Hey Guys, Current rig is roughly as follows: Ncase M1 V3 Asus ROG X470i AMD 2600 Noctua L9i Cooler Blower GTX 1070 Slim Noctua 120mm fans at the bottom acting as input Silverstone 450W SFX PSU Grunt wise its fine BUT its louder than I want. I find that there is a slight rattle from the PSU fan. After some testing I found its the CPU fan spinning up that is causing the main bulk of the noise. At load my cpu is hitting 70 degrees and the GPU hits around 75 before it throttles. Back to my itch, as many of you will know from the various ITX / SFF threads I have a problem. I managed to acquire a HDPLEX 400 and brick quite cheap a little while back and I thought to myself if I am doing that why not change my case and cooling at the same time. Main contenders are: Lian Li PC-TU150WX https://www.overclockers.co.uk/lian...ium-mini-itx-case-black-window-ca-77j-ll.html Pros: Looks amazing Tempered glass Plenty of room to fit the HDPLEX Options to move back to CLC cooling for CPU Can get it delivered next day Cons: It is still off the shelf I have no use for the handle at all Next up is this little beauty: MetalFish G5 Plus https://www.aliexpress.com/item/100...a2g0o.store_home.smartJustForYou_1018957251.0 Pros: I love the cheese grater look Even more CLC options Cons: Aliexpress delivery no real idea on build quality Will have to make my own dust filters fitting the HDPLEX will be tighter than the Lian Li What do you guys think? Any other options out there I havent considered. Finally its ok to say: Nim's you crazy stop this obsession. I could also in theory just figure out how to fit this into my ncase instead....
Really like the look of The Louque Ghost S1... https://www.louqe.com/ghost-s1/ Apparently the incoming 3rd revision includes a superb white finish. I had the Silverstone 450w SF PSU and you are right, the squeaking noise is annoying when the fan gets going so I went for the Corsair 600w variant (cables are easier to manage as well). I ditched my Ncase for the same reason and went for a TU150 as well. The ability to fit in a full height cooler will help no end (like a Noctua U14). I'd also consider swapping the cooler out on your gpu for an after market one. I've removed the shroud from my 2060 super and run it passive (I suppose) with two 25mm Noctuas venting out the base of the case. My CPU, an Amd 2600x, never goes above the low 60s and, while under load, the Gpu stays in the low 50s.
My 2p? That Lian Li case is probably lovely but it's a bit big for my tastes - twice the volume of the M1. And I reckon that MetalFish case will be utterly horrid in terms of build quality compared to the M1. Why not keep the M1 and go for a better CPU cooler? Could swap your L9i for a U9S, stick a second fan on it and maybe run LNAs too. That would give you better cooling power than the L9i, and almost certainly lower noise too. If you have the fans set up so that the airflow is front-to-back across the heatsink then you'll have much better directed airflow than with a top-down cooler - I have this setup in my M1 and I actually have the second CPU fan attached to the back of the case as a direct exhaust. With a side intake, I get decent front-to-back airflow and my CPU temperatures are totally reasonable, but more importantly (for me) the noise is minimal. As an aside, I know the prevailing wisdom is to use blower GPUs in the M1, but I have a traditional open cooler GPU and it's actually far cooler-running and much, much quieter than the blower it replaced. Like you I have two slim Noctuas as intakes on the case floor.
Remember one things, holes let out sounds as much as they let in air... So the Lain Li's cooling vent configuration will probably actually block sound far more efectively than the other two.
Surely the most cost-effective solution that also allows you to retain the fantastic NCase (I have a v6!) is just to beef up your cooling? C14S is the go-to for low noise CPU cooling, but I'm happy with my U9S, which is easier for PSU mounting. 240 AIOs will happily fit too, if you can suffer the pump noise. Given you have two GPU intake fans as well, a more open GPU cooling system would likely work a treat (since you keep supplying it with cool air from the fans).
Currently in the process of figuring out how best to mount the HDPLEX in the ncase, then that gives me a good gauge of how much space I have remaining.
Maybe a quick and dirty option first is playing around with undervolting on the GPU and a custom fan curve on the CPU (assuming it doesn't have one so far) allowing it to run a little slower albeit at the cost of a bit more heat. I know Optimum tech on Youtube has done an excellent undervolting guide for Pascal / Turing GPU's which can really help in SFF builds.
So I did some experiments undervolting the CPU and saw some gains, but it did increase instability so it's back to stock for now. Gpu I installed afterburner and stopped. I just had delivered a cheapo open itx bench thing. Plan is to transfer the inners out to keep the system up and strip down the case so I can plan. My house is dusty as hell and the inside of the case could do with a mega clean!
