Back into the PC Master Race. It was never a total absence but still.

[Silent_Buddha]

I've always relied on my PSU fan for exhaust.

Depends on the case. My main desktop PC has the semi-passive PSU in an isolated chamber. My HTPC/Server uses a passive PSU (180 cm case intake fan running at ~600 RPM which is also the only fan, passive GPU and CPU coolers).

Regards,
SB

 

[Cyan]

I've always relied on my PSU fan for exhaust.

and how does it fare? in my case it doesn't seem to change things much. as I commented in a previous post I accidentally set both fans for intake, and the most noticeable exhaust was the large grill in the front of my case, the air felt as hot as a hairdryer's. Both the mobo and the PC case are micro ATX, if that matters, but the air flow doesn't seem to set out towards the power supply.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Well I've never had issues, but then I've now power-gamed. The cooling requires cool air being taken in, passed over the components, and the warm air pushed out. That's what you get with a front fan and a PSU fan working together. There's probably much Science unsolvable without labcoats and test-tubes to determine what you should be doing though. There's probably an article somewhere about the impact of airflow and case fans. In fact, I'd be surprised if there aren't some simple tests of with- and without- second and third case fans worth investigating.

 

[Malo]

Component cooling all depends on the actual components, the designs, any overclocking, actual uses etc. Non-overclocked efficient CPUs and blower-type GPUs simply may need no extra cooling whatsoever. Especially if the person never does any high load tasks that push the CPU to 100% constant load on all cores for significant periods of time. Common gaming may simply never really push their CPU that much.

If your GPU pushes air into the case instead of the rear exhaust then you're adding to the heat generated by the CPU. If your CPU is overclocked it will generate more heat. The more you generate, the higher chance you need intake+exhaust in addition to PSU fan. Also many modern cases have the PSU on the bottom facing downwards, cooling itself and not contributing at all to the rest of the case airflow.

 

[Cyan]

Well I've never had issues, but then I've now power-gamed. The cooling requires cool air being taken in, passed over the components, and the warm air pushed out. That's what you get with a front fan and a PSU fan working together. There's probably much Science unsolvable without labcoats and test-tubes to determine what you should be doing though. There's probably an article somewhere about the impact of airflow and case fans. In fact, I'd be surprised if there aren't some simple tests of with- and without- second and third case fans worth investigating.

it sounds quite surprising that you don't power-game nowadays. Trust me that even if you don't have the most demanding games, if you are interested in 4k and like me want to render at 4k60, you are going to need some decent GPU. My GPU can render 1080p60 with ease, I don't overclock it at all nowadays, I don't need to.

But even RTS games like Supreme Commander Forged Alliance can be rather demanding at 4k. The GPU runs it at 60fps a lot of the time, but thing is that power consumption goes from rather average at 1080p, to max -120W for this card- at 4k. What I think it suits you well is finding a balanced solution of power consumption and performance at 4k.

@Malo, you mentioned airflow CFM before... yesterday I ordered a couple of Tacens Anima AF8 and now I am using one of them for intake in the side of the PC case. The CFM of my previous fan was 19.4. The Tacens has a CFM of 30.5 and I managed to shave 2 degrees at max wattage in my GPU. While testing The Witcher 3 the temperatures went from a max of 78º with my previous fan in the side to 76º (originally, without fans max was 88-89º, limit of the GPU is 90ºC).

Stress testing the CPU to achieve maximum heat went from 74ºC of the previous fan using Prime95 to a stable 73ºC. It might not seem much but the test was performed for a much longer period of time, and that means a lot.

 

[Malo]

Note that you can do as much as you can with the fans but if the layout of the fans doesn't promote good airflow, all you're doing is blowing air around the case faster rather than promoting positive or negative airflow. Fans on the rear and side panel isn't really efficient, you'd ideally have to set both to exhaust.

