Case Study: Air Cooling Inside an NCASE M1

[tuppaacc]

I don't posted anywhere test results, but there is 3dmark result file (fire strike extreme stress test), or you can find a screenshot below: https://www.dropbox.com/s/83pad8szhpmm5yu/nh-u9s.3dmark-result?dl=0

Edit: The room temperature is around 23C

Yes, I think you need to make a custom air duct, so the 120mm fans extract trough gpu heatsink.
I used a plastic cover to make the air duct all around the heatsink, between case's bottom and heatsink's bottom, so almost all exhaust air go trough gpu.
What is behind:

wow thanks! such great insightNow I get it

Personally that wouldn't work as there be no room for my 3.5inch Hard drive and SSD plus it would ruined the aesthetics and im getting similar temps with higher noise db.

HOWEVER YOUR A GENIUS I dont know why never thought of an aird duct or read it somewhere, maybe a custom printed one would go nice with that Artic acceloro heatsink

Here are some pics of my system i will make a vid later of all my testing as its several months worth.

 

[rfarmer]

That's a clever way of maintaining 3.5 drive support with the windowed panel, nicely done.

 

[tuppaacc]

That's a clever way of maintaining 3.5 drive support with the windowed panel, nicely done.

if u think thats cleaver how about putting the 3.5 with 2 aios and some RGB
(btw you have to custom cut your own window the one they sell wouldn't work)

can u guess how I mounted that 240mm aio and fan?

as far as I know no one has done something like this (aside from custom loops or a TopHat) thats why i wanna make a video about it.

(3.5 is at the bottom underneath the gpu)

(some RGB for better performance lol)

(in this picture im showing the cut window which I didnt like and ended up cutting it the whole way maybe in the future ill test it again and cut the acrylic)

 

[Revenant]

I'm also doing an X52 + M1 build, and I'm wondering what my fan configurations should be to start.

1. Is the X52 pulling from the rad and exhausting it out the side?
2. Are you using a 92mm rear fan?
3. Do you have any bottom 120mm fans?

Sorry for the late reply. My first son was born in August, and we moved, so I've been a tad bit busy.

I swapped the stock fans for Noctuas (the new 120mm they just released). I use them to pull cool air into the case which helps with VRM cooling. I'm not using the 92mm exhaust. I have two Noctua 120x15 fans at the bottom going into a 2080 Founders edition. Prior to that, I had a 980ti blower card.

Bottom intake fans are at 50%.

Side AIO intakes are at 60 to 80%. 100% if the CPU hits 90C.

My 8086K is running at all core 5GHZ, at 1.38V with an unlimited wattage. In Prime AVX it will put out 165 Watts, and even at 100%, the X52 lets the CPU get into the 90C + range.

In gaming, I'm in the 70C to 80C range.

If you didn't overclock as heavily as I am, and didn't worry much about boost clock, then the X52 is more than enough.

 

[jtmsrl]

a) Yes, both, bottom and u9s are exhaust fans.
The intake fan on the side is also nf-a12x25.
I have a tophat printed with 2 intake fans, but I wait for a fan regulator to mount and test that config.

b) The u9s fan is ducted directly to rear panel (green).

Did you manage to try that top hat? I’m also considering that option but i don’t really know if it’s worth it given the mesh panels in the case

 

[Nord1ing]

Did you manage to try that top hat? I’m also considering that option but i don’t really know if it’s worth it given the mesh panels in the case

No, i still wait for fan hub from aliexpress (almost 2 months already).
https://smallformfactor.net/forum/threads/ncase-m1-tophat-mod.9371/page-4#post-133352

 

[sunrainsky]

Just a quick question from a noob.
I have three fan headers.

So can i say that CPU cooler 2 fans share the same cpu fan header.
2 bottom intake ones share one header.
Then the 120mm intake and 90mm exhaust share the last fan header?


Or would it be the 3 x 120mm intake fans all share one header
and the last 90mm exhaust share one fan header.

Sorry, just trying to understand how the main thread did it.

 

[tinyitx]

I think, if you mix fans of different size or model to the same header, their different PWM profile might not allow them to spin properly for the same fan profile set for that specific fan header. So, maybe, 3x120mm fans of a same model be controlled by a fan header is appropriate. Of course, check that the combined ampere does not exceed the fan header's current limit.

 

[sunrainsky]

I think I got it figured out.

Since the ampere of the 9cm fans are 0.1, running three 9cm fans from the CPU header would be fine.
Then the lone intake 12 cm fan is on one more header, and the two 12cm intake fans at the bottom is on the last header since their rated current is 0.35A.

This is assuming the fan header can take a maximum of 1A.

