Well I have got my finances in order and I am finally going to watercool, woop woop. My problem is how to cool the NB, I don't really want to water cool it if I can help it as I don't want to dump too much heat into the water. I was thinking of getting a better NB cooler than the stock one, the stock one seems to do a reasonable job with the little bit of extra air flow it gets from the cpu cooler, but obviously that will be going soon. Does anyone really have any experience with NB coolers. http://www.thecoolingshop.com/product_info.php/cPath/98_3/products_id/2308 and http://www.thecoolingshop.com/product_info.php/cPath/98_3/products_id/696 are the sort of thing I had in mind, nice and cheap, look alright and are fanless which is a major criteria for me, they should get enough blow from the natural case airflow being taller than the stock one. Any views on these. I am going for a coolermaster cm690 aswell as my current case is too small for WCing, the cheapest place I can find one with a window and delivered is a place called http://cool-and-quiet.co.uk/index.php, has anyone ever bought anything from these guys? Thanks in advance.
http://cool-and-quiet.co.uk/Motherb...Twin_Towers_Fanless_Northbridge_Heatsink.html ? Also - Cool n Quiet might get a letter from AMD claiming trademark :S Plus, there's no about page and I can't tell where they are from.
Cheers mankz, I literally just saw that after I posted. For some reason I was blinkered and didn't see it on the cooling shops chipset cooling page where I got the links for the zalmans. I am off to find the cheapest place that does that. Any lovers/haters for cool and quiet? Edit: Sweet jebus, that twin towers thing looks crazy, gonna read some reviews on that one. If its half decent I think it might be a winner considering the price.
I've had that ZM-NB47J on my Asus A8N-E for about 3 years now, I have a 80mm fan pointed at it running at 7v and it works fine. From the other replies though it looks as though there may be better options out now.
Thanks for the info. There may be better products out, but its proving hard to actually find any in stock. Scan have a nice xigmatek http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Xigmatek-Porter-N881-Northbridge-cooler but thats going to be £22ish including shipping. I might just go for the zalman and have the rear 120 fan blowing a bit harder than I normally would. Sneaky edit incase scan see: my free shipping offer seems to work STILL, after all this time. So could buy something else to make it just over £20 and save moneyz.
I used my ZM-NB47J on an nForce 2 board and zip tied a fan to it. Worked brilliantly. As a side note, can adding a NB to your water loop really heat it up enough to make a noticeable difference?
Do not really know to be honest, I am going to be using a 240 rad and just cool my cpu to start off with. Maybe any passing veteran water coolers can tell me what level of cooling I can expect from a 240 rad with slow spinning fans, and how much I can add to the loop. I think I may just got with that zalman(straight finned one), can get it for £5.50 delivered from kustom PCs. On closer inspection and using the trust "licked finger method" I have realised that the airflow around the existing NB cooler isn't that great either, it seems to the cpu cooler air doesn't really go near it, I assume it was designed to work best with the stock intel cooler with airflow going out in all directions. And as for the case, I will get it for advance tec, I have dealt with them many time before and its only going to cost me £2 more than cool and quiet.
I forgot to mention that my NB47J is use in a watercooled system. Personally, I didn't want the added heat and restriction of flow by adding a northbridge waterblock. A passive heatsink with a well placed fan does a good job IMO. I guess if you strive for perfection with the ultimate overclock and want to salvage that last degree or two then it's probably worth it, but it wasn't to me.
