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NZXT H440 case fans & CPU cooler * newbie *

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  • homebuild
  • CPUs
  • NZXT H440
  • Cooling
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Last response: in Components
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April 2, 2014 7:51:40 AM

I love NZXT H440 look and decided to purchase it for my first ever home build. From what I understand It has back fan and three on top.
After browsing people mentioned purchasing three extra fans on top, am I to understand there would be total six fans on top?

I basically need advice for any extra fans I need to buy and if I need to replace the stock ones.

My second query is I am leaning towards getting Noctua NH-D14 for CPU cooler, I have plans to overclock. I am worried it will impact air flow a lot due to its size in that case? I would rather stay away from water coolers on my first build.

Planning to make final purchases tonight, thanks in advance.

PS: Here is the build incase you need to check :http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/user/pole/saved/4fdb

More about : nzxt h440 case fans cpu cooler newbie

a b à CPUs
April 2, 2014 8:06:45 AM

No, you will not have to replace the stock fans. They do very good at moving air. The Noctua cooler will be fine and shouldn't cause any problems with airflow. It is designed to have air pass through the cooler without any problems. Hope this helped.
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a c 131 à CPUs
April 2, 2014 8:11:47 AM

Are you buying this for gaming? If so, you need to change a bunch of things around lol

And for a build like you listed, the stock fans the H440 comes with will be plenty of airflow, and the Noctua D14 is great, and won't hurt airflow at all.
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April 2, 2014 8:13:47 AM

Thank you for clearing that up, I just checked part picker build using same case, found out that there are three front fans. I have the option to purchase fans for top of the case which I plan to do.

I guess Noctua will do fine then, I was just worried since I have not come across single noctua/NZXT build. Most prominent google results have people using H00i water cooler.

Will give this thread a bit more time but I think I'm all set !

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April 2, 2014 8:16:07 AM

keep the Noctua NH-D14 cooler but incase you run out of money, stick with the stock cooler

From their page:
Cooling System Front: 2x 140/3x120mm (3 x 120mm FN V2 Fans Included)
Top: 2x 140/3x120mm
Rear: 1x 140/120mm (1 x 140mm FN V2 Fan Included)"

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a b à CPUs
April 2, 2014 8:16:21 AM

cer said:
Thank you for clearing that up, I just checked part picker build using same case, found out that there are three front fans not top. I have the option to purchase fans for top of the case which I plan to.

I guess Noctua will do fine then, I was just worried since I have not come across single noctua/NZXT build. Most prominent google results have people using H00i water cooler.

Will give this thread a bit more time but I think I'm all set !



Just one last thing, are you building your PC for gaming?
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April 2, 2014 8:24:40 AM

Yes but mostly editing. I wanted to make a build with the next generation GPU but couldn't wait so I made second hand purchase on a GTX 660 ti as placeholder until I upgrade in 2015 with single highend GPU (no intention to SLI). Any tip to tweak the build would be welcome. Thanks !
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a c 131 à CPUs
April 2, 2014 8:35:21 AM

If you're editing I would go something like this:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i7-4770K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor (£231.98 @ Aria PC)
CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-D14 65.0 CFM CPU Cooler (£64.90 @ Amazon UK)
Motherboard: ASRock Z87 Pro4 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (£74.99 @ Ebuyer)
Memory: Kingston Beast 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£104.17 @ CCL Computers)
Storage: Samsung 840 EVO 250GB 2.5" Solid State Disk (£98.99 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Western Digital BLACK SERIES 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£110.72 @ Aria PC)
Video Card: Zotac GeForce GTX 660 Ti 2GB Video Card (£139.00)
Case: NZXT H440 (White/Black) ATX Mid Tower Case (£93.79 @ Scan.co.uk)
Power Supply: XFX 550W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply (£44.98 @ Amazon UK)
Total: £963.52
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-04-02 16:33 BST+0100)

You'll enjoy the 16GB of RAM a lot, and I would go with a single 2TB WD Black drive for the speed. You also don't want to use the RM series from Corsair, they are built with inferior components, and the 550w XFX listed will power any single GPU system. The rest looks good :) 
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April 2, 2014 8:45:04 AM

Great insight, looks really good, reason I had two separate HDD is one would be dedicated for shadowplay gameplay recordings other for program music bulk data, from what I understood its better to do your recordings on separate drive. Shadowplay will avoid me going raid 0 since files kept small, again from my limited understanding. Would partitioning WD black series work like two hardrives one for recording other for files?

