I bought a big ole heatsink.

[Grarea]

I thought someone might find this slightly interesting.

Background.
Every four or five years, I look at computers to see if it is time to upgrade mine.
I follow along many years behind. I buy used for the most part.
I don't play games, so I don't stress my PC at all.

I had an LGA1150 socket mobo and kind of reached its max (DDR3).
It was still working fine, but realised I could reduce the physical size and power use with a micro ATX board and a GE series CPU.
So, started looking on ebay. Got some bits and moved up in the world to AM4 and DDR4.
GE series CPUs are only 35W.
I realised I could save electrickery here and use the onboard graphics (which is apparently equivalent to a 1030 GPU.)
PLus, reduce the amount of fans running and the low power CPU.
Also, I quite like the lower noise.
Added bonus as I am dabbling with hifi a bit and nice to have no noise for that too.

Anyways.
Started to realise that fanless might be an option and reduce noise further. (I was down to just the CPU fan)
Started an ebay search......
Pondered making a case to improve airflow over the CPU etc etc.
Pondered the Noctua NH-P1. A lot of money for a heatsink......
Well, one came up used.

Popped it in and started up, expecting temps to sky rocket.
Hand over plug to switch off lol.
It was just in my old ATX case which I think has pretty bad airflow. Plus a fan half blocking the top vent. (not running)
So, it started to climb as expected when I booted up...... ......... then started to come down again.

Idling, it just sits at 21.5C.
I put the side of the case on. It fits (just). Went up to 22.5C........
I am sitting here with browser open and a couple of other things and the CPU temp is 24C.
It is better than the sock Wraith Stealth Heatsink and fan.
Highest i have seen it was when I did a quick Benchmark and it hit about 43C.
I really do very little to push the CPU.

I am pretty impressed. Also dead pleased.

I am not quite silent. I still have a PSU fan (Corsair TX550M) but that is pretty quiet.
I was on my belly with a dB app on my phone and realised I had to stop moving and hold my breath to measure the PSU fan noise.
That is good enough for now

In the future, I will do something about the case.
It would be nice to drop the size of the thing. (It is a fairly big ATX case.) Not sure whether to make one for good airflow or get a Micro ATX case and chop a hole in the side.
Am tempted by a fanless PSU or at least one that only kicks in at acertain power draw.

Anyway, thought i would tell you about this heatsink.
Pretty impressive.

 

[Cheesepiece]

That is impressive.
I, like you, tend to follow tech but haven't the will nor the funds to pursue the cutting edge.
4 year old stuff tends to be about the sweet spot of functional by today's standards yet affordable.
I find it cool that you have a near silent setup. It's niche, I mean as benchmarks are pushed ever higher the noise, heat and waste come lower down the priorities in search of more power and performance. Realigning your priorities which complement your hifi interests means you get a great deal of satisfaction and gain from bucking the trend.

 

[Grarea]

Fun eh?
I also really like the simplicity of it.
Also the reliability. Nothing can break. Unless I run over it with the van.
Plus the slight reduction in my power consumption.
With just a browser open, it pulls 20W.
Which reminds me, I need to get my Pi up and running again. That is more like 5W and fine for quick check of emails and light web / forum type things.

 

[Cheesepiece]

The fewer moving parts the better. I made the switch to SSD about 8 or 9 years ago for those reasons.

 

[slapo]

@Grarea You might want to know that, if you wished to upgrade, the current generation of CPUs allows you to cap their power consumption, at the cost of some performance (not necessarily much).
The benfit there might be that you could buy something quite good, cap it now and uncap it later should you need the extra performance (assuming energy prices would be sane).
Or you could keep it capped most of the time, and then uncap it should you know you'll need the extra bit of muscle.

That cooler looks nice, although I'd probably be worried about the weight putting strain on the PCB of the motherboard when mounted.

Also, AMD and Intel are moving over to DDR5 now.

 

[Grarea]

@Grarea You might want to know that, if you wished to upgrade, the current generation of CPUs allows you to cap their power consumption, at the cost of some performance (not necessarily much).

Oh, is that right? Interesting stuff, that sounds ideal.
When you say current generation. I get a bit lost, that is the 5000 series or the 6000 series?
I shall take note of that as that will be just about right for me when i get there.
(in x amount of years )
I have only just moved on to AM4 and DDR4. My old CPU was kind of similar performance to the 2400GE.
I now have a 4300GE which is more than I need. I know the GE series takes me up to 5700GE so after THAT .......

That cooler looks nice, although I'd probably be worried about the weight putting strain on the PCB of the motherboard when mounted.

