Best method?

[BigFLoppyLlama]

Well I’ve pretty much decided that I’ll go air cooling when I upgrade. I’ve looked at a lot of options for air cooling, but without a thermal probe I couldn’t test them (plus, it would cost a pretty penny to do them all). If you have any experience with any of these methods, I’d like to hear about how effective they are compared to traditional methods.

Method 1) Duct
http://floppyllama.homestead.com/files/comp3.jpg
http://moddershq.com/images/acient1%203.jpg
I would probably use PVC pipe and somehow bend it to fit a square fan and fit on the heat sink. The idea would be to have one fan on the heat sink itself sucking air off of the heat sink and one fan on the back of the case sucking air out of the case. Then I would fit the PVC around the heat sink leaving a few centimeters so air would be able to get under the PVC. Its hard to see in the first picture, but that's my dell's old method (I have a 60mm blowing onto it in a new case now) and in effect it had a fan sucking air through the duct and out the back of the case. Or even like the OTES where one fan blew into the heat sink from the side, and the two sucked the air from the heat sink.


Method 2) Tri fan.
http://img.hexus.net/REVIEWS/images/cmpipe2.jpg
http://www.bit-tech.net/images/articles/98/17.jpg
Somewhat like the two above, at least for the sidefans.
It would work somewhat like this. There would be two fans on the sides of the heat sink pulling air out of the fins/pins and one on the top blowing air in. Again, I have no idea how this would cool, but it would seem like there would be more air being pulled off than the traditional method.

Method 3) Regular
http://www.bzboyz.com/images/swiftech/mcx4000YS.jpg
Simply blow air into the heat sink and hope for the best.

If you can think of any other methods, feel free to share them. Thanks for any input.

[felix88]

1. this method can work well when it's done right. it's great because it moves the warm CPU air out of the case.

2. multiple fans don't always help. both of those coolers you've linked aren't that great. the first one didn't cool that well IIRC, and the second had a bad rep for crushing cores.

3. i'd probably go for this. the MCX4000 is a good P4 HSF, and the Alpha PAL8492 is as well. if you go AMD, the Thermalright SLK800 is one of the best, followed by the MCX462+. my Alpha PAL8045 is similar in design to the MCX462+ and it works well.

with any of these HSF units from method 3 could be used in a ducted situation.

also, WELCOME TO XTREME!!

[BigFLoppyLlama]

Yeah, I wouldn't use those exact coolers. I talked to a guy who did the first method using 2 low CFM 80mm fans and the stock amd heat sink but stillgetting 34°C load temps. Looks like I'll be using 1 120mm 190CFm delta and one 80mm 80~ tornado:)