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Production Lazer3D LZ7 - Quiet Gaming Cube PC Case
- Thread starter K888D
- Start date
Tek Everything is using a 8700k with the Noctua NH-L12S, you can check his thermal results in the following video.
His 8700k is not delidded so his temps are pretty high.
I am running a delidded 8700k with the Scythe Big Shuriken 2 in my MI-6. I lowered temps a full 20C at 1.300v and 15C at 1.05v.
I am using a Prolimatech 140mm fan rather than the Scythe 120mm fan which lowered temps an additional 4C.
CPU is running at 4.40 GHz 1.20v with an ambient of 20C. 30 mins of Prime95 v26.6 Small FFT I had average temps of 68C with highest single core temp of 75C. This was with the CPU fan at 100%.
When using the computer for gaming I see temps in the high 50C to low 60C on AAA games, games that are CPU intensive, like Assassin Creed Syndicate and Final Fantasy XV temps reach 65C. This is using a normal fan curve on the CPU.
When overclocked to 5.0 GHz 1.302v temps are 10C higher across the board.
Nice, thanks.
You are not using liquid metal on the CPU correct? Just regular thermal paste?
Did you ever consider or use the Noctua A12 120x15mm on the Big Shuriken 2 before finalizing on Prolimatech 140mm fan?
I am using Coollaboratory Liquid Pro between the IHS and die, Gelid Extreme for TIM. I am anti Noctua brown, once they have slim Chromax 120mm fans I would use one but I refuse to put those brown fans in my builds.
Currently trying to find a case and really like how this look! Only problem is I am not a fan of how the corner connecting pieces look - feels very "plastic-y" based on the images I was able to find. Has anyone tried painting / spray painting those parts? Any issues?
Edit: also playing with the configurator on Overclock and wanted to see if Vandal + cyclone in white was an option - didn't seem to be on the configurator
Edit2: It seems weird that most colors do not have all 4 corner piece available - any news on when the next shipment is going to be? I am reluctant to order it if I can't get all 4 corners in at least white, grey or black
Edit3: I found a color combo that works! Thanks a lot guys - starting to look through the rest of my components and the thread for some ryzen builds!
Edit: also playing with the configurator on Overclock and wanted to see if Vandal + cyclone in white was an option - didn't seem to be on the configurator
Edit2: It seems weird that most colors do not have all 4 corner piece available - any news on when the next shipment is going to be? I am reluctant to order it if I can't get all 4 corners in at least white, grey or black
Edit3: I found a color combo that works! Thanks a lot guys - starting to look through the rest of my components and the thread for some ryzen builds!
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Placed an order for all-black, open vents & fan grills w/ white led vandal switch on OCUK. Going with a delidded 8700K/1080 mini combo! Hope Gigabyte releases a GTX 1180 mini by the end of the year, since the 11 series is going to be announced August 20th.
Decided on the Shuriken Rev B cooler mainly because GPU temps were slightly better (& system temps) than the Noctua, after comparing the data on the LZ7 site. While also maintaining higher boost clocks (76mhz) on sustained load versus the NH-L12S due to fan direction, which bodes well for when I dial in my overclocks.
This is going to be my VR only rig for the Samsung Odyssey I just got.
Pics to follow!
Decided on the Shuriken Rev B cooler mainly because GPU temps were slightly better (& system temps) than the Noctua, after comparing the data on the LZ7 site. While also maintaining higher boost clocks (76mhz) on sustained load versus the NH-L12S due to fan direction, which bodes well for when I dial in my overclocks.
This is going to be my VR only rig for the Samsung Odyssey I just got.
Pics to follow!
There was someone who posted a build a while back that sprayed the corner with metallic paint (I think), but I can't find it. The corners are made from what is a sintered Nylon, which is plastic, but they have a a very matt surface finish with what I would describe as a soft touch feeling.
Unfortunately we cannot stock every colour, vent and IO combination for each panel as it would result in hundreds of different design combinations to try and stock, so we had to make the decision to choose what we thought would be the most popular combinations.
