Upgrades to Lower Heat Output

[Vaulter]

My computer puts out a lot of heat, and I want to try and buy some new parts to possibly help lower that. Right now my build is as follows

Cooler Master CM690II case with 1 intake, 2 top exhaust and one rear exhaust fans
Sapphire 5770
8 gigs ddr3 ram
1tb caviar black 6gb/s
300gb 7200 rpm hdd (3.5in)
cooler master GX 650w PSU
2 ASUS DVD drives (one will be take out soon)
AMD Thuban 6 core OC'd to 3.3ghz, i might drop back down to stock which was 2.8 I think.
Sunbeam 140mm cpu cooler.
on an MSI motherboard

I figure dropping the clock speed will help, and I want to find a new graphics card that uses less power and produces less heat, but is just as fast. Im happy with the speed it is I don't need more gaming power for what I play currently, but I dont want to downgrade. Ill also consider simple watercooling solutions if you guys think that will help, like the all in ones sold by various companies.

 

[lehtv]

I figure dropping the clock speed will help, and I want to find a new graphics card that uses less power and produces less heat, but is just as fast.

Well, your CPU is a bigger culprit than your graphics card. A 5770 consumes less than 100W, while the CPU consumes over 100W at stock. But a platform upgrade would be pretty costly to do.

7750 consumes half as much power and performs the same. Check out the review: http://www.anandtech.com/show/5541/amd-radeon-hd-7750-radeon-hd-7770-ghz-edition-review

How is the heat output a problem though, just curious?

 

[Vaulter]

I live in Arizona, and my computer is in my room which is about 9ft by 9ft, at the very end of the hallway far from the air conditioner. If I want to get my room to a comfortable temperature while I'm gaming I have to really pump up the AC which one time I did it for a full month raised the utilities bill by quite a bit and my roommates weren't too happy. I also wasnt sure about water cooling as far as the total cost to silence/heat reduction ration.

 

[pauldun170]

What exactly is that "Sunbeam 140mm" cooler? What Model?
What temps are you actually seeing reported?

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

Yeah. It's your CPU. In my case it's my GTX 480.

I'm not so sure a all-in-one h20 cooling solution will change/lessen your heat output. When things heat up they heat up no matter how it's dissipated so your first step is either down-clocking your CPU or get a cooling running chip/platform.

 

[greenhawk]

either crack a window to dump the excess heat or leave the door open with a pedistal fan setup to move air in and out.

Getting a PC down to a power level you will not notice over a 24/7 run period will need you looking at laptops I suspect.

of course, if you are using a old CRT monitor, getting rid of that helps too, same with any other devices that use power in your room.

 

[lehtv]

I live in Arizona, and my computer is in my room which is about 9ft by 9ft, at the very end of the hallway far from the air conditioner. If I want to get my room to a comfortable temperature while I'm gaming I have to really pump up the AC which one time I did it for a full month raised the utilities bill by quite a bit and my roommates weren't too happy. I also wasnt sure about water cooling as far as the total cost to silence/heat reduction ration.

Well, you want low wattage components. Better cooling would only increase your room temperature - the more heat is retained in your components, the lower the temperature in your room will be.

But that's not a very pleasant trade-off. You'd want cool components and a comfortable room temperature. So the best thing to achieve that - low wattage components. The graphics card I recommended is one thing, but as mentioned earlier, the CPU is the main culprit.

Your PSU will also output heat, seeing as it's only 80 Plus certified. A higher efficiency unit would lower the amount of AC watts converted to waste heat. Cooler Master GX units aren't really very good performers anyway so this might be a good time to upgrade the PSU if you can afford to.

either crack a window to dump the excess heat or leave the door open with a pedistal fan setup to move air in and out.

Dump heat? You mean suck in heat. We're talking AZ here. Besides, you don't want to AC the whole world, right?

