Question on improvements to cooling

[sean126]

I'm getting a Asus P5W DH Deluxe MB. I was reading some place about it and they said it'd be better if they put a better paste under the heatsinks on it...and my question is:

I'm going to have an Intel Core2 Duo E6600, I may end up overclocking it to 2.8 or 3.0 at some point. I'm going to have a Sapphire X1950pro 512mb that I may bump up just a little bit (if it will help). My memory is going to be OCZ platinum revision2 DDR2 2gb 4-4-4-15 that I may overclock a little.
My case is the Antec 900 and I plan to install the other 2 fans if I can, for a total of 6. My cpu heatsink/fan is the zalman 9700 nt. I will be using artic silver5.

On my motherboard itself it has heatsinks....should I take them up and replace the paste with artic silver5 for added cooling or would this be just a waste of time? I just plan on burning/copying dvd's and editing video...no gaming at all. Don't know if OC'ing just a little will help the times or not. If it's just a matter of 1 or 2 minutes....I guess I won't waste my time doing it. But if I was....then I was wanting to make sure I did all I could to get maximum cooling. taking away 2 or 3 degrees here and there adds up I would think and it'd be to my benefit.

One more.....as far as applying the paste to the cpu....on here I think I read for dual cores you need to put one strip down the middle. I assume not to close to the edges and half the thickness as a grain of rice. Is this correct?
Any other suggestions is more than welcome. Thanks.

[Panda Man]

Originally Posted by sean126

I'm getting a Asus P5W DH Deluxe MB. I was reading some place about it and they said it'd be better if they put a better paste under the heatsinks on it...and my question is:

I'm going to have an Intel Core2 Duo E6600, I may end up overclocking it to 2.8 or 3.0 at some point. I'm going to have a Sapphire X1950pro 512mb that I may bump up just a little bit (if it will help). My memory is going to be OCZ platinum revision2 DDR2 2gb 4-4-4-15 that I may overclock a little.
My case is the Antec 900 and I plan to install the other 2 fans if I can, for a total of 6. My cpu heatsink/fan is the zalman 9700 nt. I will be using artic silver5.

On my motherboard itself it has heatsinks....should I take them up and replace the paste with artic silver5 for added cooling or would this be just a waste of time? I just plan on burning/copying dvd's and editing video...no gaming at all. Don't know if OC'ing just a little will help the times or not. If it's just a matter of 1 or 2 minutes....I guess I won't waste my time doing it. But if I was....then I was wanting to make sure I did all I could to get maximum cooling. taking away 2 or 3 degrees here and there adds up I would think and it'd be to my benefit.

One more.....as far as applying the paste to the cpu....on here I think I read for dual cores you need to put one strip down the middle. I assume not to close to the edges and half the thickness as a grain of rice. Is this correct?
Any other suggestions is more than welcome. Thanks.

I don't see any point in changing the thermal compound used in the chipset heatsinks, so I wouldn't remove them - I'm not sure but that also may void your warranty.

As for the paste application, for AS5 you just need to put a little dot no bigger than a grain of rice in the middle, if you put a strip down the middle of that stuff you will waayy over do it. Good luck!

[qazwsx]

don't expect to get much of an OC from x1950, there running almost maxed out store bought from sapphire.

[sean126]

Thanks Pandaman and qazwsx.

Panda man....I noticed you have a Antec 900 like the one I'm getting. I've read about not having filters over the fans. Did you do anything about this, like use regular vent filters (the kind for the vents in your house) or cheese cloth or anything?
I was thinking of taping some to the outside of the fans until I seen what someone else has done.

Any one have any other ideas?

Also, will the video card I have prevent me from putting in that extra fan on the inside, the place behind the harddrive cages or do you know?

[Elysium]

I don't think that card is long enough to be a problem as far as the fan behind the HDD cage, Scott. Don't know for sure, though. As far as fan filters, I'm pretty sure that they sell dust filters for computer fans specifically. You can also cut window screen for a house to size and put it on the fans as needed. Good luck!!

[polobunny]

Don't overclock the video card, and don't add fans to the Antec 900. I'm telling you, unless noise really doesn't bother you, doing so will just make it louder.
The card isn't long enough to pose a problem, but I suggest you remove the black plastic fan support if you don't use it.
Put the hard drives in the lower hard drive cage, that's what gave me the best results overall.
All my fans are on low and my computer is a happy computer. ;)

[sean126]

Polobunny,

Thanks and Did you add any fan filters?

[polobunny]

Originally Posted by sean126

Polobunny,

Thanks and Did you add any fan filters?

No, but I regularly clean my tower because the Nine Hundred is honestly a dust sucker. The best performance for an all air cooled tower available on the market, but ya, keep the dust out either by cleaning it often or putting think fan filters.

[sean126]

Thanks for the info Polobunny!

[polobunny]

Originally Posted by sean126

Thanks for the info Polobunny!

You're welcome. I've had this tower for a while now, I really like it. Even on lowest settings it's one of the coolest (pun intended!) tower i've seen and had.