 

[Jetpaction]

Very interested in this! But still don't understand if in the Ncase it is better to have between the Noctua U9s 2xFan and C14S bottom fan:

1- Noctua C14 In exhaust, rear fan Intake (front right fan as exhaust??)

2- Noctua C14 in Intake, rear fan exhaust (front right fan as intake??)

3- U9s dual fan Intake, front right fan exhaust

4- U9s dual fan exhaust front right fan intake

Thinking to move my next build from a Dan in the Ncase under air!

Wanted to quote this as I was trying out a few setups today and option 3 yielded amazing results for me:

My original setup was:

• U9S dual fan exhaust, with one of the fans mounted on the rear fan mount of the case.
• No side panel fans
• 2 bottom 120 slim fans intake
• Corsair SFF600 in default SFX position, fan exhausts directly through the right side panel.

This resulted in the following temps:

• CPU I9700KF 4.8Ghz @ 1.290v: 30c idle / 68c load
• GPU 2080S FE 1920Mhz @ 0.906v: 32c idle / 67c load

Already pretty decent temps but I wanted to see what more I could achieve. Visualising that the 2 bottom fans would push up the hotter air from the GPU into the case and would get picked up by the U9S it would use that hotter air and push it through the CPU heatsink and then exhaust it at the back. So I figured if I would switch the U9S dual fans to intake instead it would pull fresh ambient air from the back of the case and push it directly into the CPU heatsink. This resulted in a 10c drop from 68c to 58c under load (2 hour Borderlands 3 session at 1440p with ultra settings). That's a pretty impressive drop! My GPU in the meanwhile remains at 67c under load, the undervolt works pretty good.

Now I want to see how far I can go so my next steps are:

• Add a 120 NF-F12 or AF-A12 to the right of the side bracket. Try both intake and exhaust. With exhaust I imagine it would push the hotter air coming from the GPU out of the case. With intake it would pull fresh ambient air into the case, cooling the hotter air that rises up from the GPU below. Not sure yet which of the two will yield the best results.
• Replace the 2 bottom 120 slim fans with regular high static pressure fans NF-F12's and test both intake and exhaust.
• If that doesn't drop temps a lot I'd like to try the Rajintek Morpheus II GPU cooler with 2 120 slim fans set as exhaust (regular fans won't fit). I prefer the easier montage of the Rajintek over the Arctic Accellero III or IV, but realize it might not provide the overall best result?
• Replace the thermal paste on the CPU (and GPU?) with Thermal Grizzly Conductnaut (liquid metal). I know delidding the 9700k is a lot less useful compared to previous Intel chips so I won't do that. But if simply replacing the thermal paste decreases the temp another few degrees I would find it worthwile.

 

[sunrainsky]

Already pretty decent temps but I wanted to see what more I could achieve. Visualising that the 2 bottom fans would push up the hotter air from the GPU into the case and would get picked up by the U9S it would use that hotter air and push it through the CPU heatsink and then exhaust it at the back. So I figured if I would switch the U9S dual fans to intake instead it would pull fresh ambient air from the back of the case and push it directly into the CPU heatsink. This resulted in a 10c drop from 68c to 58c under load (2 hour Borderlands 3 session at 1440p with ultra settings). That's a pretty impressive drop! My GPU in the meanwhile remains at 67c under load, the undervolt works pretty good.

Now I want to see how far I can go so my next steps are:

• Add a 120 NF-F12 or AF-A12 to the right of the side bracket. Try both intake and exhaust. With exhaust I imagine it would push the hotter air coming from the GPU out of the case. With intake it would pull fresh ambient air into the case, cooling the hotter air that rises up from the GPU below. Not sure yet which of the two will yield the best results.
• Replace the 2 bottom 120 slim fans with regular high static pressure fans NF-F12's and test both intake and exhaust.
• If that doesn't drop temps a lot I'd like to try the Rajintek Morpheus II GPU cooler with 2 120 slim fans set as exhaust (regular fans won't fit). I prefer the easier montage of the Rajintek over the Arctic Accellero III or IV, but realize it might not provide the overall best result?
• Replace the thermal paste on the CPU (and GPU?) with Thermal Grizzly Conductnaut (liquid metal). I know delidding the 9700k is a lot less useful compared to previous Intel chips so I won't do that. But if simply replacing the thermal paste decreases the temp another few degrees I would find it worthwile.

So you are currently using only 2 Fans for cooler and two 120 mm slim fans at bottom.


I didn't know the bottom of the case can fit C14.

I'm interested to see if adding one more 120mm fan at the side will change the two 90mm intake to exhaust for better thermals as that was the initial result the OP got.