It seems weird that most colors do not have all 4 corner piece available - any news on when the next shipment is going to be? I am reluctant to order it if I can't get all 4 corners in at least white, grey or black
As quick as I can deliver parts they are going back out of stock within a week or 2. I made a large delivery of stock to Overclockers UK on the Saturday just gone which has now filtered into their system and everything is now back in stock.
I am putting plans into place to speed up production.
Thats great, I look forward to reading how you get on with it.
I've not seen much info yet on this next generation, I wonder if it will be as big a leap in performance as we saw going from the 900 series to 1000 series?
With regards to Mini Gigabyte cards, it took them quite a few months to get their mini GTX 1070 onto the market after the 1000 series launch, and around another year or so to get the 1080 version to the market. But that said, if the thermals are similar from the 1070 to the 1170 then they may use the same shroud design to reduce development time and have it available allot sooner than previous generations.
The Big Shuriken 2 is a great performer, however the fan it is provided with is (in my opinion) quite noisy. I would recommend swapping it for a slim 120mm noctua fan if you are sensitive to noise or want a quiet system, especially if you are overclocking as the Scythe fan will be spinnning up to high RPM's which is when it starts getting very loud.
Overall I found the NH-L12S to be a better balanced cooler, providing matching performance to the Big Shuriken 2, but at a much quieter level.
The Noctua NH-U9S achieved amazing results in my testing, more info here:
https://www.lazer3d.com/2017/10/31/dc-dc-panels-now-available-for-the-lz7/
(excuse the changing website, I'm experimenting!)
Got the case this week and had a blast putting it together - amazing how everything fits together so perfectly! Has a question about the hard drive piece though - is the corners supposed to slot into the 2 corner pieces? On my case only 1 side fits in and the other doesn't really fit into the notch - see the pictures below:
Is that piece supposed to go into that notch? It doesn't seem to fit. The opposite corner piece fits both notch on the hard drive piece so i'm wondering if it's something off with the circled corner piece.
Is that piece supposed to go into that notch? It doesn't seem to fit. The opposite corner piece fits both notch on the hard drive piece so i'm wondering if it's something off with the circled corner piece.
Yes the hard drive mounting panel is supposed to slot in at both sides. Its a little bit of a friction fit to prevent rattle.
It doesn't seem to want to fit though - should i try to sand down the corner piece a bit on the inside with a file or something?
It does look from the photos that you have a miss-match in panel and slot thickness, probably received parts at the opposite ends of their tolerance bands, sorry about that,
With a little bit of 'gentle' force, it should slide in, but if your not comfortable doing that then some light sanding should help to ease it in.
Hi all, and thanks to K888D for a really cool case!
How do you think, will Aorus Gigabyte 1080 ITX from Game Box fit this case? This fan is 130 mm, so, in theory, yes.
This is how it looks:
https://smallformfactor.net/forum/threads/gigabyte-aorus-gtx-1080-gaming-box.3377/#post-69898
https://smallformfactor.net/forum/t...080-mini-from-the-egpu.6404/page-2#post-83464
And this is where it could be installed (looks like ASRock mobo):
https://www.overclock.net/photopost/data/1666938/1/17/176526a3_IMG_4232.jpeg
UPD. Too late, I already have the card ) In 1,5 months, when the case will finally arrive, I'll know for sure )
How do you think, will Aorus Gigabyte 1080 ITX from Game Box fit this case? This fan is 130 mm, so, in theory, yes.
This is how it looks:
https://smallformfactor.net/forum/threads/gigabyte-aorus-gtx-1080-gaming-box.3377/#post-69898
https://smallformfactor.net/forum/t...080-mini-from-the-egpu.6404/page-2#post-83464
And this is where it could be installed (looks like ASRock mobo):
https://www.overclock.net/photopost/data/1666938/1/17/176526a3_IMG_4232.jpeg
UPD. Too late, I already have the card ) In 1,5 months, when the case will finally arrive, I'll know for sure )
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Having been inspired by the Tek Everything video, I've been busy on pcpartpicker and overclockers spec-ing my own variant.