 

[vailr]

Maybe?: vent the hot PC exhaust air directly to the outside, using flexible exhaust tubing such as used with bathroom exhaust fans.
And/or install a few PC case fans hidden inside the room's AC vent, to help force cool air into the room.
A replacement room vent with built-in fans is also available:
http://www.atrendyhome.com/durebofan.html

 

[natto fire]

The main thing you will want is a wattage meter to determine what your baseline wattage is. Any improvements can then be compared to baseline power usage vs. performance lost. I have a similar setup, and the max I have seen it pulling from the wall was 350watts, with monitor. I had this in a 30 foot Airstream trailer I stayed at in New Mexico and as long as I had good airflow through the space, it didn't get too warm. Makes me miss the dry desert air actually.

Do you do any kind of distributed computing projects, or game frequently? I currently have my system in ~13x10 room and it only warms the room significantly when I have the DC projects going. I also have a bunch of plants in here, which seem to stabilize the temps overall.

Water cooling will only help if you get the radiator somewhere it is not dumping the heat into your room, including the extra 20 watts or so you will be pulling for the pump.

 

[mfenn]

An overclocked Thuban is probably drawing 150W+, and it could be doing it all the time if you disabled the power saving features as a way to get that OC. By contrast, the 5770 and 7750 are less than 10W apart when idling.

Do you do any tasks with your computer that actually require a hex-core? If not, an H61/H67 board and an i3 2100 will do wonders for your idle power draw.

 

[VirtualLarry]

I have my X6 1045T @ 3.51. I don't currently have a KAW to measure it.

But I do have it set, so that if I change to the "Balanced" power scheme, then the clocks and the voltage drop down (even though I have it manually set).

 

[Vaulter]

So I'll try and work through these questions and the thoughts they've made me have, thanks for being so responsive everyone.

Crack a window was already responded to for me, that works just fine in the 2 months of winter we have, but the rest of the time its about 90+ degrees outside, and maybe 85 at night. I don't have a CRT monitor, but I do use two 24 inch ASUS LCD monitors, which I've wondered if I sold them and replaced them with their LED counterparts if it would help at all, but my first thought is that its a very insignificant difference for a big chunk of change.

It's funny that you mention venting the heat out, or helping the air in. I actually drew up plans for a sort of window insert for my sliding window that had a hole in it I could vent out, but it would mean completely rearranging my room in some impractical ways, and redoing some of the wiring in the walls for speakers, cable and internet. (though a wireless adapter would solve that last one) as for pumping air in, I tried that with a big fan basically taped to the wall/roof, but it also blasted dust into my room. I can't crack my door and blow it in the from the hallway because it gets hot when I game, and when I game I get really loud and shout at friends via headset which bothers my roommates, especially late at night.

I don't do any DC projects like F@H, but I game quite a lot, and usually for long stretches. Also this is my main computer for doing homework, which at the university level is almost entirely online and takes forever, so even at idle work speeds its contributing to the temperature.

I don't really need the Hex core anymore, I bought it because at the time it was the best price to performance processor, and my family had a large collection of dvds (about 600) that they wanted me to rip and put onto an HTPC. My old dual core PC would take hours, this takes 20 minutes for a SD rip (obviously its the sum of the parts, not JUST the proc). But thats all done so I would consider changing, provided I didn't take a hit in gaming. (league of legends, skyrim, and soon D3).

MY PSU! Lol, just to draw attention to that so I could get some responses on it. Yes I know its only 80+ certified, but the reason higher wattage PSUs can get gold/platinum/whatever certified is because they draw a lot more power from the wall, which is easier to make use of. I'll never have it drawing that much power, so I wasn't sure if it would still be more efficient, or if the efficiency at a lower power draw would be about the same as mine is now. The PSU is something I would definitely consider replacing, as it was one of my first thoughts on the list of steps to making a difference, but I wasnt sure how much difference it would actually make, and I cant afford to spend the money just to find out.

I guess when I posted this I had only thought the problem halfway through. I was thinking about cooling solutions, not temperature solutions. But even if I drop the temp in my case, its only lower because I'm displacing the heat into my room. The parts are still creating the same amount of heat, and will still continue to heat up my room no matter how many fans I stick in the case.

 

[lehtv]

Yes I know its only 80+ certified, but the reason higher wattage PSUs can get gold/platinum/whatever certified is because they draw a lot more power from the wall, which is easier to make use of. I'll never have it drawing that much power, so I wasn't sure if it would still be more efficient, or if the efficiency at a lower power draw would be about the same as mine is now.

