Hardware Addicts 3: CPU Cooling Solutions Breakdown & Camera Tips for Beginners

Show Notes & MP3: Hardware Addicts 3: CPU Cooling Solutions Breakdown & Camera Tips for Beginners

In this episode, we will cover the best cooling solutions. Fans vs. AIO vs. Water-cooling which one should you choose? Also, Wendy talks cameras. If you’ve ever been interested in photography, this is the segment for you. Wendy is going to start filling our brains on camera equipment in future episodes in a segment known as Camera Corner.

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I had a couple thoughts after listening (imagine that).

@dasgeek, you completely overlooked passive cooling. I know you are focused more on high-end CPUs and gaming but by omitting it you essentially left out an entire category of cooling options.

Fan cooing options are way more extensive than the biggest fan cooler you can buy. I have a Ryzen 7 2700x system. I know people praise the Wraith cooler but the one I got with my CPU was awful. So loud and the temps were terrible. They also put so much thermal paste on that it ripped my CPU out when I took it off. Seriously overdone. I replaced it with a Cooler Master Hyper 212 Black Edition. It works great, especially if you have a case with decent ventilation. It’s also is waaaaaay smaller than the Noctua although Noctua has many options that are smaller as well. It’s much more attractive than the Noctua brown and doesn’t have RGB like the Wraith.

BIg thanks to @TheWendyPower for the info on camera. I had heard of mirrorless but had no idea what they were. I’m looking forward to future installments. If you always have at the end of the shows you could call it Photo Finish. :wink:

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Another brand of router to check out would be MikroTik. They are generously affordable and the “quick set” is simple, yet the network operating system (RouterOS) offers great in depth enterprise functionality. It will largely fall back onto the hardware to support the functions provided by the software, but the software is the same from their home routers to their enterprise solutions.

I am just beginning to cut my teeth on them, and I am enjoying them after working/learning Cisco for the past 3-6 years. I want to say Mr. Chelliah also mentioned them on Ask Noah. Especially after some of the concerns that have been surfacing about Unifi as of late>.>

Best of luck!

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@dasgeek I have pre-ordered the IceGiant ProSiphon Elite for my CPU upgrade (I am waiting for Threadripper 2920X to get reasonably priced). @TheWendyPower You erred in your description of the DSLR: it’s not the lens that gets out of the way, it’s the mirror. Mirrorless cameras can also easily adapt older lenses.

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I hadn’t heard of this brand but in looking at capabilities vs. price it seems pretty impressive. Many positive reviews as well with the negative ones focusing on the complexity of setting it up if you stray from their bundled profiles. They also mention a lack of documentation being an issue. Was it difficult for you to set up? I am assuming not if you have experience with Cisco.

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Yeah, I heard about them on the last Ask Noah, I may pick one up just to use as an alternate access point to practice some network stuff.

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I thought this one looked interesting. I like that it has so many ethernet ports. It would let me consolidate a couple of switches I’m currently using. I read in the comments that people were impressed by the build quality and the very detailed configuration options.

Mikrotik Routerboard RB2011UiAS-2HnD-IN Sfp Port plus 10 Port Ethernet

  • RouterBOARD 2011UiAS-2HnD has most features and interfaces from all our Wireless routers
  • It’s powered by the new Atheros 600MHz 74K MIPS network processor, has 128MB RAM, five Gigabit LAN ports, five Fast Ethernet LAN ports and SFP cage
  • Also, it features powerful dual chain 2.4Ghz (2312-2732MHz depending on country regulations) 802.11bgn wireless AP, RJ45 serial port, USB port and RouterOS L5 license, as well as desktop case with power supply and two 4dBi Omni antennas
  • RouterBOARD 2011UAS-2HnD-IN comes with desktop enclosure, LCD panel and power supply
  • The RB2011Ui also has passive PoE output capability on the last port (ETH10), this means you can power another device just by connecting it over regular Ethernet cable
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If I ever need some more ports I’ll have to consider that one, I was thinking about the cheap one Noah mentioned that’s like $40 just to learn a bit more about networking stuff so I’m not playing on my main network setup.

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Looking at the interface, I was a bit overwhelmed at first. Once I needed to do something specific, it was very intuitive. I think for most home cases, the quick set may get most of the job done. Documentation has been abundant so far at their wiki: Manual:TOC - MikroTik Wiki

The Security vector is definitely worth keeping an eye on. They have seemingly transparent security announcements, speculation, and mitigation on their blog: MikroTik blog

Some cool things about RouterOS is that is based on Linux. The terminal commands are structured the same as the graphical navigation. The Windows based Winbox and The Dude software run well in Linux via Wine. And, the devices seem a bit more responsive than some of the Ubiquiti devices I have used: MikroTik - Wikipedia

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That all sounds pretty amazing. I have had such poor experiences with consumer grade hardware over the past several years. Something like this looks ideal. Thanks for sharing your experience.

By the way, Noctua has all-black fans now. Not all the models have “chromax.black” versions, but they’re there.

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I don’t think this was a miss at all. Passive cooling is either for low power devices that are designed specifically for this purpose such as ARM or a very specific application in which you put gigantic spiral coolers (that literally block PCIe slots) on processors heavily under clocked for the sole purpose of keeping them quiet. It’s not a more efficient cooling method or something a general consumer would consider in a purchase. Additionally, passive cooling like ARM processors can also be actively cooled with any of the 3 solutions covered. As far as your one experience with a Wraith cooler, sounds like you got a bad one. That’s not typical.

They look very sexy too!

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Could you use mineral oil in a water cooler? Mineral oil doesn’t conduct electricity. You can cool servers in a data center by literally submersing them in a bath of mineral oil.

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Thanks, everyone! I am months behind schedule but still enjoying catching up and I think it’s worth going through in detail, for example for the camera tips. I had no idea of the mirror-less technologies. Haven’t done a PC build for a long time now, so looking forward to learning about some of the newer tech for when I get around to my next one :slight_smile: