Building A New PC: Confused about cooling

[R_Thor]

I was looking at buying a PC for a friend from parts from New Egg and I think I have everything figured out except cooling. Here are the basic specs thus far:

MSI PM8M2-V Socket T (LGA 775) VIA P4M800 Micro ATX Intel
Motherboard

Intel Pentium 4 530J Prescott 800MHz FSB LGA 775 Processor

CORSAIR ValueSelect 512MB 184-Pin DDR SDRAM DDR 400 (PC 3200) Unbuffered System Memory

SAPPHIRE RADEON 9600 256M Radeon 9600 256MB DDR AGP 4X/8X Video Card

I just wanna know how many fans (or in what configuration) it will take so that I dont fry the PC from overheating, I'm really confused about what I need (80mm fans, how many? 120? Seems to be lots of choices) Anyway I would love any input. Another big question that I have that would probably answer the other ones is how do you gauge the cooling needs of a system from the parts you are looking to buy? Is there a way? (Oh and sorry about the bold I couldnt figure out how to turn it off).

[Darthtanion]

Re: Building A New PC: Confused about cooling

[/b] turns off the bold. If you're using the WYSIWYG editor we have available, simply highlight the text you want to bold, unbold, whatever and click the button.

Now onto your questions of cooling...

When it comes to cooling, it is always best to work with the design of the case and figure out from there if you either need to replace it or mod it to suit your needs. That said, most cases will have places in the front, rear, and sometimes sides and top for fans. These fan mounts are set to a certain size, so it is best so start off with this size fan and see how it works for you. Some newer cases have holes to mount multiple sized fans so this can give you a bit of flexibility in the cooling arena. Many times folks like to go with larger fans since they can put out for CFM while spinning at a slower speed. This adds cooling AND keeps noise at a lower level since the fan speeds aren't that high.

With regards to fan placement, front and side mounted fans should be blowing into the case (intake) while rear and top mounted fans should be blowing outward (exhaust). You should try to keep the total intake CFM ratings at close to the same level as you have exhaust. I have heard some say that if you have more CFM coming in (over-pressurizing the case), then you will have less dust buildup inside the enclosure but I have yet to see this as a fact... and I have tried many different configurations to see. Your best bet is to keep the two CFM ratings about the same and you should do well.

Hopefully this will give you a quick baseline of cooling concepts. If you need more help or have other questions, just ask and we'll have somebody helping where we can.

[R_Thor]

Re: Building A New PC: Confused about cooling

Thanks Darthtanion before reading what you said I was looking at two cases:

The first case I was looking at a APEX Super Case TU150 which has a side air duct and one 80mm fan (with an option for two 80mm front fans). The case has also been rated as a thermally advantaged chassis. Here's the newegg link (if it helps): http://www.newegg.com/product/produc...82E16811154013

The second one I was looking at was his one:

ATRIX CSCI-L8005-C43 Black/Silver Steel It has three 80mm fans but not the thermal rating from Intel. Heres its link:

http://www.newegg.com/product/produc...82E16811209002

The first case in my opinion looks better as far as cooling goes although I dunno what do you guys think? By the way thanks Darthtanion, I figured out how to un-bold the text, (I feel like an idiot though it was increidably easy heh heh)