Current state of stuff...

[Joe]

Just doing my thing... Checking in here every couple days to make sure its up.

Other than that...

I have gotten into a low power, cool running, and silent PC kick.

I have gone through some major PC environment changes here, with most of the changes being done to lower power consumption, heat output, noise, but retaining or increasing speed.

My home PC which has long been a Intel E6600 on a Gigabyte P35 board with a Geforce 7800GTX (furnace). This was updated to a Intel E7400, w/ 8GB ram, and a Gigabyte P45 super-duper-power-saving mobo, and a new HE PSU and a passively cooled Geforce 9600. The machine pulls 50Watt/hr less power and is cold... I cant feel any heat coming out of it. The E6600 before ran at 3Ghz and dumped quite a bit of heat at that. The new 7400 is clocked at 1600Mhz FSB and running 3.4Ghz and is cold... at stock voltage. Stock intel cooler even. Its running Vista just because I do too much work on this machine to move it to W7 yet. W7 is far superior to Vista in every way.

My HTPC (main one) was updated from an AMD AM2 based system to a Gigabyte P35 power saving-ultra-something-spiffy board wiht an Intel E5200, which has been clocked to 3.2Ghz (2.5stock) on stock voltage. Runs cold, silent and fast. IT has a passively cooled Geforce 9400 in it with HDMI out and a Blu-Ray drive. Its all running under Windows 7 RC (because its WAY better than Vista MCE), and has an Auzentech old 7.1 X-Plosion card in it. Soon to be replaced with an Asus HDMI card so I can get tru-hd and other uncompressed audio formats out to my home theater.

My bedroom HTPC (Which just gets left over gear), has my old E6600 clocked a bit lower and lowered voltage to be cooler, an Abit IP35 Pro board, a Gefoce 8600 passively cooled vid card, and an OCZ SSD HD. Running under W7 also. THis machine was more of a test for the SSD and WIndows 7. The SSD will be moving into my main HTPC down the road.

My server... also is pretty efficient. Still running a Intel Q9300, only now clocked at 3.2Ghz with a small voltage bump but a stock intel cooler. 16GB ram, a few (7) TB of disk, running 2008 and Hyper-V. Its my lab server for working out client issues in a lab before implementing in a production environment.

Interesting facts:

• There is only one aftermarket HSF in use - on the bedroom HTPC, all others are Intel stockers.
• Every machine is OC'd by a sizeable margin most on stock voltage, with stock coolers, and no real tweaking other than FSB and memory timings.
• Between all the machines I did updates on and put more efficient hardware in... from my math I am saving almost 2000 watts a day in power usage. The house is also quieter and cooler.
• The HTPC's have been worked over to make sure they turn off with the remote and turn on with the remote reliably so they no longer run all the time. Only machine that runs 24/7 is the server.
• Only machine that is noticeable when its running from a noise POV is the server... but thats due to 12 internal HD's and 5 in an external enclosure.

So thats that... not sure how "pro" that cooling is... but I think its a pretty good reflection on the state of things. When you can OC by 25 - 30% without even touching voltage or cooling solutions... and the limiting factor is potentially the silicon anyway... Whats the need for super duper cooling systems at this point? And I didnt write any of this up because who needs an article about just buying parts from Newegg and installing em? Not real "Pro"

Then again I am not gaming at all on my PC(s) so I am sort of out of that scene and dont know what all needs to happen to game these days. I have an Xbox 360 that I can game with if needed

Another thing I did was get rid of our old cable service and went with AT&T U-Verse... I am pretty damn happy with that service so far and would recommend it!

[rocket733]

I have U-verse and have been more than happy with it. I especially like how fast the channels change compared to digital cable (small thing but it makes me happy).

Seems like your route is one that many have taken, as mainstream parts have begun to meet the needs of the enthusiast then there is not longer need for extreme measures to be taken.

[ben333]

Hehe, While Joe is getting newer stuff and using less power, I'm playing with older Celeron As and Peltiers Read my email if you can (sent to joe@procooling.com).

Speaking of power though, my old file server was drawing over 225 W of power :O (dual xeon, dual psu, 6 hdds), my old unused server also over 225W with its four pentium pros (that server isn't used though) and a couple P3 rigs only drawing 50w or so.

Also building a large wooden case for optimal space for workin on it, air flow, and water cooling. I'll try and get some pics up soon, maybe also a water chiller for my main rig. And my server, almost forgot about that but need to post pics. For me, my HTPC is just to play standard res stuff on a CRT television so I'm sticking with an XP 2100+ and a GeForce 4.

[jaydee]

"Pro" depends on how you look at it. A professional installation using stock parts is still a professional installation as long as it was done properly and the end results are good. An amateur installation is like forgetting to take off the plastic film off the stock TIM material on stock coolers and/or not properly setting a water block and blaming the equipment.

In this day and age of heat spreaders and much better quality mounting hardware it is pretty damned hard to mess up a cooler install. I remember back when socket A came out with small dies with no heat spreaders and cheap ass coolers with funky half assed mounting clips... People chipping and cracking cores left and right. I bought a Golden Orb knock off and that thing had the most rediculous mounting clip. The only CPU I ever broke was with that damn thing. I still have it as a reminder to not go cheap on coolers...

[DrCR]

Awesome that you keep this site up. This place is like a museum and much of my hardware geekerly was formed here. Props to you.

DrCR