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Deng F15 build log

tinyitx

Shrink Ray Wielder
Original poster
Jan 25, 2018
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2,338
I didn't know you could still get the Silver Arrow anywhere. I've always loved the look of that cooler.
I bought it from Thermalright's 'flagship' shop in Taobao.
 

tinyitx

Shrink Ray Wielder
Original poster
Jan 25, 2018
2,279
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It has been about 3 months since I last updated this build. Some progress made along the way.

a. SF750 installed
I was debating between this and the SF600. Price difference is only ~10 USD and so I decided to max out as it just will not hurt to have more reserved juice.

b. Silverstone 140mm fan filters
Installed to the 2 bottom Noctua 140mm fans which are set up as intake to draw huge amount of fresh air into the case.
It is, kind of, hard to see them in the pic but they are there between the fans and the bottom panel.

c. Installed the stock abs rubber feet. The rubber ring will help to prevent sliding on a glass surface desk and will also help to act as a damper to isolate any vibration. Height of feet is 15mm, which I deem to be sufficient for the Noctua fans to have necessary clearance to draw air in without causing any turbulence noise.

Z490 and 10th gen Intel should come out at end of this month. Initial prices will be jacked up as usual. Plan is to wait for prices to drop back a bit while reading reviews (i7 10700 vs i9 10900) in the meantime. Final push of this project might come in Sept/Oct.

 

CCLacions

Chassis Packer
Apr 3, 2020
17
13
Great future setup ! Nice case ?

Sorry for not replying to your messages on my build post. I've had to work away from home for the last few weeks. Really, I'm sorry.

I resumed my build and I'm waiting next week for 2 Noctua Redux 140mm for the bottom, instead of my two Pure wings 2. I've tried exhaust mode for the bottom fans, so full negative pressure. Impossible, my RX580 becomes a loud turbine ! You can leave in intake. How do you think you'll handle the exhaust ? I have a new NF-A9 after my D9L cooler and I put an NF-A12 Slim on top of it. It's very quiet for now and better temps for the CPU, like 5/6 celsius. I was thinking of drilling through the plexiglass to put the 120mm slim on the side, but I think that creating an airflow from bottom to top, strictly, without disturbance is not bad.
 
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tinyitx

Shrink Ray Wielder
Original poster
Jan 25, 2018
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Great future setup ! Nice case ?

Sorry for not replying to your messages on my build post. I've had to work away from home for the last few weeks. Really, I'm sorry.

I resumed my build and I'm waiting next week for 2 Noctua Redux 140mm for the bottom, instead of my two Pure wings 2. I've tried exhaust mode for the bottom fans, so full negative pressure. Impossible, my RX580 becomes a loud turbine ! You can leave in intake. How do you think you'll handle the exhaust ? I have a new NF-A9 after my D9L cooler and I put an NF-A12 Slim on top of it. It's very quiet for now and better temps for the CPU, like 5/6 celsius. I was thinking of drilling through the plexiglass to put the 120mm slim on the side, but I think that creating an airflow from bottom to top, strictly, without disturbance is not bad.
My build will have only one exhaust fan, the rear 92mm Noctua. I am betting that the two bottom 140mm Noctua will intake enough ambient air to make the entire case pressure positive, making any excess air to vent out through the top.

Let me do a quick calculation. At full speed, the two 140mm fans intake minus the 92mm fan exhaust will give roughly 201.5 m3/hr, which is 0.05597 m3/sec. Assume they work at half speed, then it is about 0.028 m3/sec of net air volume change.
Internal volume of Deng F15 is about, say, 15 litres (= 0.015 m3).
This means, the entire case volume of air is changed twice for every second.

Another idea is to rotate the PSU 180-degree around and have its fan facing inside, thus making use of the fan as exhaust.

Yet another idea is to move the PSU to the PG side panel, ie away from the Aluminium side panel. And then, install another fan on the right side panel as vent holes are there already.
 
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CCLacions

Chassis Packer
Apr 3, 2020
17
13
My build will have only one exhaust fan, the rear 92mm Noctua. I am betting that the two bottom 140mm Noctua will intake enough ambient air to make the entire case pressure positive, making any excess air to vent out through the top.

I agree. The only remark is that I had the impression (with 2x120mm intake and 92mm exhaust alone) that a lot of air was trapped next to the power supply (with stock cables, don't have custom yet) and very slow down by the CPU cooler. My new 120mm slim has really changed the behavior of the fans and I have more hot air coming out of the 120mm slim than the 92mm, clearly. I'm even thinking about changing the orientation of the CPU cooler, vertically to have a more present bottom-up draft effect, even if it takes a bit more hot air out of the GPU. Just for testing and fun ^^

Another idea is to rotate the PSU 180-degree around and have its fan facing inside, thus making use of the fan as exhaust.
Yet another idea is to move the PSU to the PG side panel, ie away from the Aluminium side panel. And then, install another fan on the right side panel as vent holes are there already.

