Cooling an AMD 4850

Both of those fans are exhaust. With six hard drives that top chamber has to be blistering hot. I have the P180/B as well and I'd highly recommend getting drive bay cooler of some sort since the vast majority of the air intake is being blocked by those top hard drives.

 

just about ANY Arctic Cooling case is like that..

 

I'm not a huge fan of the air intake being on the same side as exhaust. Assuming the back of that cast is against a wall as most cases, even though the venting is at the top, you'll still intake a fair bit of it back into the case.

Likewise if that's in an enclosed space like under a desk. That front bottom vent is going to heat up the air that eventually reaches the rear bottom intake as well as all the rear intakes.

Not sure what they were thinking with that case. Unless they just assume everyone keeps their case out in the open away from any walls.

EDIT - nm, just noticed it was designed that way for silence with all fans intaking at the rear of the case. Although they could have gotten similar silence by putting the intake fans in the middle of the case and drawing air in from the front and venting out the back (ala the Sun Ultra 40 M2).

Regards,
SB

 

Well, not that one. There's no fan on the side of the case (just like current ATX cases, though that isn't bad), and the airflow at the back looks funky. Like S_B said, some of that rear exhaust'll probably get sucked right back in, and I'd love to know how exactly they get all the hot air from the CPU HSF to make a U-turn out the back (rather than just exiting over the HD via the PSU fans). Doesn't look like it's doing the HD any favors, especially if you try to mount it in a 5.25" bay.

Edit: Just saw that SPCR reviewed it, and their cardboard mod suggests the upper rear airflow is a complete short circuit. Odd that the PSU is in the front of the case, as I thought the whole idea was to keep the fans away from the user (though this probably helps cool the HD).

I dunno, it's probably better thought-out than my attitude suggests, and SPCR says it's not bad, but it's not what I had in mind.

 

Many of the cases with 250mm fans are basically box fans on the side. They work rather well. My Aerocool ExtremeEngine 3T kept my graphics card way cooler than my Antec 180P... of course the Aerocool also had the hard drive brackets completely out of line (only one screw could go in, so I suspended the drives in the 5.25" bays) as well as the PSU alignment. I must give credit though, it was a very quiet case being only slightly louder than my current Antec.

 

Heh, that'll do. The front fan seems superfluous, but at least it's oversized, too.

 

Pete you should check out these cases. Talk about extreme use of fans.

 

Did you find the big hole in the side allowed you to hear more of the noise from inside the case ie CPU/graphics card fans, hard drives, etc?

 

It was certainly louder than my current P180B but it really wasn't that bad. Consider that I never run the CPU or GPU fans above 30% and the Aerocool case has a fan controller on the front, using that I put all the case fans at their lowest point. Of note the large 250mm fan created a very low hum sound. That was my biggest issue but moving the case below ear level fixed it greatly.

I ironically just got the Aerocool back (was "on loan" for a friends computer who just upgraded) and I've given some serious thought about using the 250mm fan as a crazy mod to the P180B. I haven't jumped into it because of concerns about it not working the way I want (the P180B doors are composed of some absorbing plastic like materials that I've heard are no easy task to cut) and potentially the hum again. Though if I do go that route I'll likely finally invest in noise absorbing materials for the case.

 

Some er.. creative cooling implementations in here.

I'm looking into some aftermarket coolers for my 4850: Arctic Cooling produce one suitable for the 4850/4870, but it doesn't exhaust the warm air out of the rear of the case, while Akasa's new Vortexx Neo looks more promising in that respect. Are there any other 2-slot exhaust coolers suitable for the 4850 out there?

 

The Vortexx basically looks like AC's own line of dual slot coolers (which are also found on the HIS IceQ cards)
I think that is the safest bet. it's basically an after market version of the 4870 cooler.
but then you're at a point where there wouldn't be much difference in price between a 4850 with after market cooler and an 4870.. right?

 

Yeah, the HIS IceQ 4850's appear to be launching soon. With the Vortexx upgrade, there's still a price difference (~£30 in the UK), but you're obviously getting quite a bit more bandwidth on the 4870.

 

Agree, aftermarket coolers like that are worth their value on the top-end product. if the price is withing 10-15% with an aftermarket cooler, you'd be "whack" not to go for the 4870.

 

You should look at the ThermalTake Armor with the 25cm fan. I bought the one without the fan, and then later bought the replacement side panel. This makes a fantastic watercooled case too if you decide to go that way (dual radiator fits in the front with ease, with plenty of room remaining for fanbus, two DVD roms, three harddrives)