The Official OC (OverClocking) Thread!

Ah right, that makes more sense. I wonder what the threshold is for the coolermaster PSUs before they start ramping up. Obviously without much of a graphics card drawing power your system won't be pulling very much load off the unit, but I would have thought it'd be enough to make the older coolermaster PSUs go mad with noise. Presumably the inbuilt ones are different in that regard. Either way though, as we've previously discussed, a PC with a 1200rpm 120mm fan in it of any kind, let alone an FM121 which is more like a 1400rpm of any other variety, is at best 'very quiet'. Dead silent is very misleading.

 

Sam,
I had been told beforehand that the CM's were noisy, and I was very surprised that the case came with the newer style PSU that has a 120mm fan on the bottom. I sold the 460w one and replaced it with a 500w CM model of the same design. Both were extraordinarily quiet! The only thing that seems to make any real noise at all, is the new video card, at startup. It runs full tilt until the software loads, and then runs much quieter. The rear 120mm Silverstone is a fixed RPM fan that runs at 1200 RPM and moves 56 CFM of air. I have it plugged into the Sysfan1, with it's control turned off in the bios, so it gets straight 12v. You can hear air moving, but you get no mechanical noise at all. No whines or annoying sounds. The only thing that "ramps up" is the video card. I was playing FC2 on it for a couple of hours and once in a while you could hear it's fan speed up, but nowhere near the noise at startup! I can make it run quieter, but the penalty for doing that is more heat, and that's not acceptable to me! I'll trade a little noise for better cooling anytime! Noise doesn't hurt the longevity of the components, heat does, and it's effects are cumulative. Besides the noise I do get is not annoying in any way, at least not to me!

I'm going to continue to use the AMD Overdrive to overclock it as it takes a lot less voltage for the CPU at the same speed as before, and it runs much cooler too!

Russ

 

It's the 120mm CMs that are noisy, the 80mm ones are alright.

 

Sam,
The one I have is as quiet or maybe even quieter than the Thermaltake I had in my E6750. It's got a 120mm fan on the bottom and is near dead silent, whether it's Encoding, running Orthos or gaming! I played FC2 the other night for about 2 hours, with all the settings on Max except AA which I had set to 2x. The mouse was a little sluggish, but it played very well. All the action looked great, and the detail was awesome, with very little noise from the console! The Dolby Surround is amazing! With the F/O S/PDIF connection, it's superb!

Here's the PSU! I'm very impressed with what it gives you for so little money! If you can't afford much, it's a good choice!
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817171031

Best Regards,
Russ

 

The lack of two 6-pins is a telltale sign it's not a 500W unit though. Electrically it's no better than the Corsairs which aren't much more expensive:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139008

 

Hello Again everyone.

Ok so im going crazy in regards to my temps. I have the thermaltake armor case. I have 2 92mm fans exhaust. 1 120mm Exhaust. 2 120mm intake. 1 120mm on cpu. Meshed front panels and meshed above the psu/cpu. these are the fans currently installed in the case.

120mm

92mm

These are my current temps once again with my room temp being 72f





Now im thinking of getting this case you thoughts please


coolermaster haf 932

also am i just over reacting with these temps or should i do something about them.

 

Sam,
I have no idea of the significance of two PCI-E plugs, but it is 500W. it's just rated at 70% efficiency! The Corsair is about $15 more for 400w @80%, which is fine if you have it. Real tough to spend money you don't have! When you have to count pennies from time to time, the one dollar bill has a lot of significance. 15 of them is a good couple of meals right now! For now, I'll keep what I have and be glad that I've got it!

Russ

 

Those temps are fine enough. Going to a HAF from an Armor won't see huge benefits.

Russ: The 70% efficiency also tells you something. I bet you anything you like a system that draws even as much as 400W off that PSU isn't stable. No matter how you spin it, that PSU is borderline territory with the AOpens of the world. Pennies or no pennies the most important part not to skimp on in a PC is the PSU. I'm merely stating that others should not follow in your footsteps in this regard, because not everyone uses a PC that draws less than 130W at full load.