I'm keeping the original configuration, It's a good compromise. And in case I leave the transparent plexiglass, it's nicer !
 
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tinyitx

Shrink Ray Wielder
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Jan 25, 2018
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...My new 120mm slim has really changed the behavior of the fans and I have more hot air coming out of the 120mm slim than the 92mm, clearly. I'm even thinking about changing the orientation of the CPU cooler, vertically to have a more present bottom-up draft effect, even if it takes a bit more hot air out of the GPU. Just for testing and fun ^^...

Yes, it is a good idea to put a 120mm slim fan on top next to the PSU to draw hot air out. I might try it when the time comes. Thank you for this tip.

Also, I have thought about putting the CPU cooler vertically too. But I am not sure if I am able to. My target motherboard is the soon-to-be-released Asus Z490I Gaming. From the preview pics, it seems the CPU socket is surrounded by big heatsinks. And my TR Silver Arrow 130 might have compatibility issue. So, I will have to first investigate this. But, in general, I would prefer to have the traditional airflow design (ie venting out via the rear 92mm fan).
 
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tinyitx

Shrink Ray Wielder
Original poster
Jan 25, 2018
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3 months have passed and I have an update to this build.
Got the storage devices:- Samsung 970 Pro 512GB and 970 Evo Plus 1TB.

Also got the TIM (Gelid Extreme) and a system speaker (I am an 'old school' guy who likes to hear the single beep when the system is turned on).

Also got a Gelid M.2 Subzero M.2 SSD heatsink.

Regarding the mainboard, I still have yet to find someone having the Thermalright SA130 fitted onto the Asus Z490-I Gaming. So, this issue is not totally clear. In addition, some owners complained about having issues with running 2 DIMMs with XMP enabled (and Asus was not too helpful to address this). As a result, I am inclining toward the MSI Z490i Unify now. So far, it seems to be an excellent board. The only thing is its having the 2nd M.2 SSD on the back of the board.

Next month, I should finalize on the mainboard and the memory. Also, rumor is that RTX 3000 series will come out 3080/Ti/Super will come out in Sept but my target is the 3070 which should be available in Oct.

 
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tinyitx

Shrink Ray Wielder
Original poster
Jan 25, 2018
2,279
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A significant update:-
Mainboard is now MSI Z490I Unify (vs Asus Z490i Gaming).
Memory is Corsair 2x16GB 3600.
Only missing hardware is the GPU. I am waiting for the 3070 (coming next month).

Pic1: Thermalright's mounting mechanism is not as good as Noctua's but it is not bad at all. Fortunately the Silver Arrow 130's mounting bracket clears both the upper VRM heatsink and the lower M.2 SSD heatsink shield by 1-2mm.

Pic 2: TR SA 130 rear mounting plate. The Samsung 970 Evo Plus with Gelid M.2 heatsink in place.

Pic 3: Silver Arrow clears the LPX modules both horizontally and vertically. MSI's manual gives the distance from centre of CPU to edge of module at 49.56mm. Thermalright gives the distance at 48mm. The difference gives a clearance of 1.56mm and this turns out to be very accurate! I did not have enough faith back then. If so, I would have considered Kingston Hyper X memory modules (which is 34mm tall). So, basically, one can use modules of any height.

Pic 4: Side view shows clearance between heatsink and memory. Also, the Silver Arrow 130 just clears the rear VRM heatsink IO shield too, just barely. Even if it touches, a tiny bent of a couple fins upward will solve this issue.
Good that I did not choose the Asus Z490i Gaming.

Pic 5: right side panel taken off

Pic 6: all hardware in place except the GPU. It can accommodate a 320mm long card. I am considering the 3070 , which will come out next month. In the meantime, I might use the iGPU to install Windows to do some tuning. This system should be built and finished in Nov and be handed over to my buddy.


 

tinyitx

Shrink Ray Wielder
Original poster
Jan 25, 2018
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The Unify board is just so pretty. All the people I know building Z490 ITX system all go for it. Sometimes I wish MSI would have made an X570I unify haha
Yes, it is all black and zero RGB. Aesthetics is impeccable.

Another small update:-
Meet my INNO3D GTX 570. A little story about this trusty friend. It was about 10 years ago when Nvidia released the 500-series. I got a couple and ran SLI. A year later I bought another one off from my buddy and ran 3-way SLI. Had a lot of fun with them. Managing the thermal with them sitting side by side was challenging but I custom made a wind tunnel for them and could ran them all day long. Now, I am installing this one into this new build while I wait for a 3070 (or 3080) to come out next month.
Just did a rough estimate of the performance of a GTX570 vs a 2070. Using TPU's data, I estimate it to be about 25% of a 2070. Even with 1.28GB VRAM, it should still be able to fulfill its duty of testing out the new rig.
 

tinyitx

Shrink Ray Wielder
Original poster
Jan 25, 2018
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A small hiccup happened yesterday. Put in the GTX 570 and attempted first ever boot of the system. Diagnostic LEDs of the mainboard got stuck at VGA! Mainboard tried a few reboots on its own and then an error message came up on screen (''There is no GOP (Graphics Output protocol) support detected in this graphics card'').

