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Production Lazer3D LZ7 - Quiet Gaming Cube PC Case
- Thread starter K888D
- Start date
To me it looks like it would just fit. I think one might not even need a fan at all. Because of the orientation of the card, any bit of heat will produce airflow over the fins with the chimney effect. And with the vents of the LZ7 directly above and below the GPU, that airflow should be able to roam freely. Maybe covering the side vents would even increase this. I'd certainly like to see someone try it, could be pretty awesome.
Quick update, here is a render of the final design for the side panel IO:
Please excuse the lighting, it makes the corner columns look grey when they should be black!
Welcome to the forum!
They will be available on www.lazer3d.com once the next batch is ready, hopefully sometime in April, this batch will be limited to black cases only with a small selection of side panel options.
Full customisation options will not be available until the second half of 2017 if you can wait that long!
I have some potentially exciting stuff in the pipe line, if everything falls into place then the wait will be worth it.
Not sure what your margins are on these, but you might want to consider kickstarting this with a small discount on cases to get the word out and sell 100+ cases. Best timing would be shortly after am4 itx motherboards +1500/1600 get released, since wraith spire is 54mm and there will be a huge market for people wanting to get completely new rigs.
With regards to NHL12 - with very specific component selection you can fit a 120mm fan UNDER the NH-L12. (you need ultra low profile ddr4, and motherboard that doesn't block the gpu). One combo that has worked in the past is Gigabyte b85m phoenix coupled with ballistix sport ultra low profile ddr3.
I have another suggestion for the power switch - Putting it on the back panel between the case fan and the PSU. This is done in other SFF cases, and since the case is so damn small, reaching around the back to hit a bulgin power switch is not that much effort, and keeps the clean lines of the case. Obviously this would be done in conjunction with no front I/O
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I've managed to do this but the difference with the 92mm is very minimal. I suspect the gap between fan and motherboard becomes so tiny that the fan cannot work efficiently anymore. I'm still waiting for noctua's slim 120mm fans to compare them against the 92mm fan.
If he goes through with ponoko and separately available panels, that is a great idea! I think some even suggested that initially, so it would be quite cool to see for those who wanted it back then.
I can't announce anything yet as I am waiting for something to be confirmed, but I am working towards something that will make all of the above and more possible.
Is that minimal difference because the 120mm fan is pushing through the NH-L12 rather than pulling? i.e. updraft rather than downdraft? If so I would expect proximity of the fan to the motherboard surface to be more restrictive than pulling downward through the heatsink itself.
The configuration I've been using is downdraft with the 92x25mm Noctua fan and it works pretty good keeping an 65W i7-7700 silent during prolonged gaming.
Here is some more detailed test results from the most recent build I put together in the LZ7, using an i7-7700, Noctua NH-L12 (92mm fan only), Gigabyte GTX 1070 and Prolimatech Ultra Sleek Vortex 14 case fan:
Bare in mind that the focus of this build is silence/quiet gaming, so fan curves are set low favouring low noise over lower temperatures. Ambient temp was 21C, ambient noise was 21 dB.
All games and tests were run at 1080p @ 60hz with graphics set to max allowable settings, tests run for 30 minutes each, results shown are max temperatures recorded during test.
Even with the Noctua 92mm fan only running at 660 rpm during BF1 multiplayer gameplay, the max temp recorded was 60C for an average CPU usage of 48%. That is a pretty impressive result, especially as at 660rpm the Noctua fan cannot be heard in a silent room.
In that particular test the 92mm Gigabyte GPU fan is the only audible component in the build, spinning at 1490 rpm set to its 'silent' fan profile, it sounds like a faint whooshing, but again this could only be heard because I was sat right next to it on the desk in a silent room. If this was to be used in a quiet living room sat 4m from it, I think you would struggle to hear it.
The loudest game was Witcher 3, but this was not because of fan noise, this test the GPU emitted some coil whine which was not present (as much) in the other games. But even so it was not a loud whine, just noticeable because the room was silent, the system was still only running 26 dB compared to 21 dB idle (silent), you would not be able to hear this noise over your speaker volume.
The above results show some stress testing using the same setup in the same conditions and fan curves, apart from the last test where I changed the GPU fan curve to 'Auto' to see what difference it makes to temps and noise.
The CPU fan curve is set to keep the Noctua speed under 700rpm (silent) until it reaches 60C, it then rise steeply to 100% fan power at 82C.