As for power supply you sure it will be enough to support highend 2015 card?

PS: From other posters in past it seemed my original mobo choice was cheapest, whats missing in that ASROCK mobo for the price drop, is it the SLI capabilities?

Thanks !
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a c 131 à CPUs
April 2, 2014 9:24:36 AM

Ahh, yes, for recording you will definitely want a separate drive, good call.

And no, the Asrock Extreme4 has pretty much everything the ASUS Pro has, and supports SLI/Crossfire just as well. It may be slightly less capable for overclocking, but by that I mean maybe a degree or two warmer than the Pro. It's a very highly regarded and well-built board, especially for the price.

The power supply will be plenty for any single GPU. Even an overclocked system running the super power-hungry 290x barely uses around 375w or so at full load. The biggest thing about power supplies to look at isn't necessarily the wattage, but the quality of the parts, and XFX is built by SeaSonic; highly regarded as the best maker of power supplies.
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April 2, 2014 9:53:56 AM

Awesome help polishing up the build there especially the PSU which I had no clue about. Just incase there was a misunderstanding I do plan to game often too.

Not quite sure what a few degrees warmer does in terms of overclocking yet, but if it is considerable I might look into spending more since the case does not have the best airflow, then again somewhat inexperienced guess here.

PS: when you say ASUS Pro is that another name for Asus Z87-A?

Thanks!
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April 2, 2014 10:08:45 AM

HiTechObsessed said:
Ahh, yes, for recording you will definitely want a separate drive, good call.

And no, the Asrock Extreme4 has pretty much everything the ASUS Pro has, and supports SLI/Crossfire just as well. It may be slightly less capable for overclocking, but by that I mean maybe a degree or two warmer than the Pro. It's a very highly regarded and well-built board, especially for the price.

The power supply will be plenty for any single GPU. Even an overclocked system running the super power-hungry 290x barely uses around 375w or so at full load. The biggest thing about power supplies to look at isn't necessarily the wattage, but the quality of the parts, and XFX is built by SeaSonic; highly regarded as the best maker of power supplies.


oops

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a c 131 à CPUs
April 2, 2014 10:10:18 AM

I meant the Z87-A, my bad. Been looking at too many motherboards lol

And a couple of degrees shouldn't affect what you can get overclocking-wise, it may not even be that much with how efficient the Noctua is.

Everything i listed above will be very good at gaming, even into the future (so long as you get a new GPU :p  ) so I wouldn't worry there. At any rate, that was just a suggestion I had, so do whatever you want with it lol I would definitely still recommend trying to get 16GB of RAM in there, for some editing head room.
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a c 131 à CPUs
April 2, 2014 10:17:19 AM

Srry about that, here's the exact same build with some low profile RAM so clearance won't be an issue:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i7-4770K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor (£231.98 @ Aria PC)
CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-D14 65.0 CFM CPU Cooler (£64.90 @ Amazon UK)
Motherboard: ASRock Z87 Pro4 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (£74.99 @ Ebuyer)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance LP 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£118.99 @ Scan.co.uk)
Storage: Samsung 840 EVO 250GB 2.5" Solid State Disk (£99.99 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Western Digital BLACK SERIES 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£110.72 @ Aria PC)
Video Card: Zotac GeForce GTX 660 Ti 2GB Video Card (£139.00)
Case: NZXT H440 (White/Black) ATX Mid Tower Case (£93.79 @ Scan.co.uk)
Power Supply: XFX 550W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply (£44.98 @ Amazon UK)
Total: £979.34
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-04-02 18:16 BST+0100)

Nice catch!
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April 2, 2014 10:21:16 AM

Am I still green to switch back to 2 x Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB (recording + data) they are at 7200RPM too and good reviews. Apart from that /highfive !

