by Miha Markič
2. January 2006 21:21
Well, not exactly ice level but helps a lot bringing the temperature of your (idle) cpu down. A quick explanation of the technology would be: cool'n'quiet throttles speed and voltage of your (desktop) Athlon 64 down to minimum of half speed and 60% full voltage when CPU is idle (when it is not doing anything useful). Which means that CPU will do nothing slower and will consume less power and nature will be grateful. Which means that it will cool down when doing nothing slowly. Which means less heat in your room and even more important less noise out from your computer box. Isn't that great.
Hardware requirements:
- Athlon 64 CPU
- Cool'n'quiet enabled motherboard
Software requirements:
- CPU driver from AMD. Get it here.
- BIOS update for your motherboard (depends on the motherboard)
Is it worth to bother? Oh, yes. I have almost fanless/noiseless server with Athlon 64 3000+ and I really don't care much about noise level as there is almost none. But the temperature - it is amazing. It goes down 7-6C to 35C (95F) at room temperature of about 21C when server is idle - using Thermaltake fanless cooler (If I'd put a more powerful cooler the CPU temperature drop would be even larger). Not to mention that it saves power (CPU these days are power hungry).
Are there any downsides? Only if you use computers to heat up your room during winter.
So, now, if you have an Athlon 64 make sure you enable quiet'n'cool. And you don't have one make sure you replace the old one with it.
BTW, happy new year.
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Tags:
Hardware