 

[Cyan]

Note that you can do as much as you can with the fans but if the layout of the fans doesn't promote good airflow, all you're doing is blowing air around the case faster rather than promoting positive or negative airflow. Fans on the rear and side panel isn't really efficient, you'd ideally have to set both to exhaust.

thanks for the suggestion, I am going to give that a test now and see what happens after some stress tests. Side fan is for intake as of now and rear fan for exhaust...

 

[Cyan]

Note that you can do as much as you can with the fans but if the layout of the fans doesn't promote good airflow, all you're doing is blowing air around the case faster rather than promoting positive or negative airflow. Fans on the rear and side panel isn't really efficient, you'd ideally have to set both to exhaust.

testing done. The results are pretty good. I am so surprised. So I am keeping this setup, with both fans set to exhaust warm air.

CPU side things didn't change much, in fact, the temperature after a long time testing with Prime95 to create maximum heat, stops at 75C, from previous 73C, which is understandable because the side fan was blowing cool directly on the CPU before, and that has to count for something. Additionally, the CPU is never maxed like the GPU so it has no impact sabe some super stress test.

What is amazing is that I pulled off a @Silent_Buddha style cooling system and with both fans exhausting heat I could keep the GPU temperatures on The Witcher 3 at 70ºC max. And that's incredible overall. 4 degrees less than my previous setup and 19ºC less than using non case cooling at all. That's really good for a below average case and cooling possibilities like mine, which is limited to a side and a rear 80mm fan. So happy with this.

 

[DuckThor Evil]

Make sure to clean it regularly from dust as negative pressure cases tend to collect it.

 

[Cyan]

Make sure to clean it regularly from dust as negative pressure cases tend to collect it.

thanks for the tip. When I turn off the computer I use a cloth that covers both the 32" screen and the PC case, but some dust always appears, no matter what.

Someone had to say this, despite the fact that he has a very powerful rig.

 

[DuckThor Evil]

I meant inside the case and I wouldn't say you have to clean it daily, but keep an eye on it.

When you have fans exhausting more air from the case than fans taking it in, you create negative air pressure inside the case. The exhausted air needs to be replaced and thus the case pulls air from outside of the case through all its holes and vents. This air also brings dust particles into the case.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

I meant inside the case and I wouldn't say you have to clean it daily, but keep an eye on it.

When you have fans exhausting more air from the case than fans taking it in, you create negative air pressure inside the case. The exhausted air needs to be replaced and thus the case pulls air from outside of the case through all its holes and vents. This air also brings dust particles into the case.

Just to add to this and clarify it for people that don't see the distinction.

If you only have air intakes, you control where air enters the case. This means that you can strategically place dust filters over those openings to greatly reduce the amount of dust and particulate matter that gets in. Not all of it, but quite a bit. Then it's just a matter of periodically cleaning the dust filters.

With an exhaust system where you have either only exhaust fans or your exhaust airflow is greater than you intake airflow, then dust and particulate matter is drawn in from every single opening in the case no matter how large or how small. It becomes impossible to limit how much dust and particulates get in.

Regards,
SB

 

[Cyan]

Well, I've found the sweet spot of the GPU thanks to the tips of people here to have a better cooling, and my personal tests, and in the end I've managed to have a "silent" 1080p60 system. I am so happy with that. In fact my main gripe with the PC was the noise of the gpu fans at high speed when I didn't have internal cooling in the box.

To achieve that I kept the default clocks -maybe I could increase the clocks a little because the power draw is never going to be more than 102W, reduced the power draw by a 14% and set the max voltage to the minimum. The results are great. The GPU never goes over 102W of power consumption and all games run at 1080p60 as before.

What's more surprising is that the benchmarks give the same results overall. Since the power consumption is low and 71-72º is the max I got with The Witcher 3, my most demanding game, the gpu fans run silent. In fact, the only continuous sound now is the internal cooling, which is kinda soothing and chill -it also hides the sound of the 3,5" HD, which can be annoying- :smile2:. Whether I play my non demanding games or I power-game, the sound is the same overall, and that for me is quite the achievement, because I don't like noisy devices.