PS: Just looking into bronze vs gold vs platinum, since I use PC a lot do you think I will save on bills in the long run if I upgrade PSU? (just a thought).
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a c 131 à CPUs
April 2, 2014 11:09:51 AM

cer said:
Am I still green to switch back to 2 x Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB (recording + data) they are at 7200RPM too and good reviews. Apart from that /highfive !

PS: Just looking into bronze vs gold vs platinum, since I use PC a lot do you think I will save on bills in the long run if I upgrade PSU? (just a thought).


Definitely, the separate drives will be better for you.

And it depends what you mean by a lot. At normal usage, there is generally less than 10% difference in efficiency between bronze and platinum. The efficiency rating normally is only a concern for people doing mining, folding at home, or businesses looking to save every penny they can. Most people will not even notice a difference on their bills. If you're doing a lot of editing and gaming for an average of like 8+ hours (usage time) per day, it may be worth it. For the most part, though, it's going to take a long time for you to see a return.

That said, if you have an extra few quid and don't mind upgrading, it definitely won't hurt you, and generally means a longer lasting power supply as well
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April 2, 2014 11:19:25 AM

HiTechObsessed said:
cer said:
Am I still green to switch back to 2 x Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB (recording + data) they are at 7200RPM too and good reviews. Apart from that /highfive !

PS: Just looking into bronze vs gold vs platinum, since I use PC a lot do you think I will save on bills in the long run if I upgrade PSU? (just a thought).


Definitely, the separate drives will be better for you.

And it depends what you mean by a lot. At normal usage, there is generally less than 10% difference in efficiency between bronze and platinum. The efficiency rating normally is only a concern for people doing mining, folding at home, or businesses looking to save every penny they can. Most people will not even notice a difference on their bills. If you're doing a lot of editing and gaming for an average of like 8+ hours (usage time) per day, it may be worth it. For the most part, though, it's going to take a long time for you to see a return.

That said, if you have an extra few quid and don't mind upgrading, it definitely won't hurt you, and generally means a longer lasting power supply as well


Just trying to figure out the gold version of XFX 550W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply, if you look at this list and tell me, I am confused by the series TS, XTR and also modular NO/FULL.

I could go gold one if its only small bump in price, might be worth it. Strange it has no reviews , probably what you mentioned.




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a c 131 à CPUs
April 2, 2014 11:28:07 AM

The 80+ gold is about 15 quid more: http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/part/xfx-power-supply-p1550g...

Modular/semi-modular just means the power cables aren't all part of the power supply itself, and you can hook up only the ones you want. I personally wouldn't worry about that, because with all the room in the H440, cable management won't be a problem at all.

And don't be worried with the lack of reviews on PCPartPicker, they don't aggregate reviews, those are strictly from their site. Anything from XFX is very high-quality :) 
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a c 131 à CPUs
April 2, 2014 11:44:41 AM

No, RAM is RAM, as long as you have good timings, good speed, and don't need something like 1.65v to get what I would call stock speeds, they'll perform identically.

The G Skill are CAS 10, but you won't really notice a difference in editing, and definitely won't see a difference in gaming. And I'm sure you already checked for D14 clearance, but just keep that in mind. Other than that, cheaper, free shipping, and from the same place is always good lol
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April 2, 2014 11:57:12 AM

Yep checked height but hadnt even noticed CAS differences. I found Patriot Viper 3 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory even cheaper than G.Skill and its CAS 9. Amazon review : Decent timings but for some reason ships with 3T command rate in XMP.

Now looking into RAM I found this too:
Quote:
The 1T/2T you are referrrig to is a memory timing parameter for DDR RAM. I believe its called Command Rate. 1T is faster than 2T.

