[Rant] Managed to sell the Silver Arrow SB-E Extreme cooler as well - again, Rakuten Auctions to the rescue

Couple of weeks ago I listed up my beloved but massively pain-in-the-arse Silver Arrow SB-E Extreme cooler on Rakuten and yesterday someone bid for it. I had to drop the price of the cooler down to JPY 4,000 range to make the sale. 

Actually the bidder asked me of I could sell the cooler for JPY 4,500 including shipping. After confirming that he was also from Kanagawa prefecture, which meant that the cost of shipping is lowest because I'm also in the same prefecture, I decided to sell the cooler for JPY 4,500. Since I had to ship it to him for free, I had to modify the listing before he bid. I told him that I made the changes and that it was ok for him to bid. Like promised, he placed a bid for it momentarily. Then I hit the Early Termination button and ended the auction before someone could cripple the sale. 

For the time being, I decided to go back to my old Antec Kuhler 620 all-in-one water cooler. I might actually keep using it depending on the thermal/acoustic results of it. I would probably upgrade to a H100i if I go with the Corsair 250D or keep using it if i go with the CM Elite 130. 

Back on the topic. 

I originally thought that I would be able to choose Auction Yuupack as the shipping method. It was the cheapest method of shipping as Japan Post would give a discount when using the service - howvever, I have no idea why. But I found out, after I made the sale, that you cannot use Auction Yuupack unless the shipping order was generated from a Auction site. When you choose "free shipping", you can select your own shipping method but the shipping order will not be generated from the auction site. Only when you put the tracking number, you can select which shipping method you used. But that's just for tracking purposes. So, sadly, it seemed the actual cost of shipping would be much higher than what I originally assumed. 

[Rant] Decided that I should get rid of the Silver Arrow SB-E Extreme cooler

In a previous post I wrote how I bought A-DATA XPG V2 16GB memory kit. Since the heatsink of these sticks is tall, I cannot fit them underneath my current CPU cooler, the Silver Arrow SB-E extreme. You might wonder why I bought these sticks in the first place. That was because the low profile sticks were so expensive, that I could still be able to spend less even if I change the cooler to a closed loop water cooler like the Corsair H100i. And don't forget that these sticks run at 2400MHz, albeit CL11. Plus, don't forget I still have my Antec Kuhler 620 AIO water cooler with me as well.

Just forget about compatibility with Mini-ITX boards for a second. The Silver Arrow is not compatible even with Micro ATX motherboards. It not only blocks the first DIMM slot, but also the top most PCI-E slot which is always the one connected to the CPU with 16 lanes. It doesn’t mean that you cannot plug the DIMMs to DIMM1 and DIMM3 instead of DIMM0 and DIMM2 and the graphics card to the 2nd PCI-E x16 (wired at x8) slot, but that’s not optimal, right? However, it could be cheaper than replacing the cooler.

 

Still, I think the best thing for me to do right now is to get rid of the Silver Arrow.

 

[Rant] Mini-ITX build plans are not completely gone

Few weeks ago I got this itch to build a Mini-ITX rig. But I had to give up that thought because It would only be a side-grade (not an upgrade) if I do it now and it sounded like a lot of money spent with no gains. If I do it when Broadwell comes out, then that's a different story.

In the mean time, I wanted to reuse as much components from my current build as possible. In the original feasibility study, I figured that I would have to give up the CPU cooler and the PSU because they would not fit in a small mini-ITX case. Quite recently I came to know that Fractal Design Node 304, which is a nice little mini-ITX case, can actually house the Silver Arrow SB-E Extreme cooler just fine.

[Rant] Wanted to make a mini-ITX rig but...

There are too much comprises to be made to make it a reality.

 

For a long time, I wanted to make a SFF PC. There are so many choices these days. If such was available at the time when I built my rig, I would have gone with a SFF build. But now I have a ATX build. So if I want to build a SFF PC, it would be a conversion, not a build from the scratch. But the thing is, I want to reuse as many components as possible from my current rig.

 

CPU, graphics card, RAM and storage are no problem.

 

Obviously the motherboard and the case have to be replaced.

 

I would really like to use the cooler and the PSU in the SFF build. But most SFF cases and motherboard don't let you house a Silver Arrow Extreme cooler. It seems that the BitFenix Prodigy and the Fractal Node 304 would let you, but it would be nearly impossible to find a motherboard that would let you install it without blocking the PCI-E slot. Most mini-ITX motherboards have weird CPU socket positioning. The only one that might work is the Asus Z87I Pro. I wanted to put a ROG Maximus VI Impact in there as it is the most powerful mini-ITX motherboard out there. It also comes with awesome integrated audio. But it seems the Silver Arrow is just too fat for it. But I don't have any proof attesting or detesting this claim.