 

I think my brother would be one of the few, that will never put their PSU to the ultimate test LOL. He browses, youtubes, emails! Nothing more! He has a PS2 for his gaming needs. Though he is now itching for the PS3. I wonder if I now have too much PSU! Probably not, once I get the 4870! I get that badboy, I'll be on cloud nine! Though in a few weeks, who knows. There may be the 5000 series released LOL!

 

Want a cheap 4870? I have one to sell... lmao
Dunno how much international postage'd be though...
Actually given the exchange rate it'd probably be a fortune for you.

By the way, the PS3 uses more power than Russ' PC does...

 

I honestly dont think about power usage when it comes to buying peripherals, electronic equipment, etc. I can however understand the Governments desire to design GREEN devices for the masses! I should run some mathematical analysis today with my P3 KillaWatt! It might just prove me wrong when I say, "a couple of green devices only save me a couple dollars a month!"

Yah, im sure the postage from overseas would be extreme LOL! Thanks for the thought though

 

Thanks for the info Sammoris,

I started messing with my fan speeds and on the speeds of my video card fans. I have all my case fans and cpu fans at full speed. Not to worry about noise these fans are nearly silent even at full speed. Then my vid cards fans. After tweaking it all i got to drop my temps a bit. Core temps now read 39-40 my cpu temp is at 30-31 and my mobo temp is at 37. One thing i find weird with my crossfire setup is that the top video card runs cooler than the bottom one. I would have though that the top one would run hotter since that fan is pulling air of the bottom vid but watever it works.

Now about cases the HAf 932 is a nice case it has 3 230mm fan and 1 140mm fan still thinking about it. Since i plan on building a media pc i might buy that case and use the armor case as my media center. Been looking at the reviews and test with the HAF it does a real good job and nearly silent with the stock set-up. Unlike my armor case which i replaced all the fans in it.

 

Sam,
And that's exactly my point! The 400w corsair would be in the same boat trying to draw the full 400w. You can't put the Cooler Master in the same catagory as the "AOpen's" of the world! The AOpen's quality isn't even close to the CM, and they are far less stable with their voltages, even at idle! The AOpen's have minimal heat sinks, shirt cardboard thin, while the CM's heat sinks are pretty hefty and made out of solid aluminum. You couldn't pay me to use an AOpen, not even if I got it for free!

My system draws a lot more than 130w at full load, in fact you've mentioned much higher wattages than 130w for it in the recent past when discussing CPU coolers. You also pointed out that the 9500-GT would draw even more power.

I'm not saying that the 500w CM is a great PSU, but it is a significantly better one than any AOpen, PowMax or CoolMax! I did a lot of research before I decided to buy the CM R-354 case with the PSU, and discovered that the 460w unit that came with the case, was a darn good PSU. The 500w CM I replaced it with, is just more of the same. Basically, I did just as I tell people on a tight budget on the forum. I determined my needs, and bought the best PSU that I could afford. What I got was a well built, quality PSU at a very good price, that meets my needs. Even if I decide to eventually put an HD-4850 in it, there's still more than enough stable power available! Obviously if I wanted to put two 4850's in CrossFire, I would need a bigger PSU!

So don't be selling the CM so short! It's a better than decent quality, no frills PSU, with superb voltage regulation that doesn't scrimp on the basics. Far superior to any of the cheapies out there, and has turned out to be an excellent choice for me or for anyone wanting to do a budget build that isn't going to go crazy with the video cards, or looking to build a high end Quad. At $42.89 with free shipping, it's an outstanding buy. Far better than it's price would indicate, and I highly recommend it to anyone who's needs it fits, that's on a budget!
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817171031

Best Regards,
Russ

 

Russ,
Looks like a decent supply to me

Yah, I have a coolmax under my desk I WAS certain is fried, but now im not certain. Its a 400W rated PSU, but looking at the minimal connections coming out, im like no way! I may have demanded too much from it right off the bat, and thats why it didnt fire up the system it was in! Needless to say, I wont be buying one from them anymore. I emailed coolmax, and it took a week for them to get back to me. And for an 18$ dollar supply, I wasnt gonna ship it back to them!!! The reason its hanging around is, im a packrat! I dont believe in throwing things out. I wanted the fan, and havnt removed it yet. But now im wondering if I simply asked too much of it! Gonna have to hook it up to a lesser system and find out Could be a good spare...

