TechSpot Community: Cooling guides + Phanteks heatsink giveaway

Matthew DeCarlo

Posts: 5,271   +104
Staff

As TechSpot grows, we're producing more content and adding new features, but we're also working on ways to improve the community. The recent forum upgrade will let us do some really cool stuff in the future. For now, we want to run a bi-weekly post on community happenings, highlighting your guides, discussions, gallery pictures, site feedback and so on. Naturally, your input on this feature is welcome.

With that out of the way, we draw your attention to two comprehensive cooling guides. Marnomancer has posted a multi-part write-up exploring the intricacies of air cooling, including dust management, case pressure and acoustics, fan placement and tips on avoiding common mistakes. Meanwhile, dividebyzero demystifies the dark art of liquid cooling with somewhat of a how-to/buying guide combo.


A shot of red1776's cooling setup (your potential competition)

In the spirit of frosty silicon, we're giving away the behemoth that is Phanteks' PH-TC14PE, a twin tower heatsink that'll chill your Intel or AMD processor to the core. The unit has won various awards and it just so happens to be the cooler preferred by our resident hardware tester, Steve. As usual, we'll try to make it easy to participate and the contest will be open to everyone, including international readers.

How to participate

  • Share one picture of something cooling-related -- preferably in TechSpot's gallery.
  • Link the picture in this post's comments and tell us you want to enter.
  • TS staffers will review the submissions and vote on the winner.
  • The winner will be announced in the next community post on Thursday, May 31.

Other rules and stuff

  • "Cooling-related" can be anything from a pricey cooling setup to tidy cable routing or a novelty fan grill.
  • Composition/image quality matter as much as what's being photographed and it must be your picture.
  • Again, you're eligible to win no matter where you're reading this from.
  • We'll cover shipping costs, but you're stuck with import taxes or any other such fees.
  • Only registered members can participate (you can sign up here free of charge).
  • We'll notify the winner by email and they'll have three days to reply before we pick another.

Permalink to story.

 
Wow dude, thanks for the acknowledgement! :)
Surely I would love to participate, but I don't think my paper prototypes would look cool next to Red's water-cooled rig. :p
 
Edit: haha, sorry guys, having a rough morning. I searched a image resizer, and I am getting it done.

---- My "graphic is too wide," and I'd have to resize every single picture... I dont really have time to do this unless someone can link me to a free download of a program that will automatically downsize my pictures so I can upload them to Techspot... and I dont have time because I am at work for the next 9 hours.

It's one thing to appreciate good quality pictures, but when you say its a must for the giveaway, and then dont allow pictures of certain sizes... well, this doesnt really make any sense... you guys are already giving people a small quota for their gallery.
 
We are fixing a bug with links adding a trailing slash. We should have that fixed very soon.
Edit: Fixed!

In the meantime we've also adjusted the maximum image dimensions, up to 2560 wide and 2000 pixels tall. Also up to 2.5MB in size for a single file. I hope nobody comes across a limitation now.
 
We are fixing a bug with links adding a trailing slash. We should have that fixed very soon.

In the meantime we've also adjusted the maximum image dimensions, up to 2560 wide and 2000 pixels tall. Also up to 2.5MB in size for a single file. I hope nobody comes across a limitation now.

Thanks Julio, seems to be fixed or someone fixed my link for me. Either way, my day is already getting better. I hope that automatically adds me in for the giveaway, if not, please enter me in there! :)
 
I am a novice when it comes to forums. I cannot, for the life of me, figure out how to upload a picture onto Techspot's gallery and I don't know how to embed a link in my comment. Can someone help a noob out?
 
There are 2 aspects to efficient cooling. One is to create a unidirectional flow and the other being positioning of various components within the cabinet. The latter is very much governed by the motherboard layout. I have had reservations with the standard mobo layout for quite sometime now. Here are just a couple which are nothing but a pin in the you know where.

The sata headers on the motherboards, at least the ones I have come across in past several years, always come in the way of mounting the standard 3.5" HDDs. Similarly the memory slots, the power connector and the old style IDE headers are so closely packed they are difficult to at best to handle and to allow free flow of air.

Then there are a whole lot of unnecessary - more like detrimental - openings / holes / gaps in most cabinets which simply create sort of closed loop circulation of hot air missing most of the motherboard components. Another thing I have noticed is the fact that the fins on the cpu cooler are horizontal - for vertical orientation cabinets - which does not do anything for natural convection flow !
 
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