Hmm? PSUs of any wattage can get certified with any efficiency label, and the higher the efficiency, the less they draw watts from the wall. That's the whole point - with higher efficiency, you take less AC watts from the wall to supply the same amount of DC watts to components, and in the process the PSU produces less heat.

PSUs efficiency also follows a curve, where efficiency below 20% usually drops sharply, is optimal at around 50%, and stays at advertised levels up to 100% (assuming it's a good quality unit). So in an optimal situation for efficiency, idle wattage should be 20% of the PSU's output or more, and load wattage should be as close to 50% as possible. This is usually impossible to achieve because the difference between idle and load wattage tends to be much more than that. Still, your current PSU is overpowered for this rig - a 500W unit with the same efficiency certification would achive better efficiency on idle, all other things being equal.

If you upgraded to a low power CPU like i3-2120 for instance, you would cut your CPU heat output in less than half, and you could afford to run the system on an even smaller PSU. Around 400W would be big enough. A choice that would suit your situation well is Seasonic's fanless gold-rated 400W unit. Being high efficiency, it produces less waste heat; being rated only 400W, the idle wattage is closer to the 20% mark, which also adds to higher efficiency; and being fanless, the transfer of heat from the PSU to the room is slower.

 

[Feliabolica]

Usually if the computer put a lot of heat, meaning the cooler is not doing the proper jobs. Go get an aftermarket cooler then you should be fine

 

[VirtualLarry]

Usually if the computer put a lot of heat, meaning the cooler is not doing the proper jobs. Go get an aftermarket cooler then you should be fine

Actually, that's not true. Computers are nearly 100% efficient electric heaters. Meaning, that the wattage going into the computer is going to be released as waste heat into the enclosing atmosphere. Upgrading the cooling device on the processor, or adding more case fans, will only accelerate that process, not attenuate it.

Power Watts in == Waste Heat Watts out.

The only way to reduce the heating of the room, is to reduce the wattage that the components take, which means "upgrading" to a low-wattage CPU and graphics card.

 

[T_Yamamoto]

Usually if the computer put a lot of heat, meaning the cooler is not doing the proper jobs. Go get an aftermarket cooler then you should be fine

This doesn't make any sense.
Turbans are heaters and a heat sink pushes the heat out in a way so its dumping it out. Getting a better one won't do anything.

 

[lehtv]

Turbans?

 

[richaron]

Turbans?

You think it's a coincidence turbans come from a hot climate??

OP I would think about disabling a few cpu cores for gaming. Depends on the game, but you can save a massive amount of heat for the same performance. For defs you can still overclock but keep power saving features enabled (C'n'Q, C1E etc).

 

[Upgrade_Itch]

Buy a 5000 BTU a/c for your room. They are cheap at Walmart. Not sure how you can live in Zona without one!

 

[sm625]

lol you could replace the cpu with a pentium G870 and it would run most games faster and use less power. If cooling is really costing you then you want to get an ib dual core when it launches, and a 7750 or the nvidia equivalent when it releases.

 

[Topweasel]

You could also go Lllano and do away with the addin card completely. That would cut both CPU and GPU wattage down by 40% to half.

It will allow you to do more ripping if need be, but give you a highly usable and gameable integrated graphic.

I built one up that I am using for primary computer temporarily in the small room I have. If it and the monitor are the only things on, the temps in my room barely change. My Xbox, PS3, or TV put out way more heat.

If a Geforce 6500ish card (llano integrated) isn't enough, you could look try to hold out for Trinity. The IGPU is supposed to be 40% faster than Llano's, and have a lower power draw for the full unit.

 

[Vaulter]

Buy a 5000 BTU a/c for your room. They are cheap at Walmart. Not sure how you can live in Zona without one!

With central air. Adding more cooling would be nice, but it seems kind of a bad way to solve the problem, albeit efficient.

lol you could replace the cpu with a pentium G870 and it would run most games faster and use less power. If cooling is really costing you then you want to get an ib dual core when it launches, and a 7750 or the nvidia equivalent when it releases.