You won't find the Command Rate parameter in the A7V133 BIOS.

The settings you will see are
CAS: Column Address Strobe; set to 2 or 3
RAS: Row Address Strobe; set to 2 or 3
RAS/CAS Delay; set to 2 or 3

In all cases 2 is faster than 3 and improves memory performance.
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a c 131 à CPUs
April 2, 2014 12:00:50 PM

Yeah, those would work too :)  Best of both worlds lol
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April 2, 2014 12:48:24 PM

HiTechObsessed said:
Yeah, those would work too :)  Best of both worlds lol


Nearly there, just one more question about fans, there will be three 120 stock fans in front panel and 1x140mm in the back, for the top, should I put in 2 x 140mm or 3 x 120. Not quite sure how air flow will work out.

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a c 131 à CPUs
April 2, 2014 12:56:04 PM

For now, with just a 660 Ti in there, you'll be fine with just what comes stock. The H440 includes NZXT's silent fans, which are pretty good quality. I would personally leave them out and see how temps look before putting a few more in, I think you'll be surprised how cool they stay with the included 4 fans.
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April 2, 2014 1:00:56 PM

Good advice again, I think its time to get the ball rolling on purchases.
Help was awesome !
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a c 131 à CPUs
April 2, 2014 1:02:17 PM

Sounds good, enjoy your build! Gonna look awesome in the H440, wish I had room for something like that lol
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April 2, 2014 1:25:44 PM

HiTechObsessed said:
Sounds good, enjoy your build! Gonna look awesome in the H440, wish I had room for something like that lol


Aye looking forward to my first cable management experience :pt1cable: 

PS: Is it possible to start installing windows programs, updates etc if I have everything except GPU?

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a c 230 à CPUs
April 2, 2014 1:29:31 PM

Yes it is, since your processor has built in graphics (you need something to run the display).
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April 2, 2014 1:38:32 PM

I bought a secondhand GPU, information given: The card needs two six pin connections from your PSU, included in the box are 2x convertor connectors twin Molex 4 pin into a single 6 pin.

This is the exact model: GTX 660 ti

What does that mean, would I need to buy anything for GPU connection?

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April 2, 2014 1:57:14 PM

HiTechObsessed said:
Sounds good, enjoy your build! Gonna look awesome in the H440, wish I had room for something like that lol


I'm curious as to which monitor you use 60hz or 120hz ?

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a c 131 à CPUs
April 2, 2014 3:25:36 PM

Those are just the power leads required from the power supply, the XFX you have on your list already has a couple, so you won't need the adapters.

I use a 60Hz, since I only have a GTX 760, I wouldn't really benefit from the extra refresh rate. I run all my games maxed out pretty much, and usually get between 40-60 on the more taxing ones. And I know a lot of people hate VSync, but I keep that on in games that I would run 60+ in, as I cannot stand screen tearing lol The only game I ever really see that on though (that I play anymore) is Borderlands 2.
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April 2, 2014 3:31:37 PM

HiTechObsessed said:
Those are just the power leads required from the power supply, the XFX you have on your list already has a couple, so you won't need the adapters.

I use a 60Hz, since I only have a GTX 760, I wouldn't really benefit from the extra refresh rate. I run all my games maxed out pretty much, and usually get between 40-60 on the more taxing ones. And I know a lot of people hate VSync, but I keep that on in games that I would run 60+ in, as I cannot stand screen tearing lol The only game I ever really see that on though (that I play anymore) is Borderlands 2.


Thanks again :D 

I think I avoided another mine earlier after reading amazon reviews seems the XFX 550W is not compatible with haswell, made new thread about it components section.

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a c 131 à CPUs
April 4, 2014 7:48:13 AM

The XFX 550w is only incompatible with the ultra-low power state of Haswell chips, which only applies during sleep. Whether or not that concerns you is up to you, but doesn't really change anything performance-wise, as it is fully able to stay within spec.
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