I plan to use the system to replace a NUC5i7RYH that I've been using as a HTPC and Plex Media Server for a couple of years. Whilst it's dinky small and uses minimal (in theory 7W idle) power, when Plex starts a transcode or 2 in parallel it maxes out the CPU for a short while and the fan becomes noticeable (~43dB) and annoying.
So, for my build I want to aim for silence rather than power/OC (8th gen processors will easily cope with the Plex load - testing on an 5820K I don't get over 4%) while still having the ability to play games where I wont mind some noise. Based upon sticking to the SF450 (rather than a DC PSU with external brick) I wont be able to go for a watercooling option so the NH-L12S seems to be the way to go for performance and silence, the question is then which processor:
8700T has some appeal as the 35W TDP will allow 24/7 lower power consumption, especially when BIOS limited.
8700 at 65W TDP should be cool enough with the L12S and keep silent in most conditions (GPU fan more likely to be source of noise based upon reading so far)
8700K even at stock seems likely to get too hot under load, pushing the L12S higher than the ~28-31dB range I'd like to hit
And then the subject of delidding arose......and I started wondering whether a delidded (DIY or from AWD-IT) 8700K could stay as cool, if not cooler than an 8700 and thereby maintain a lower fan speed safely under load. Anyone looked at delidding in this case (on air) from the perspective of lower noise/silence ?
...plenty of time for answers to come in as Overclockers can't tell me when they'll have more stock of black left hand side corner brackets for the Lazer3D LZ7 ...they also don't have an ETA for the SF450 Platinum....oh and to top it off the Vengeance LPX memory I was looking at a decent price on ebuyer on has gone up by £80 overnight, lol
I plan to use the system to replace a NUC5i7RYH that I've been using as a HTPC and Plex Media Server for a couple of years. Whilst it's dinky small and uses minimal (in theory 7W idle) power, when Plex starts a transcode or 2 in parallel it maxes out the CPU for a short while and the fan becomes noticeable (~43dB) and annoying.
So, for my build I want to aim for silence rather than power/OC (8th gen processors will easily cope with the Plex load - testing on an 5820K I don't get over 4%) while still having the ability to play games where I wont mind some noise. Based upon sticking to the SF450 (rather than a DC PSU with external brick) I wont be able to go for a watercooling option so the NH-L12S seems to be the way to go for performance and silence, the question is then which processor:
8700T has some appeal as the 35W TDP will allow 24/7 lower power consumption, especially when BIOS limited.
8700 at 65W TDP should be cool enough with the L12S and keep silent in most conditions (GPU fan more likely to be source of noise based upon reading so far)
8700K even at stock seems likely to get too hot under load, pushing the L12S higher than the ~28-31dB range I'd like to hit
And then the subject of delidding arose......and I started wondering whether a delidded (DIY or from AWD-IT) 8700K could stay as cool, if not cooler than an 8700 and thereby maintain a lower fan speed safely under load. Anyone looked at delidding in this case (on air) from the perspective of lower noise/silence ?
...plenty of time for answers to come in as Overclockers can't tell me when they'll have more stock of black left hand side corner brackets for the Lazer3D LZ7
...they also don't have an ETA for the SF450 Platinum....oh and to top it off the Vengeance LPX memory I was looking at a decent price on ebuyer on has gone up by £80 overnight, lol
Welcome to the forum!
This use case is pretty much exactly why I designed the case, I wanted a system that used high end desktop level hardware yet ran silent under idle to medium usage and quiet under gaming or high load.
The 140mm chassis fan in combination with the "wind tunnel" layout eliminates heat re-circulation, so even a very gentle low rpm breeze from the case fan is enough to keep temps in check so all the fans in the system can spin slowly for a nice and quiet system. A motherboard with good fan control options is important for this.
For silence the SF450 is the perfect choice, it runs fanless even under full gaming and Synthetic stress load in my own personal system which has been tested with a GTX 1070 in combination with both the Ryzen 5 2400G and the Intel i7-7700.
I wouldn't recommend water cooling even if you did end up going for the DC-DC PSU and panels, my testing showed that the Noctua NH-U9S setup outperformed the Corsair H60 in both temps and noise tests.
