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Chimera Industries Cerberus: The 18L, mATX, USA-made enclosure

TheHig

King of Cable Management
Oct 13, 2016
951
1,171
@Uruk Looking great! That's exactly where I want to go with my Cerb X upgrades. The 5800x is getting easier to find but those 6800s and the SF 750 are unicorns still. How are the temps and clocks on your 5800x ?
 

Uruk

Trash Compacter
Feb 1, 2019
45
47
In heavy workloads reaches 80-82ºC easy, and in games it hovers at around 60-65ºC. As for the fecuency, reaches between 4,6 and 4,85 GHz in games without issue.
 
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Qrash

Cable-Tie Ninja
Aug 10, 2015
198
152
Not the best cable work, but the beast is inside and running,

I like the Nexus logo on that velcro strap! There's a fan maker we don't hear about any more. They were the Noctua or be quiet! of their time: quiet operation with still useful airflow and pressure. They were a favourite of Mike's at Silent PC Review, too many years ago.
 
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Uruk

Trash Compacter
Feb 1, 2019
45
47
I like the Nexus logo on that velcro strap! There's a fan maker we don't hear about any more. They were the Noctua or be quiet! of their time: quiet operation with still useful airflow and pressure. They were a favourite of Mike's at Silent PC Review, too many years ago.
The good old times! with the mighty P180 + Nexus at 7v combo for silence. Miss the old Antec too.
 
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MarcParis

Spatial Philosopher
Apr 1, 2016
3,678
2,799
@Uruk Looking great! That's exactly where I want to go with my Cerb X upgrades. The 5800x is getting easier to find but those 6800s and the SF 750 are unicorns still. How are the temps and clocks on your 5800x ?
Lucky you..:)
For psu, sx750 platinum and v850 gold are incoming also.
SF750 is nowhere to be found in Europe
 

integer

Trash Compacter
Aug 29, 2019
34
5
15000MB/s with four drives.
I'm all in for overkill builds, but 25000MB/s seems a bit too high.

Yeah maybe 28GB/s is too much wishful thinking. That said, the 15000mb/s from that post you sent was using a phison e16 ssd. Those tend to be around 5GB/s max for seq read. whereas the sn850 is using WD's own proprietary controller and pulls off 7GB/s on the same test. So 7*4*0.75 = 21GB/s should be possible.
 

brownelvis

Trash Compacter
Jun 5, 2019
41
12
any thoughts on fitting a 240mm top rad in a cerberus x? i have been using the nh-c14s with front mount SFX psu, but now that i have a 3080 in there, there is a pocket of hot air between the cpu cooler and the gpu that the rear exhaust isnt able to exhaust. a small fan in front would help but the 3080 takes the whole space of the case! i was thinking of front mounting the sfx psu in front going sideways and cramming a 240mm aio on the top to exhaust
 

MarcParis

Spatial Philosopher
Apr 1, 2016
3,678
2,799
any thoughts on fitting a 240mm top rad in a cerberus x? i have been using the nh-c14s with front mount SFX psu, but now that i have a 3080 in there, there is a pocket of hot air between the cpu cooler and the gpu that the rear exhaust isnt able to exhaust. a small fan in front would help but the 3080 takes the whole space of the case! i was thinking of front mounting the sfx psu in front going sideways and cramming a 240mm aio on the top to exhaust
Same thoughts here with RTX 3090..:)
Rear mounted SFX PSU and front Asetek 645LT...:)

I need to do more testings but right now SFX PSU (SX700 Platinum) is crying she is too warm..:)
 

sn0man

Trash Compacter
Jan 10, 2020
51
13
Lucky you..:)
For psu, sx750 platinum and v850 gold are incoming also.
SF750 is nowhere to be found in Europe

If I'm planning for that RTX 3080 FE to show up for a 5800 CPU pairing, what PSU is your favorite that is available in the USA right now? (Prefer SFX)


any thoughts on fitting a 240mm top rad in a cerberus x? i have been using the nh-c14s with front mount SFX psu, but now that i have a 3080 in there, there is a pocket of hot air between the cpu cooler and the gpu that the rear exhaust isnt able to exhaust. a small fan in front would help but the 3080 takes the whole space of the case! i was thinking of front mounting the sfx psu in front going sideways and cramming a 240mm aio on the top to exhaust

What 3080 did u nab? Got any pics in a Cerberus X yet?
 

MarcParis

Spatial Philosopher
Apr 1, 2016
3,678
2,799
If I'm planning for that RTX 3080 FE to show up for a 5800 CPU pairing, what PSU is your favorite that is available in the USA right now? (Prefer SFX)
What 3080 did u nab? Got any pics in a Cerberus X yet?

Well I should receive soon SX750 from Silverstone...I'll see if it can resist RTX 3090 exhaust air..:)
 
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brownelvis

Trash Compacter
Jun 5, 2019
41
12
If I'm planning for that RTX 3080 FE to show up for a 5800 CPU pairing, what PSU is your favorite that is available in the USA right now? (Prefer SFX)




What 3080 did u nab? Got any pics in a Cerberus X yet?

