Is a new case worth getting?

nesf

Purely from a cooling perspective, are new cases substantially better than cases from a few years back? I've used the same big tower case for four years at this point (iirc) and am looking at trying to improve the cooling some bit and am trying to decide whether it's worth looking at the case or not along with other considerations.

After adding a new graphics card last year the system temperature jumped from being low to mid 30s to being high 30s to low 40s or so when idle, more when on load (from an X800 to a X1950 running at stock, higher again when the clockspeed is tweaked up a bit).

challengemaster

the reason the sys temp jumped quite a bit is because the more power a card puts out, the more its needing - and the more power its taking in the more heat its giving out too...

i've the same thing tbh. i had a Geforce 6700XL - upgraded to 8800gtx. the 6700 never hit above 37C under load (was 32 idle) whereas the gtx has hit 95C under load and above.

a good case with a good airflow will help cool down the system, or should slightly anyway, but aftermarket coolers will also help too.

what case do you have & what kind of airflow?

nesf

challengemaster wrote:

the reason the sys temp jumped quite a bit is because the more power a card puts out, the more its needing - and the more power its taking in the more heat its giving out too...

Sorry, I should have pointed out that I'm fairly familiar with much of this stuff from a theory point of view anyway (a combination of finding the topic interesting in general and having studied Physics in college). What I'm really interested in is opinions on whether the new cases actually deliver substantially on airflow and cooling in general.

challengemaster wrote:

a good case with a good airflow will help cool down the system, or should slightly anyway, but aftermarket coolers will also help too.

what case do you have & what kind of airflow?

At the moment, a Chieftec with 2 80mm out and 1 80mm blower in. The airflow within the case is ok, or at least, back when I built the original PC is was more than adequate for the job. Essentially the chip (AMD X2 4200 + Zalman 120mm cooler) is grand temperature wise and the card works ok most of the time but on a hot day I get the rare crash or two from normally very stable games and I'm a bit annoyed by it. The problem (to my mind anyway) is the ambient system temperature, with air you can only cool to the extent that the air around the fan allows and I'm looking at changing around the cooling about the case (and possibly adding a new cooler to the card) to get around this.

I've been loath to overclock the chip or card with the system temperature being so high since I put in the new card. I knew the new cards ran a lot hotter than the old ones but I misjudged by a bit what would happen. I was being a bit naive in assuming that I'd need minimal adjustments.


Changing cases is a bitch, especially with a toddler around but on the flipside if I'm transplanting from one case to another I'll have a good opportunity to set up a better cooling system rather than the patchwork one I've used so far.

8T8

Well from what I know the general answer is no they don't improve cooling but there are exceptions that compartmentalize the components in a PC and use honeycomb designs e.g Lian Li vcool cases or Silverstone TJ09 but even then the effect is rather modest if you read reviews.

A better cooling system is always the more effective approach, what kind of graphics card is it as some GPU's come with a pretty crappy cooler & simply replacing that could be the answer.

nesf

8T8 wrote:

Well from what I know the general answer is no they don't improve cooling but there are exceptions that compartmentalize the components in a PC and use honeycomb designs e.g Lian Li vcool cases or Silverstone TJ09 but even then the effect is rather modest if you read reviews.

Cheers. I can rule out a new case then, other than potentially better cooling, there's no real reason for me to change case, this one has plenty of space still left in it.

8T8 wrote:

A better cooling system is always the more effective approach, what kind of graphics card is it as some GPU's come with a pretty crappy cooler & simply replacing that could be the answer.

Sapphire X1950XT 256MB. The original cooler is almost certainly crappy, it's rare for them not to be but at the moment it's not really the problem. If I can't get the heat out of the case having a better fan on the GPU will give me minimal benefits. I've one (awkward) 80mm slot left for a fan (in front of the HDs) which I'll stick one into, beyond that I could replace the blower with another standard 80mm and just go for a negative airflow approach and see if it makes a difference.

8T8

Well if you do ever want to change the GPU fan the Artic Cooling Accelero X2 is probably the best option.

Heat build up should never be a problem at normal temps with just the stock coolers, is the room poorly ventilated ?

Is there breathing space for the PC it other words it's not stuck in a corner ?

Have you got an thermally controlled fans enabled if so try turning them off so they run at full speed all the time ?

nesf

8T8 wrote:

Well if you do ever want to change the GPU fan the Artic Cooling Accelero X2 is probably the best option.

Cheers.

8T8 wrote:

Heat build up should never be a problem at normal temps with just the stock coolers, is the room poorly ventilated ?

Is there breathing space for the PC it other words it's not stuck in a corner ?

Have you got an thermally controlled fans enabled if so try turning them off so they run at full speed all the time ?

The room isn't the coolest, the PC has over 6 inches of clear space at the back for ventilation and has air intakes at the front also which is reasonable enough. The main problem is the wood around it on the sides and above and below, but again not a huge problem since it's got 5 inches space above and 1.5 inches on each side. I've the fans all set to maximum as a general rule.

The problems only crop up on very hot day when the room is warm which are rare enough to be honest. The biggest issue is that I need to "set up a little fort" around the machine because my son thinks that ripping cables out of the back of it and trying to stick fingers through fan gratings is the best fun ever (he's 1). Otherwise I'd just open the case fully and could leave the side open and such on very hot days to improve the air flow.