When it comes to SFX PSU's though, the Noctua NH-L12S is definitely the cooler of choice in my opinion. It is a very well balanced cooler providing low temps, low noise and can be run silently with the right fan curves under moderate usage for a 65W CPU.
I don't think you need to drop down to a 35W CPU in the LZ7 even if you are looking for slience under light usage, with the right fan and CPU cooler setup this can be achieved with 65W CPU's.
I've not tested a 95W CPU in the LZ7 personally, so I don't have any data on how these K chips perform under idle/light usage.
I have no experience with de-lidding sorry, I'm not aware of anyone in particular that has done this inside the LZ7.
...plenty of time for answers to come in as Overclockers can't tell me when they'll have more stock of black left hand side corner brackets for the Lazer3D LZ7
I am sorry about that, I delivered 40 sets of black corners just over a week ago and they've sold out already! I think they had quite a few back orders that were waiting as well before I delivered them. I am waiting on another delivery of around 40 sets of black corners (and another order lined up after that) which I expect to receive in the next 1 - 2 weeks. Its then a matter of inserting all the brass threads ready to be sent to Overclockers which will likely be another week after receiving them. Sorry for the delay.
I know it doesn't really help your situation, but from September onwards I will be focusing on Lazer3D full time which I hope will allow me to reduce lead times and also get ahead of the demand rather than playing catch up. Hopefully I will be posting more updates on this over the coming months.
I believe the Platinum versions are quite new so they probably sold out pretty quick, hopefully they will have some more stock soon.
Yeah memory prices have become a major slice of the build cost compared to a few years ago, I hope this trend starts to reverse sometime soon.
Thanks for the response. Having done some more research I've been able to determine find a number of examples of delidding the 8700K, with potential addition of a copper IHS and then even a slight undervolt can reduce load teamperatures by 20C even with air coolers (the likes of Optimum Tech on youtube). I've even found a guy on ebay who has done many many processors with 100% feedback who can do this for me and he's not that far away in West London.
At least knowing it will be at least 3 weeks before OCUK get more corner pieces gives me something to work with and I may well wait now until September, giving me more planning time/decision time on processors ...and time to monitor memory prices!.
Must be rewarding seeing lazer3D being in such demand, good work!
My 8086K & 1080 itx (soon to be gtx 2080 hopefully) build will be done at the end of the week. I've already done a delid (conductonaut LM) with copper IHS & Big Shuriken Rev B. Preliminary temps after putting it in my test bed are very promising @ 5.2ghz 1.31v, around a 24c drop from stock on full load. Also stable @ 5ghz 1.2v. I went with the 8068K vs 8700K for more play room they're actually binned, easier to hit 5ghz on undervolt. On a side note, I went with the Asrock Fatality ITX versus the Strix as the power phases/vrms are MUCH better than what the Asus Strix offers & can handle a lot more.
Once the build is done and I dial in all the overclocks, I'll post some official temp numbers. Below is a pic of the best Z370 boards when it comes to handling power hungry processors/overclocks AKA vrms/power phases.
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Moving everything from my test bench to the actual build. Dat sexy copper IHS. I'll be done tomorrow night for the most part. I also ordered a slotted GPU side panel to compare it to the open one (temp/gpu boost) I originally got, should be here Tuesday.
Edit: After doing some measurements, a 545lc 92mm AIO would definitely fit in here with a SFX power supply. Around 64mm, give or take with a Noctua 92mm slim on bottom. It's more of a stabilization issue than anything, would have to jimmy rig something so it wouldn't move or to at least level it out (from tube resistance), if traveling. I'll probably give it a shot once the 9900K 8-core comes out in october. @K888D any suggestions off the top of your head?
Edit: After doing some measurements, a 545lc 92mm AIO would definitely fit in here with a SFX power supply. Around 64mm, give or take with a Noctua 92mm slim on bottom. It's more of a stabilization issue than anything, would have to jimmy rig something so it wouldn't move or to at least level it out (from tube resistance), if traveling. I'll probably give it a shot once the 9900K 8-core comes out in october. @K888D any suggestions off the top of your head?
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