As you can see Prime95 pushes the CPU up to 82C maxing out the CPU fan to keep a steady 81-82C. At this point the CPU fan can be heard over the GPU fan when the GPU fan profile is set to silent, but again, its not loud, just a low level humming from the Noctua fan. Bare in mind that Prime95 is above and beyond the load your CPU is likely to ever see in normal conditions, the gaming tests did not push the CPU beyond 60C.
Changing the GPU fan profile to 'Auto' increases the GPU fan power quite a bit, resulting in a fan speed of 2055 rpm at 69C, but this is also saw a 13C drop in temperature for the fully loaded GPU. At this point the 2055 rpm GPU fan was louder than the Noctua CPU fan running at 100%. The lower temp also meant that full GPU boost was maintained throughout the test, my particular card automatically boosts up to 1835 Mhz, a full 300 Mhz above stock clock speed!
Personally I don't think the increased noise from the GPU fan is worth the extra 100 Mhz of boost clock compared to using the 'Silent' fan profile which runs the same test at a stable 1747 Mhz, this is still an impressive boost speed above the 1531 Mhz stock clock.
Thanks for sharing your graphs, that's useful information! I've tried both push and pull configurations and indeed settled with the fan pushing air through the heatsink. This is because I have no other good means of exhausting air out of my Stoomdoos case.
My cpu stays around 50C at 1000 rpm while gaming, but it's an i3 6100 so the temperature differences might be less distinct than a higher TDP cpu.
A few posts ago I promised some more photos of the finished white and orange LZ7 build, finally got round to them:
White LZ7 with orange corners and Mandarin side panels with Cyclone vent pattern:
Rear of the case showing CPU cooler height clearance, the Noctua NH-L12 fits with only a few mm to spare:
King of the <180mm ITX GPU's, the Gigabyte GTX 1070 ITX OC:
Gigabyte GTX 960 4Gb OC Windforce, the dual fans on this GPU help it really quiet even when gaming:
Another great GPU, the EVGA GTX 1060 SC has a really well designed beefy heatsink that helps keep this card nice and cool, maintaining high boost clocks with minimal fan rpms:
The shot you (may) have been waiting for, a Gigabyte GTX 1070 ITX inside a White and Orange LZ7. The case in the background is a half assembled Silverstone RVZ02B:
Rear view of the case with Mandarin Orange panels:
Fully built up testing Battlefield 1, showing the Cyclone vent pattern on the GPU side panel:
White LZ7 with orange corners and Mandarin side panels with Cyclone vent pattern:
Rear of the case showing CPU cooler height clearance, the Noctua NH-L12 fits with only a few mm to spare:
King of the <180mm ITX GPU's, the Gigabyte GTX 1070 ITX OC:
Gigabyte GTX 960 4Gb OC Windforce, the dual fans on this GPU help it really quiet even when gaming:
Another great GPU, the EVGA GTX 1060 SC has a really well designed beefy heatsink that helps keep this card nice and cool, maintaining high boost clocks with minimal fan rpms:
The shot you (may) have been waiting for, a Gigabyte GTX 1070 ITX inside a White and Orange LZ7. The case in the background is a half assembled Silverstone RVZ02B:
Rear view of the case with Mandarin Orange panels:
Fully built up testing Battlefield 1, showing the Cyclone vent pattern on the GPU side panel:
Too bad you don't have much control over the colour of the 3D printed parts. Personally I'd rather go with a smoked cyclone panel rather than an orange one if I also had orange corners. Alternatively, using a complementary colour there could look pretty dope.
Yeah I know what you mean, I'm not a fan personally of the white orange, but I know it's been a popular combination with the community which is why I wanted to show what a full orange corner and panel combo would look like.
Smoked side panel would look something like this, which I agree the contrast does work better than full orange:
Here is a photo showing some side by side different colour/design combos:
Bonus shot, black case with Blue LEDs:
I am expecting to receive the updated design side panels today with radial design vents, will try and post some photos over the weekend.
Thanks! Targeting April for the next batch with limited design options. Full customisation will be July onwards.
Technically there is 69mm of cooler height, but if you are using a cooler with a top down fan, then I would recommend a cooler less than 60mm in height to maintain a gap to the underside of the PSU.
Top 2 coolers I've tested so far are the Scythe Big Shuriken 2 and the Noctua NH-L12 (bottom fan only). The Shuriken gets lowest temps but the fan is not as quiet as the Noctua, you can swap the Scythe fan to a quieter one for best of both.
Oh cool. What about something like the Noctua NH-L12 in single fan mode? Or do you think having the fan blowing hot air up into the PSU would be an issue?
Edit: Or is it possible to mount the PSU upside down so the intake is facing towards vents on the top of the case?
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