 

[Article] Upgrade itch is so strong! Feeling like upgrading to 4770K Haswell from 2600K SandyBridge after all.

Many shops are giving JPY5,000 worth discounts if you buy a Haswell CPU and a Z87 motherboard these days. Sofmap.com has a eye-catching offer: Core i7 4770K and a Asus Z87 Pro motherboard for about JPY51,000. I sometimes feel like giving a shot at Haswell. I know it won’t give me much benefits over my current CPU and motherboard. But this upgrade itch has been crawling beneath my skin in the past few months. Worse case would be that I will get just about same performance as my current CPU and motherboard combo. That’s if I can only overclock to like 4.2GHz. If I can somehow manage to overclock to 4.5GHz, I will be able to sneak in 10% or so more performance. The temps definitely will play a vital role, especially with the temperature in the summer.

It’s not the CPU that is great actually. Z87 is a great chipset. It performs really well, plus, it uses so little power. It also comes with a lot of stuff my current motherboard doesn’t have, natively. I will get a much better motherboard. I can use the integrated fan controller and throw away (don’t take things literally unless I say so) my current Scythe fan controller. I have been wanting a fan controller that controls fan according to temps. With Asus’s unprecedented fan control software, I can achieve it. I hate the cable mess the current fan controller has created behind the motherboard tray.

Thermalright Silver Arrow SB-E Extreme cooler - installation experience

In the previous post I mentioned that I bought this super cooler and now it is time to install it. A lot of things happened while installing the cooler, so someone who is looking to buy this cooler might find this information I’m going to write in this post. It’s a long post, so read it all slowly, if you are interested in the topic. Important notes come up at different places, whenever necessary.

First things first. I had to remove the old CNPS9900MAX-B cooler first to get going. Since I reseated the cooler a few days back, I could quickly take it off. Then I cleaned the thermal paste residue from the CPU.

Then it was time to install the new cooler. Here’s what was inside the box.

		Thermalright Silver Arrow SB-E Extreme VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Bought the Silver Arrow SB-E Extreme cooler

I couldn't take it anymore. So I went and ordered the Thermalright Silver Arrow SB-E Extreme cooler on Thursday before going to sleep. Before that I did some serious assessment as to whether I should go with this cooler or the Noctua NH-D14. Since the NH-D14 is a bit more expensive and the non-Extreme model is almost identical to the Noctua in terms of performance. But the new Extreme edition, thanks to its high CFM fans, can cool it much further. Some reviews say the difference is about 5-8C. Having that option is good I guess. Of course it will depend on the airflow inside the case.

But still I had to check 3 things before I bought the cooler.

1. This is a tall cooler, because of the sheer side of the fans and the heat pipes that protrude from the top. But on the official Thermalright Silver Arrow club page on OCN, I found several people who had cooler installed in the Raven RV03 without any issue. (Although the height of the cooler is 165mm and the max height of the cooler supported by the case is 163mm. I guess the protruded nature of the window helps?)
2. Will it fit with the Corsair Vengeance Memory modules? It was mentioned in a review that the heat sink itself didn't protrude over the memory slots. It was the fan that caused the problems. So what that reviewer proposed was that instead of having the fan in the front, move it to the back. Instead of push-push orientation, you have to install it as pull-pull. It should not hurt the cooling performance especially since there are two intake fans directly at the bottom of the case. But it was still doubtful whether I could fit the memory module closest to the heat sink fine. The Vengeance sticks are not only tall, but the sinks add additional width to the naked sticks. Anyhow, the worst case would be me having to remove the heat sink on the memory module closest to the CPU. I was ready for that possibility. But I hoped that I wouldn't have to do that.
3. Then I had to see if the VRM sinks on the motherboard would cause problems. I didn't expect this would cause problems but I had to make sure anyways. It seemed that there were people having the cooler installed on the same motherboard as mine, the ASRock Z68 Extreme4.

So, it seemed everything was fine, thus I ordered the Silver Arrow SB-E Extreme from Amazon. Price on Amazon was the cheapest. The price was almost same as the non-Extreme. It cost me ¥8,563. Hefty price for a cooler, right? Well, I think I should have bought this cooler in the first place; not the Antec Kuhler 620 AIO water cooler or Zalman CNPS9900MAX which this replaces. Those were the waste of money.

 

The cooler arrived yesterday thanks to Amazon Prime's one day shipping. But since I knew it was going to take a while to install the cooler, and it was too late, I postponed it to the next day.

 

P.S.

Do yourself a favor. Don’t get RAM with tall heat spreaders when you go shopping for RAM the next time.