Yes, I worried about that as well.
I am kind of trusting the good name of Noctua with that one.
It does make use of the back plate.
I am glad you mentioned it though, I was going to consider a zip tie to just help hold it.

Also, AMD and Intel are moving over to DDR5 now.

yup.
I shall see you back in here when they go on to DDR6.
I will be about to consider DDR5 then maybe.

 

[Grarea]

actually @slapo , you might know this.
Do you know if the power consumption of actual motherboards varies by much?
I can't find the info anywhere which makes me think it doesn't vary much.
(I am pondering a dual M.2 drive mobo if they come up cheap enough on the Bay )

 

[Zorro]

I have used Noctua fans in all my gaming pc builds for the last 10 years or so.

IMO they most definitely are a little quieter and move a little more air than other makes. Strange stuff like the dimpled fan blades does actually seem to work in some way.

Am a big fan of everything the brand produces now.

A good brand for budget cooling of anything is Akasa - their products punch above their weight, price wise in my experience.

 

[slapo]

actually @slapo , you might know this.
Do you know if the power consumption of actual motherboards varies by much?
I can't find the info anywhere which makes me think it doesn't vary much.
(I am pondering a dual M.2 drive mobo if they come up cheap enough on the Bay )

The motherboard itself should consume very little generally (although I don't know what the ballpark is) unless it has some special features, so this would depend on the motherboard itself (think a special sound card built in, wifi cards on board and such).

 

[Grarea]

Ah, I see, right, thanks.
So, I will want as featureless a board as possible.
That sounds good as it will probably mean cheaper and less sought after on the second hand market as well eh?

 

[Twelvefret]

No gaming here either, but the 8 year old Toshiba Satellite is slower than Christmas even after the reset.

 

[Grarea]

I know of a few things you can try.
The main ones mean opening her up.
There will be a step by step guide on the internet. Needs a small screwdriver and be methodical and lay out the screws in the right place.
First thing is clear the fan of dust. My old one had become super compacted.
Replace your thermal paste. Both of these things could be leading to throttling of the CPU.
Next, some models you can upgrade the RAM.
If yours wasn't top model of the time, you can sometimes get a used version of the better motherboard with a better CPU on it.
Replace the HDD with an SSD.
Change the operating system for a lighter one. One of the Linux distros. (not as hard as that sounds.)

 

[slapo]

Ah, I see, right, thanks.
So, I will want as featureless a board as possible.
That sounds good as it will probably mean cheaper and less sought after on the second hand market as well eh?

I think you might find that the inexpensive ones (thus also with fewer features) don't really show up on the likes of eBay much when used.
I suspect it's mostly because the people who use them keep using them until the whole computer becomes too slow and just get rid of the whole computer.

 

[slapo]

I know of a few things you can try.
The main ones mean opening her up.
There will be a step by step guide on the internet. Needs a small screwdriver and be methodical and lay out the screws in the right place.
First thing is clear the fan of dust. My old one had become super compacted.
Replace your thermal paste. Both of these things could be leading to throttling of the CPU.
Next, some models you can upgrade the RAM.
If yours wasn't top model of the time, you can sometimes get a used version of the better motherboard with a better CPU on it.
Replace the HDD with an SSD.
Change the operating system for a lighter one. One of the Linux distros. (not as hard as that sounds.)

To add to the post (all good points, although I've never found a thermal paste swap to be of much effect), here are a couple of extras.

I do find that checking the operating temperature of components when being taxed is a good indicator of how much any cleaning would help, although I think it's also just part of good maintenance.
Some fans might have to be swapped entirely, but just getting rid of any dust can do wonders if temperatures inside the device are running high.

RAM upgrades can help if the system is running low, but if it isn't, upgrading to a solid state drive (or upgrading to a faster one) helps a lot. The cheap, no-name ones aren't generally good purchases - they do wear out faster and the controllers on them aren't great. Even "value line" SSDs from decent brands tend to be better (some are better than others... it pays off to check reviews).

The one thing that can also boost performance is getting a newer, faster graphics card. It doesn't matter much that you don't do any gaming - even web browsers use graphics cards to accelerate web page rendering, but integrated ones are still just "meh" performers compared to dedicated parts.
Not an option for a laptop, though.

Driver updates can help a little, if available, and can be important for security reasons.

 

[slapo]

@Grarea Which distributions do you use on slower computers?

I like Manjaro on both modern and older stuff, but even Ubuntu and CentOS/Alma Linux can be decent if fiddled with a bit.