My MSI barebone on boot up was showing 200W from my P3 killawatt! Im sure now its closer to 300, and when I get the new vid card...oh boy oh boy! I try and keep the wattage usage around half. Because then I KNOW its not getting too hot! 50% seems like a good round number!

 

are their any programmers around? Cause I feel the possibility for something, but im still sooooo green, I make the hulk look like something else LOL. See...Dr. divx ive noticed uses no more than 25-40% of my CPU. Divx 7 converter uses an average of 55-65% now...if softwares are programmed to go buy a percentage or something along those lines, would it not be possible to trick either windows(probably not a good idea), or software into believing that its just one SUPER cpu core(14Ghz), or perhaps better. A plugin for windows allowing to manipulate individual programs in such a way that it believes your processor to be what ever you specify to utilize the FULL potential!!! Any thoughts on this. Please dont laugh at me too hard LOL
Simply put, they need to Soup up the Task manager BADLY

 

Oman7, Oman7, Oman7,
LOL!! Let me finish laughing first! What you are asking for would certainly be great, but it's just not possible. You actually included the answer when you said Full Potential! A CPU's full potential is what you can overclock it to. That's all it can do, and no more, You can't trick the CPU into being something that it's not, otherwise you would have discovered a way to turn a Celeron into an i7! LOL!!

Sorry for laughing so hard,
Russ

 

No no. Thats not what I mean. Im sorry. Let me try a little harder.
Basically what I meant was, if the task manager gave us the ability to tell the processor to utilize all cores at 100% give or take, allowing for critical processes. There HAS to be a way. Darnit russ, this info isnt coming quick enough LOL. You know what I need to do... I need to try and design a basic program. Then it could give me some incite into more advanced stuff. This might seem silly to some of you, but for me its completely viable. We all have to start somewhere. I believe every ones brains are simply wired differently, I KNOW I can do this!

I wish I could see the code at work. Kinda like the matrix I guess. I have this affinity for seeing things like that. Nowhere's near an Autistic persons abilities but...LOL

 

Oman7,
Let me be clearer with my answer too! The load on a CPU is determined by the work load put on it by whatever you are trying to run. In other words, you can't exceed the demand, and the demand is set by the user software. I think you may find your answer in the CPU's instruction set, and that's a whole different kind of programing! LOL!! Basically you are limited by three things. The software and how it tells the CPU what to do, The hardware, the CPU's ability to efficiently interpret the code and the limitations of the CPU's instruction set! Unless I'm misunderstanding something, you are trying to find a way to have user controlled, Multi threaded Apps! I just don't think that's possible!

Russ

 

Thats correct! The red highlighted area that is. I was under the impression that multicore cpu's were essentially multiple cpu's. Like wiring batteries together(Kindof). So if thats true, and softwares are ignoring one or two cores, im simply saying give the software access to that core! I am so sorry if im missing something. As I said though, I see things a little differently, however its also difficult to explain sometimes

 

Oman7,
OK, we are on the same page, which leads us to the conventions of the CPU which are what control multi threaded applications based on the written software. The software tells the CPU that the application is multi threaded and the CPU itself manages the application and the work done by the cores. I don't think that you can control that level of a computer with software. Even if you could, it would still have to meet all the conventions of the CPU. Since control of multi threaded apps are dealt with after input to the CPU, I don't see any way to do it with software!

Russ