to expand...

Saved me the typing, phew :D
 
I agree with the AMD recommendation and the CPU cooler choice as well. As far as the GPU cooler, I'm kinda interested in either the Artic Cooler or the Zalman VF700-Cu. The Zalman I think would fit better in the Aria than the Artic Cooler since it will probably butt up against the drive cage which hangs in place.

Regards,

-E
 
Thanks for the replies everyone; it's fairly similar to what I had thought. :)
 
I should be recieving the Foxconn mATX mobo w/ s939 3000+ tomarrow from newegg. An Aria is to come... Or I'll try and make my own. ;)
 
I have an Aria with the MSI (ATI Chipset) s939 board, an A64 3200+ and an XFX 6800gt and I am having a heat problem. If I leave the top on the case, the video card will overheat after a couple of hours of playing EQ2. With the top off, it seems to be fine. I've been trying to figure out a decent location for a blowhole on the left hand side of the case. I think I'm going to put it so the fan will directly exaust the video heat just block the PCI slots, since I don't reallyplan to use them.
 
spadefoot said:
I have an Aria with the MSI (ATI Chipset) s939 board, an A64 3200+ and an XFX 6800gt and I am having a heat problem. If I leave the top on the case, the video card will overheat after a couple of hours of playing EQ2. With the top off, it seems to be fine. I've been trying to figure out a decent location for a blowhole on the left hand side of the case. I think I'm going to put it so the fan will directly exaust the video heat just block the PCI slots, since I don't reallyplan to use them.
Click to expand...
You just saved me from thinking about the Aria. SN25P all the WAY!! Newegg.com has them in stock. :D
 
Arkanian said:
You just saved me from thinking about the Aria. SN25P all the WAY!! Newegg.com has them in stock. :D
Click to expand...

Check out my web site below and see my Antec Aria on some ideas to do to your for better cooling and i will say my Aria cool no heat at all and ran x800 and a 3.2c@ 3.6 for the longest time and now is running a prescott with a little oc but i dont touch it now it is my dads computer/ folding rig so, still a tight little rig :D
 
My Aria is very quiet and runs cool. CPU idle at 38 and load at 47. I use the stock AMD heatsink with an 80mm cooler master fan sitting on top and I have a VGA silencer on my Video card. Loudest thing in my PC is the Hard Drive. I think the key to keep it cool is exhausting the videocards heat out the back instead of leaving it lingering around in the case, or maybe i just got lucky.
 
I also have an aria that I've been at war with over temperatures and noise. I've finally settled for higher temperatures and lower noise. I modified the psu to improve airflow (cut some of the psu casing out), and replaced the stock 120mm fan with a silenx 120 14dba running at 7v. I'm using a zalman 7000cu at the lowest speed (~1300rpm), and NV5 on my 6800gt.

Here's what temps I get:

CPU Idle= 47c
CPU Load= 56c (cpu burn for 20 minutes.....it levels off at 55-56 after about 5 minutes)

HD Idle= 39c
HD Load= 42c (after a complete defrag)

6800gt GPU Idle= 59
6800gt GPU Load= 74 (3dmark05 forest demo looped 10 times @ 1280x1024 4xaa 8xaf)

When I run the silenx 12v, temps drop about 4 to 5 degrees accross the board. But the sound of airflow increase dramatically. The fan itself isn't that bad, but the whole case has a wooshing sound to it due to the air being pulled in and exhausted out the back. Even at 12v, it's quieter than most people's gaming rigs.

Be carefull hacking the case apart to add cooling. Your hard drive is mounted in the front. When you create your own intakes, air is no longer pulled through the front holes and over the hd. If you or anyone else do this, make sure you have good airflow on your hd.
 
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