These are the settings. They are fine tweaked, maybe the clocks could be slightly increased but that's it, because a 1% less power limit and most games will run but at -15% it is unstable with Sky Diver test -not with Fire Extreme for instance-:

Idle temps went down from 47-51ºC to 31-29ºC.As @Clukos would say, undervolting is the actual overclocking. SO HAPPY.

 

[Cyan]

reducing the power limit and undervolting is counterintuitive. Supreme Commander Forged Alliance runs at native 4k and stable 60 fps with those settings. On a RX 570.

It's kind of a mystery but with default settings -power limit at 0, no undervolting- 4k 60fps was common, it dipped to 40 fps quite quickly. It is as if when the GPU is pushed hard at certain wattages it never achieves 1268 core clock and 1750 memory clock.

I had 3 images to upload -the other 2 showing a close zoom of the hundreds of units on screen- but I could only upload this one because of the size, but you get the idea -native 4k, note the smallest letters and numbers at the top left-:

https://imgur.com/a/ztm8n

 

[Cyan]

another game running at a stable and smooth 4k and 60 fps on the RX 570(default settings, undervolted, -14% power consumption). The game is Oblivion, one of my favourite games ever, at highest settings -only disabled self shadows because they look ugly and buggy to me-

 

[pjbliverpool]

And now you can play PS4 games on your PC too. Not many to choose from yet but God of War 3 and Killzone Shadowfall are there.

https://blog.us.playstation.com/2017/07/06/ps4-games-added-to-ps-now-library-hits-500/

 

[Cyan]

And now you can play PS4 games on your PC too. Not many to choose from yet but God of War 3 and Killzone Shadowfall are there.

https://blog.us.playstation.com/2017/07/06/ps4-games-added-to-ps-now-library-hits-500/

is it only available on UK here in Europe or across of all Europe? some people allegedly paid 150$ for that service. The game I am most interested on is Gran Turismo by far, and I'd never buy the actual hardware, I don't even use my XB1 now, but with that game and Bloodborne -though there are the souls games already- I'd be happy enough to play some exclusive games on the PC. I hate streaming with a passion though. It feels as if you are playing a video.

 

[Cyan]

well, I managed to get the RAM running at its native 3200MHz. I downloaded AGESA 1.0.0.6, the final version. I had downloaded the beta time ago, but the beta is SO incomplete compared to the final version, to the point that I didn't notice a change from the previous version to AGESA 1.0.0.6. so I stopped looking for the actual final version as I had lost the hype. But I decided to download it yesterday and see what happens, and heck, do options abound! New options, which didn't appear at all in the beta, are now available.

All I had to do was enabling A-XMP Profile 2 with the default timings.

I have beaten my previous best Sky Diver benchmark in the first run.

problem is that I don't know what to do with the timings, 13-13-13-13-26 might not work as before, we shall see.. but I fear bricking the PC for the third time , which was common place before AGESA 1.0.0.6.

 

[Cyan]

got this laptop as a birthday's gift. I am far from rich but I thought it was worth the effort. It's the HP OMEN 17-W211NS - 17" FHD - 7th Gen i7-7700HQ - NVIDIA GTX 1050 4GB GDDR5 (not the 1050Ti) - 8GB - 1TB HDD and 128GB SSD for 900€, when it usually costs 1100€. Now it can't be purchased, for whatever reason, so getting up early paid off.

Biggest upgrade is that I finally have a computer with a SSD as recommended by many people here, including Tottentranz, Entropy, Davros, zed, Shifty and so on and so forth.

Links of similar models but not not exactly the same.

https://www.amazon.com/HP-OMEN-15-6...hn-20&linkId=75c956257a622331f6b262bf8010291c

 

[Grall]

You will become SSD-spoiled SO quickly. It's ridiculous, as soon as I use a computer with a HDD these days I think there's something wrong with it, everything takes so long to finish...