40mm cooler for LGA2011

[Blueskull]

Hi all. First poster here, but a long time mini PC lover.
I recently came across NFC S4 mini, and I really want to pre-order one.
Before pulling the trigger, I would like to know a few things:

1. I know it's designed for up to 90W CPUs, and my 150W CPU certainly will be too much for it. However, can I mod the chassis to perforate its top panel in order to facilitate better thermal performance? Also keep in mind that Xeon E5 CPUs are soldered to IHS, there's no TIM in between.
2. Is there an ultra low profile fan cooler for LGA2011? I'm looking for something like an NH-L9i with LGA2011 bracket. Again, it's designed for 65W, but I can replace the fan with a more powerful one, and my CPU almost never run at full power. For most of the time, it draws less than 70W. I can safely say it will never draw more than 90W from my test (a simple 44 thread infinite loop doing AVX256 FMA).
3. I'm okay with DC power. If I want and I don't care about cost, I can make a 500W DC PSU in the form factor of a pico, powered by 48V from DC jack. I have a PhD degree in power electronics.





Thanks for the help!

 

[GuilleAcoustic]

Do you need a GPU ? I'm wondering of an AIO would fit where the GPU is intended to go.

 

[jØrd]

generally speaking any cooler designed to fit inside of a 1u server chassis should clear a 40mm tollerance (1u server chassis are 40mm bottom to top). Its worth noting these are usually designed for forced airflow environments though and their usually loud (the passive units in particular tend to assume there is going to be a metric fuckton of air moving through the chassis). Also double check weather its the narrow or wide mounting pattern.

a cursory google search throws up this, this and this but there are definatly more if your willing to spend some time digging around for them

As for coolers aimed at the consumer market, nfi, thats a decent ammount of heat to move w/ a fairly small 'sink

 

[GuilleAcoustic]

Also double check weather its the narrow or wide mounting pattern.

Didn't thought about that. Will make AIO option kinda moot.

Edit: Apparently, Asetek has 2011 narrow retention kit ... http://www.overclock.net/t/1592811/lga-2011-v3-narrow-ilm-and-all-in-one-liquid-cooler-compatibility

Edit: EKW also has a 1U compatible block (EK Annihilator), but you'd need to also fit a pump or have the rad + pump outside the chassis (which kills the purpose of the S4 mini)

 

[jØrd]

precautionary tale for anyone considering going down this path. In the past I had a dual socket 711 motherboard crammed into an Antec 300 chassis. I cooked a pair of 50w L5420's w/ 1u 'sinks on top of them. That being said the FB DDR2 DIMMS i was using did their best to imitate an industrial furnace, i live in a hot climate & my house was not air conditioned, about as far away as you can get from a climate controlled server room. So whilst you can, it doesnt necessarily mean you should, YMMV, certainly doable w/ some forethought though.

EDIT: industrial space heater ->

Spoiler: picture

 

[Blueskull]

Thanks for the replies. So first, I have a GPU, and a quite powerful one, R9 nano.
Also, I'm not going to get a server cooler. I've used a 1U server at my home when I was in high school. It's LOUD.
I would like to know if Noctua's LGA2011 mounting kit will work on L9i. It says L9i can't be adapted to LGA2011, but I don't know whether it's due to thermal limit or due to physical size limit.
I would like to try my luck if it is only thermally limited, but if it is physically size limited, then there is no point to waste my time and money.
Also, please keep in mind that my mobo uses narrow ILM, so that narrows down available mounting brackets.

 

[jØrd]

Thanks for the replies. So first, I have a GPU, and a quite powerful one, R9 nano.

As a side not people have had difficulty w/ the R9 Nano in the S4 mini iirc. Not an issue w/ the S4 per-se but the Nano's spiky power draw has tripped more than one power bricks OCP.

IIRC @Aibohphobia has designed some Noctua 2011 narrow ILM adaptors and may or may not have some for sale still

EDIT: this thread and this thread.

 

[Blueskull]

I guess I will have to use Dynatron R25. The Noctua one doesn't have their standard 2 screw mounting system at all, so I won't be able to use any LGA2011 adapters and I will have to build the entire mounting system from scratch, and I don't really want to do so. I can machine a steel mounting bracket and epoxy it onto NH-L9i, but even then I don't know how well the thermal performance will be.

I think I will order an R25 for now and see how loud it is with some dynamic fan speed management. I also have plan to use a passive 27mm cooler and install a 12mm or 10mm fan on top of it.

As for the R9 nano power spike issue, since I will be designing the PSU myself, I will take an eye on it. Thanks for the reminder.

 

[jeshikat]

I think I will order an R25 for now and see how loud it is with some dynamic fan speed management.

I used the R24 that ships with the ASRock X99E-ITX/ac briefly and it was tolerable at idle, annoying at very moderate loads, and would hurt my ears if I was in the same room for any length of time under heavier loads with a 125W TDP Xeon.

And the R25 is even louder according to the specs.

You're best bet is probably the T318 and strapping a fan to it: http://www.dynatron-corp.com/?product=t318-2

 

[Blueskull]

Okay, so I won't hold any hope on R25 with stock fan. My new questions:

Should I use an R25, remove its blower fan and replace it with a straight through 80mm*25mm fan (still slightly lower than 40mm), or should I go with a T318 with a 80mm*10mm fan (CUI CFM-8010-S13)?

In other words, for the same overall height, do you guys think a taller fan with more powerful motor and blades coupled with a shorter heat sink will be better than a shorter fan coupled with a taller heat sink?

 

[jeshikat]

That's tough to say, because they're both non-ideal. The 25mm thick fan would have much better static pressure, but it's wasted on the incredibly short fins of the R25, while the T318 has somewhat the opposite problem.

 

[Blueskull]

Okay, I will buy both combinations and nuke them with the same 150W resistor. Let's see which one has lower thermal resistance to air. I can also run a numerical simulation with ANSYS AIM, but I think it will cost me more time than just hack up a test jig and do some real measurements.