I'd rather not drop to anything less than a quad core CPU, simply because if I'm working in photoshop or editing videos, even if I'm not spending much time on it, I don't want to deal with the headache of a slow work environment. I would like to keep looking at changing the processor though, probably to an Intel one that turbos up the clock only when I need it. The problem with that is rebuying into Intel is so damn expensive. I went with AMD because they promised future compatibility, but that got lost with am3+.

You could also go Lllano and do away with the addin card completely. That would cut both CPU and GPU wattage down by 40% to half.

It will allow you to do more ripping if need be, but give you a highly usable and gameable integrated graphic.

I built one up that I am using for primary computer temporarily in the small room I have. If it and the monitor are the only things on, the temps in my room barely change. My Xbox, PS3, or TV put out way more heat.

If a Geforce 6500ish card (llano integrated) isn't enough, you could look try to hold out for Trinity. The IGPU is supposed to be 40% faster than Llano's, and have a lower power draw for the full unit.

Theres no way, with the technology out now, that I would consider going with integrated graphics. I'm sure with the way things are progressing in two years an APU type processor will be sufficient, but right now its taking too much of a hit.

Somebody mentioned disabling cores? Is this possible? I've never looked into it, but that would definitely be a step in the right direction for me. /google-time/

As for my PSU and the guy talking about it, youre right any PSU can have any efficiency rating, however what I was trying to get at is its easier for higher wattage PSUs to get higher efficiency ratings, therefore more often than not to go up in efficiency in terms of buying a new PSU with a new rating, you are also going up in wattage, which is the opposite of what I need. Or at least, this was true when I was buying this computer in 2010, things change. If I could find a 450-500 watt PSU with 80+ Plat for 100bucks or less, I'd probably buy it without a second thought.

 

[natto fire]

Buy a 5000 BTU a/c for your room. They are cheap at Walmart. Not sure how you can live in Zona without one!

Actually since OP is in Arizona, he can get by with one of these. More maintenance than a traditional A/C but also uses much less energy, and low initial cost. Actual cooling output will vary with relative humidity in the room, but I doubt it would get that high in Arizona.

Not sure how that unit draws in ambient air, but I would bet you could position it to grab most of the exhaust air from your PC, especially if you have a good case. Because the swamp cooler doesn't have a compressor, you could put it close to the case without worrying about interference.

 

[mfenn]

Usually if the computer put a lot of heat, meaning the cooler is not doing the proper jobs. Go get an aftermarket cooler then you should be fine

That doesn't make any sense. There is no way to "create cold," you can only move heat around. A household AC unit uses a heat pump to move heat outside of the house, a CPU HSF uses forced air to move heat from the CPU into the case and therefore into the room air.

 

[mfenn]

With central air. Adding more cooling would be nice, but it seems kind of a bad way to solve the problem, albeit efficient.

I'd rather not drop to anything less than a quad core CPU, simply because if I'm working in photoshop or editing videos, even if I'm not spending much time on it, I don't want to deal with the headache of a slow work environment. I would like to keep looking at changing the processor though, probably to an Intel one that turbos up the clock only when I need it. The problem with that is rebuying into Intel is so damn expensive. I went with AMD because they promised future compatibility, but that got lost with am3+.

Theres no way, with the technology out now, that I would consider going with integrated graphics. I'm sure with the way things are progressing in two years an APU type processor will be sufficient, but right now its taking too much of a hit.

Somebody mentioned disabling cores? Is this possible? I've never looked into it, but that would definitely be a step in the right direction for me. /google-time/

As for my PSU and the guy talking about it, youre right any PSU can have any efficiency rating, however what I was trying to get at is its easier for higher wattage PSUs to get higher efficiency ratings, therefore more often than not to go up in efficiency in terms of buying a new PSU with a new rating, you are also going up in wattage, which is the opposite of what I need. Or at least, this was true when I was buying this computer in 2010, things change. If I could find a 450-500 watt PSU with 80+ Plat for 100bucks or less, I'd probably buy it without a second thought.

Getting rid of your OC, (re-)enabling CnQ, and disabling cores will get you some gains, but that will only go so far on a fundamentally hot chip like a Thuban.

Beyond that, you are going to be spending a little money. Pick any two: cheap, cool, and fast.