This is the first time I see this error message. First thought was: GTX 570 bited the dust. But, when I stored it back into the box back then, it was functioning perfectly. Granted that that was more than 6 years ago. But still....

Frustrated and I did a quick scan of the mainboard user manual. And viola! The issue is: the UEFI BIOS does not support such an old graphics card!!! Am happy that the issue is diagnosed but am also sad that my GTX570, as a testing and diagnostic card, is further limited in its usefulness.

Anyway, I took out my GTX 780Ti from my secondary rig to place it in the new rig now. Testing will resume today or tomorrow. Will see how this goes.

Come to think of this, maybe this 780Ti is a better card to test the system. Unlike the blower GTX 570, this 780Ti exhausts fully inside the case, thus simulating a similar thermal situation as an incoming 3070. And this 780Ti is a 250W card (vs 220W of a 3070) and so if I have good thermal numbers with it, then a 3070 should be OK too.

 
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tinyitx

Shrink Ray Wielder
Original poster
Jan 25, 2018
2,279
2,338
Small update:- After installing Windows 10 Pro (to the most stable version, ie 1909), I connected an external Asus DVD drive and an Orico USB hub (pic 2). Both work flawlessly. With the bundled MSI DVD, drivers are installed and Device Manager shows no Yellow Exclamation Mark. Now, will install some useful utilities from the DVD.

I have not used MSI mainboard for years and this Dragon Centre is new to me. This will give me a good chance to compare it with Asus' Ai Suite. MSI Afterburner is another must-have utility.

One good thing about this new build:- absolutely no vomit. The MSI Z490i Unify mainboard, the Corsair LPX, the Thermalright SA130, Noctua fans and, of course, the old Gigabyte 780 Ti Windforce OC all lack RGB! Hopefully, I can get a non RGB 3070 as well. (So far, from leaked pics, looks like MSI and Zotac both have non RGB cards).

Finally, got some silicone plugs to fill all unused IOs. (pic 1)

 

tinyitx

Shrink Ray Wielder
Original poster
Jan 25, 2018
2,279
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More than a month later since the above update, I finally picked up a 3070 from a local store.
It is MSI 3070 Ventus 2X OC. Just installed and no testing of any kind.
Good thing about this card:-
a. zero RGB, which makes the entire build completely free of vomit
b. the heatsink fins orientation (along the length of the card) makes half of the heat exhausted via the back PCI bracket vent holes and out of the case. This orientation also means card's exhaust will not blow toward the right side panel and might rise up to warm the M.2 SSD. This is a main advantage of having a dual fan design (vs 3-fan cards)
c. as seen in the pic, card is short and not tall, meaning fresh air from the two bottom NF-A14s can pass around the card to the upper area to reach the CPU

This build is basically complete. Will do some GPU testing and the build will be handed over to my buddy a week or two later.


Edit:
The other GPU that I have looked at is the Zotac 3070 Twin Edge (OC).
That card (which is also non RGB) has the same length as the MSI's but it is taller while remaining at strictly 2-slot. MSI Ventus 2X is not as tall but is 2.5 slot thick. It is a little tough to choose between these 2.
I finally settled on the MSI it is slightly better looking (subjectively) and I can use Afterburner and (possibly) Dragon Center to access both the card and the motherboard as both are MSI products. This saves me using any additional software from Zotac. For the couple reviews I watched, Zotac's cooling is also very good and quiet.

Will write a little summary to wrap up this build log later.
 
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tinyitx

Shrink Ray Wielder
Original poster
Jan 25, 2018
2,279
2,338
I am not into RGB at all but kinda like these effects on power cables
Yeah...not all RGB are equally bad. Some are worse and some are less worse.
If I have to have RGB, I would like it to have a function as well. The ideal is that the colour somehow reflects the temperature of a component.
Say, if the water tubing has RGB (BTW, I do not think this is available yet), then the RGB effect can provide a running effect (just like those power cables in your post) indicating the flow direction. Also, the colour will change according to the temperature of the coolant. If so, this could be nice.
 

BaK

King of Cable Management
Bronze Supporter
May 17, 2016
967
958
Yeah...not all RGB are equally bad. Some are worse and some are less worse.
Haha XD

If I have to have RGB, I would like it to have a function as well. The ideal is that the colour somehow reflects the temperature of a component.
Say, if the water tubing has RGB (BTW, I do not think this is available yet), then the RGB effect can provide a running effect (just like those power cables in your post) indicating the flow direction. Also, the colour will change according to the temperature of the coolant. If so, this could be nice.
Visual flow and temp information, sounds indeed like a good idea!