I had a msi trio, but too long so i sold it and grabbed a TUF. I have a 240mm aio on the way, i am going to experiment with PSU position to see if i can jam it up top as exhaust to get a bottom to top airflow path, my inspiration is coming from this build:
i have no plans to dremel my case though, so the main obstable will be clearing my motherboard VRM heatsinks, but i think there will be juuuust enough clearance. Worst case if that fails, i may try to mount the AIO on top of the vent pattern top mount and possibly design and 3d print some kind of riser or top hat for the top panel.
 

Windfall

Shrink Ray Wielder
SFFn Staff
Nov 14, 2017
2,117
1,584
Any info about delays if I order besides what's on the site? Thanks!

EDIT: Ordered my cerberus, I hope it comes soon!
 

brownelvis

Trash Compacter
Jun 5, 2019
41
12
Same thoughts here with RTX 3090..:)
Rear mounted SFX PSU and front Asetek 645LT...:)

I need to do more testings but right now SFX PSU (SX700 Platinum) is crying she is too warm..:)
I've narrowed down the problem, the gddr6x on the card gets HOT, and that is what creates a pocket of hot air between the NH-C14s and the GPU. Putting the NH-C14s into exhaust solves the problem and keeps the card very cool, put warms the GPU up slightly. Either way, the temperatures aren't fatal to the CPU or GPU right now, but I really dont like stagnant pockets of hot air in the case.

3 other solutions I am thinking of:
1. Keep the NH-C14s in intake but put a fan on the back of the GPU where the card's memory is, it would be exhausting up into the NH-C14s heatsink.
2. switch to a tower style cooler <155mm in exhaust out the back of the case (i have standoffs on the side panel for the extra 6-7mm)
3. Rear mount the SFX PSU and run a 280mm AIO on the top of the case as exhaust, the AIO rad and fans would both be external to the case and there would be no top panel - the bare rad would be exposed. If I could figure out a way to 3d print an extension to lift the top of the case by 55mm it would be perfect
 
Last edited:

MarcParis

Spatial Philosopher
Apr 1, 2016
3,678
2,799
I've narrowed down the problem, the gddr6x on the card gets HOT, and that is what creates a pocket of hot air between the NH-C14s and the GPU. Putting the NH-C14s into exhaust solves the problem and keeps the card very cool, put warms the GPU up slightly. Either way, the temperatures aren't fatal to the CPU or GPU right now, but I really dont like stagnant pockets of hot air in the case.

3 other solutions I am thinking of:
1. Keep the NH-C14s in intake but put a fan on the back of the GPU where the card's memory is, it would be exhausting up into the NH-C14s heatsink.
2. switch to a tower style cooler <155mm in exhaust out the back of the case (i have standoffs on the side panel for the extra 6-7mm)
3. Rear mount the SFX PSU and run a 280mm AIO on the top of the case as exhaust, the AIO rad and fans would both be external to the case and there would be no top panel - the bare rad would be exposed. If I could figure out a way to 3d print an extension to lift the top of the case by 55mm it would be perfect

In my case RTX 3090 FE was running with fine temperature (71°C) but fans were going too fast (1800rpm), too loud for my taste.

Thus I decided to try (and succeeded) full exhaust fans on C14S..:)
However tower style cpu cooler are not really better solution than C14S as their ambiant air will be fully warmed by GPU.
Front AIO 280mm is not great for GPU cooling as you warm all intake air.

For me, best compromise for gaming inside Cerberus-X is either C14S (exhaust mode is not ideal for CPU cooling) or Rear 92mm intake AIO (or custom loop).
I already tested this later solution, and it demonstrated great results. I'll probably test it again with RTX 3090 FE..:D


Here is my full report (more in link)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Update 20th December 2020 : Taming RTX 3090 FE!
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

At last, I managed to have enough time to finally test in details my RTX 3090 FE, inside my Cerberus-X.

My first trial was to keep previous setup, with front SFX PSU & C14S CPU cooler setup as intake (top & rear fans as exhasut) :



With those settings, RTX 3090 FE is delivering its full potential (GPU temperature is reaching 71°C during long gaming session with 350W power usage), however its fans never stopped to speed up till 1800rpm which is loud. This is clearly translating that GPU is exhausting more hot air than my setup is able to remove from case.


Thus, like back to 2017 (nothing new, even before serial release of Cerberus..:)), I'm back to full exhaust mode on CPU cooler!




With this setup, RTX 3090 FE is stablizing at 1300 rpm @67°C.
R7 3800X@4.3Ghz fan curve needed some tweaks but it's sitting @70°C during heavy gaming load..;)

Like usual, here is a first draft performance from RTX 3090 FE in Gears 5 (Hive busters DLC is pretty good..:))
 

rcradiator

SFF Lingo Aficionado
Feb 23, 2018
117
79
Thanks for sharing it!
What is CPU cooler?
Arctic Freezer 50 TR, with modifications (stripped all plastic from the cooler, gave the top of the heatpipes some concussive therapy to shorten them by 2mm, bent some of the fins on the sides just enough to allow for some fan clips from the Cryorig H7 to clip on with two 120mm fans)