basic questions

[johnnyinternet]

Okay i have some very basic questions that i think you guys can answer in your sleep. i will try to phrase them so i don't look like a complete fool...thats gonna be hard to do

assume this is for:

amd64 3200
ati 9800 128mb
80gb 7,200 hard drive
case with no fans and a 400w ps
no immediate plans for over clocking

1) how do heat sinks work? how many should i have? do processors usually ship with them? are they vital?

2)are fans that important? would having two fans, one blowing in and one blowing out be a good idea?

3)with cases that ship with say a 400w power supply built in would i need to purchase an additional ps or is that enough?

as you can probably tell i have gotten caught up with cooling the pc i plan too buy but i think thats all for now, thanks for your time and any help you can offer.

johnny internet

 

[fishmahn]

1)
Heat sinks absorb the heat generated by the chip and spreads it out thru the fins/tines/whatever of the heatsink itself, making the surface area in contact with air much larger so that air can cool it off. If there's a fan on the heatsink, then the fan blows more air across it so that it can cool even better. You can only have 1 HS for each chip - your CPU needs one - it's vital, your motherboard comes with some for the chips as needed, and your video card will have a heatsink and fan on its processor.

"Retail" boxed CPUs include a heatsink and fan that is adequate for that cpu. If you want to overclock or the one you have is noisy, you can buy better/quieter (hard to get both at the same time though). "OEM" CPUs do not include one and you have to get one yourself.

2)
With only the fan on the PS (I'm assuming you don't have a fanless PS), you will have very low airflow and both the CPU and video card generate good amounts of heat. At the very least one more fan is a requirement, and 2 more is common. This depends on your case's design, if you have a perfectly designed case (not very likely), you may not need more.

3)
PSU's that come with cases are usually cruddy. (Exception is quality cases - umm.., gah, names don't come to mind atm... maybe before I press submit... Antec and Thermaltake came to mind - there are others I'm sure.) Cheap power supplies overrate their capability, quality companies tend to report 'true' sustainable power, so a 350w 'true' PS will likely be better than a 450w 'overrated' PS. 400w may be enough even with a cheap psu, but maybe not. If you're going to overclock, a 400w+ quality PSU is a requirement. If not, you may get lucky like I did and the 350w that came with the $20 case is working fine (but my 9600 video card doesn't need as much juice as your 9800), but you may not be as lucky as I was. Bad power supply can cause an unstable system, crashes, strange problems, and all around havoc.

Mike.

 

[johnnyinternet]

wow thanks a lot you answered everything for me. i will have mor questions in the future i am sure but thanks a tonne for now. also thanks for the recommendations on the case, thats one of the major problems for me as i get caught up looking at crazy mod cases when i would rather have a poo brown one that does everything right.
thanks again

johnny internet