The REALLY annoying thing is that it arrived at 10.30 this morning and, if I had known, I could have picked it up and had a lovely afternoon test-fitting and designing. To be fair, my boss pinged me a message immediately but, because he's on a mickey mouse network (O2 is having issues with some mobile masts around the town), he has had terrible mobile coverage at work for months now; so I didn't receive the message until 6pm.
Playing around until the rest of my bits arrive, that will hopefully let me fit 8 SSDs in the main drive bay. An i5-8500T in a Z390 ITX board (criminal, I know), using 16GB VLP 2666 kit, but I can drop in a much faster kit if the performance is somehow less than ideal. The OS m.2 is on the rear of the board and the top m.2 is home to a PCIE to 5x SATA adapter, which offers approx 2000MB/s (should be enough for 4 or 5 SATA SSDs). The expansion card is a QNAP QM2 combo card which has 10GbE and a pair of m.2 SATA slots, and also offers 2000MB/s. I'm planning to replace the 5 x 3.5" backplane with my uber cheap £16 8-way 2.5" backplane (assuming I can get it to work). This will allow me to bring the drives closer to the front and create more space for cable management between the backplane and the exhaust fan. Swapped out the stock fan for a Noctua and replaced the fan grilles with less restrictive wire guards. Also stuck a 300W Silverstone SFX PSU in there, while I work out the possibility of fitting a HDPlex DC/ATX unit in there and running it off a 330W Dell powerbrick - this is really a contingency, to allow for a printed SSD cage at the back, where the SFX PSU is, if the 8x2.5" backplane won't physically fit. 'scuse the mess, everything is in a transitional state right now, but it fits on the shelf perfectly
So.... things got a little toasty in the ol' Dan A4 last night... At one point the case was almost too hot to touch! CPU temps were fine, GPU temps were getting up pretty close to thermal throttle - that's not unusual for this GPU though, I need to re-do the paste and pads. But either way I think it's time to get some fans and get some air moving out of the case!
I've undervolted this GPU in the past with good results, aye. But I need to something about cooling anyway; CPU temps are fine on an i3-12100, but I do plan to put a gruntier CPU in here.
So, time for a HT5 update... So, after doing a few re-builds trying different airflow yesterday I think my biggest problem was really just my CPU. The 5900X just did not do well in the case - pretty much instantly spiking to 70-80 degrees when first switched on and not doing anything even running in 65w mode and severely power limited. I'd had it under water for the last few years so it had never been an issue, but am sure I'd run it on the L12 as well without issue - maybe recent BIOS updates have changed that. So, I'd picked up a 7800X3D a little while ago when I got a decent offer, and had picked up some DDR5 during a different sale at some point, that were planned to go in my C4 build. So decided I may as well go whole hog and bought a Gigabyte B650i AX that I found on the Rainforest for £150 - not a bad little board if you want a basic B650 board in ITX form - has pretty much everything you need, just missing the higher speed USB ports. And it runs very happily in there topping out at about 7o in full-fat 105w mode. Can't complain at all. The slim Akasa 80mm fans do fit in between the 4060LP and the side panel without deshrouding it, but don't do much apart from add noise, and not an especially nice noise. You can also fit them in behind the GaN 250 if you mount that on the 'multi-purpose mount' included with the HT5 kit one space in from the side panel - see below. I've got them there at the moment running relatively slowly as an exhaust but also going to to try without them as I think moving the PSU on its own might help with airflow anyway. HT5 Layout 2 by BeauchN posted 30 Mar 2024 at 10:19 I've got the CPU cooler running as intake at the moment, but might try flipping that and the Akasas so they intake and the CPU fan exhausts. I might also see if I can find a reasonably priced 7600 to go in there instead as that's only a 65w part so I can keep the 7800X3D for my C4 build, and help even more with temps. EDIT: and I've also started a clear out price check thread in the marketplace...
My setup was the other way round! The 3 fan GTX 1080 was fine but the i5 11400F with a Cryorig C7 and infamous standard fan was really toasty. I have found my 2nd 8 pin PCIe cable which means the RX6700 XT can be installed this weekend.
I've got an Alpenfohn Black Ridge ready and waiting to install, but I need low-profile memory first and ideally a 92mm slim Noctua fan for better performance. I might as well get a couple of extra slim 92mm fans to use for ventilation. Dan's "RTX 30x0 Guide" shows a 92mm fan being used as an intake below the GPU and PSU, but denizens of r/sffpc seem to think that using it as an exhaust in the same position produces better cooling.
It's a trade-off between CPU temps and vrm cooling. Either way, I'd recommend a foam gasket between the fan and the fin stack to improve noise; like Noctua's NA-FD1, but you could easily make your own.
OMFG, it fits!! Just got to figure out the power and dig out my SF-8087 to SATA cables. This means a trip to the wall of Really Useful Boxes in the garage. **tiny sigh** [edit] actually, since the backplane came with a pair of mini-SAS cables, I might just grab a HBA card and use that little m.2 to 10GbE NIC I got on eBay.
Well, the Black Ridge is a bust. I can’t get the mounting screws to line up (apologies, hard to make out here) Because there are just too many heatsinks in the way on this board Back to the L9i for now then - I honestly don’t think any other third party cooler will fit this board, not a lot of room at all around the socket. I’ve just installed a 12400F, so I should be able to fall back on the stock Intel cooler if the L9i can’t keep up. They’re a touch whiny, but they do the job. I’ll pop up a thread soon, but if any other ITX weirdos want the Black Ridge cooler for their own Dan A4 then give me a nudge. At the moment I’m taking a break from the GPU (3070Ti FE) innards that are currently adorning my desk! From what the Reddit hivemind tells me, the 1.5mm pads I have should be sufficient for the die-side of the PCB, though I will check the compression/contact when I re-assemble the card (even if it means having to do fresh paste). I’ll leave the stock VRM pads on the rear of the card in place, the temps of the GPU itself and the RAM are the main concern. Though it can’t hurt to stack a couple of 1.5mm pads on the opposite side of the RAM chips to try and use the backplate for additional cooling - some contact with thermally conductive material has to be better than no contact!
So many ITX sockets seem to be crowded with towers of heatsink on 2 or 3 sides, it's a real minefield now. Grrr. I have finally assembled my 'too big' ITX rig in the NR200 and it's quieter than anything else I've run for gaming in a while. There's an i5 11400F on a Z590i Vision mobo under a Thermalright AXP 120 X67 with a tall 3 slot triple fan RX6700XT chunky boy GPU in there cooled pretty well by 3x 120m fans. It is the biggest GPU I have ever owned and has been put in the biggest ITX case so far at 18L. It will stay on my desk as a daily driver, its too big and fragile to carry. I do have to admit the NR200 is a good and well thought out case which has opened the ITX option to a wider market. I was fairly negative about it historically as I like the smaller end of SFF, and now see its place when you end up with a stupidly large card...
@Byron C have a look at the ID-Cooling IS-40X. I came across it the other day and it looks like it should fit a pretty wide range of boards. Alternatively, you could look at removing/modding the IO shroud on that board. Edit: And I’d be tempted by the Blackridge for my S4Tiny if you decide to sell. Edit 2: I have got the ID-Cooling IS-67 in my HT5 and it seems to be working a treat on the 7800X3D
You will have to lean on it a bit, otherwise it ever-so-slightly bows the side panel out, just a wee bit. That's impressive. I'm tempted to see how it fares with the 5800X3D.
