So with all the craziness going around, I found myself with a fair bit of free time on my hands to tackles some projects around the house. I proceeded to contemplate how to avoid doing those projects and instead focused on migrating my trusty Fractal Design Define Nano S to a smaller case.
First off, I will admit that I *LOVE* that case. It is quiet and fit everything in there, including my silent SeaSonic ATX PSU and 2 x 240mm watercooling loop (which was cut down to one 240mm because I didn't need it). I wanted a project that didn't involve me spending a ton of money to make fit in a smaller case, and I didn't want to compromise on my silent setup. I spent a good week or two looking at all of the cases out there that met my needs, with an emphasis on keeping my PSU (I had a Corsair SF600 on reserve in case). I finally decided on the Raijintek Ophion EVO, not because I particularly like the sandwich-style case design, but because it put me under 20 liters and looked good.
My priorities were fairly simple: quiet. I don't use headphones at home because kids, and although fan noise is generally tolerable, I prefer to only be notified my computer is on by the LED. I don't need a color-themed build, and I don't need to go all Mick Jagger in protest of RGB. I did a bit of mental prep to plan the loop and figure out what I needed to dig out of storage to make it work, and while I waited to receive my new case, I proceeded to break everything down for cleaning out of the Nano S.
Everything, in this situation, is:
AMD Ryzen 5 2600 - XSPC Raystorm Block
nVidia 1070 Founder's Edition - XSPC Blade Block
ASRock Fatal1ty B450 ITX Gaming
16 GB Corsair LPX DDR4-3000
Samsung 860 QVO 1TB SSD
Western Digital Red 1TB NAS
SeaSonic SS-660XP2 (Corsair SF600 on reserve)
Swiftech D5 Vario
Swiftech D5 Pump Top (Koolance on reserve)
Koolance Modular Reservoir (50x60mm tube)
Alphacool ST30 240mm
Barrow Black Fittings
Norprene 3/8" ID 1/2" OD Tubing
Noctua NF-F12 (x3)
Swiftech PWM Fan Hub
Laid out in the Nano S, everything was comparatively roomy:
Step 1: Break down the loop for much overdue cleaning and fit the stock coolers back on the CPU and GPU
Aircooling in this case seems silly to me, but I knew it would take me a bit to get the loop sorted out, so I wanted to be prepared. The Ophion EVO arrived without incident, but I like comparing case sizes even though the Nano S is NOT a large case.
First up was mounting the fans and installing the hard drives, interestingly located on the front panel. The slots for cables leave something to be desired (90 degree SATA cables are highly recommended. . .by me). Off topic, but somebody's OCD is going to be triggered by the Samsung logo not being right-side up.
Next up was the monstrosity that I desperately wanted to keep, the SeaSonic PSU. Removing one of the feet was necessary to access the fourth PSU screw, but it worked.
I installed all the components (now air cooled) and FINALLY removed the plastic cover on my GPU.
I ran a couple temp tests and futzed around with it, and the next day set out to dry fit the watercooling components. Off camera there was a lot of swearing and jimmying, but eventually I installed my SF600 and gave it a go. I was really avoiding the SF600 because of its uber-aggressive fan curve that kept me away from SFX power supplies for the longest time, but I figured if it got too bad I could swap a Noctua fan in there.
Part of my dilemma with this build was not only my desire to keep my full-sized ATX PSU, but also not having anything but D5 pumps laying around, and not wanting to spend money other than on the case to get a DDC. Even the shorter Alphacool D5 and Swiftech pump top were a bit much even with the SF600
I realized that even with a custom mount, a reservoir would not fit over the motherboard, so a pump/res combo might work better.
. . . Just not that pump top. Thankfully, i had a Koolance pump top that married well with the on-brand reservoir tube, so I broke it out of long-term storage and gave it a shot.
And that was the "aha" moment I had been working for. Before tidying up the cable management and putting the blocks on, I decided to show exactly how tight the fit would be with the ATX PSU.
A D5 has nowhere else to go, even with a reservoir-free loop, so I'm glad I had the SFX on hand. If I didn't have the SF600, a DDC or something definitely would have been in order. Now, back to tidying:
The blocks went on as expected, with no issues, and after coaxing the radiator/pump/reservoir unit into place, I set to filling it.
Definitely still need to cable manage the GPU side, but it got me to a spot where I could run some tests and see the temps. And, since I wanted to do a solid comparison, I took tests at every step of the process.
Fractal Design Define Nano S, stable temps (20 minutes Furmark + CPU Burn)
Ambient: 22 C
CPU: 60 C
GPU: 54 C
On air, temps were stable at 10 minutes
Ambient: 21 C
CPU: 67 C
GPU: 76 C
Noise was tolerable, definitely in the background while gaming, but still. . .
Over on the Ophion side, on air
Ambient: 24 C
CPU: 77 C
GPU: 84 C
Once I tweaked a couple of things for noise, (no PSU mod yet, I'll get to it), temps were tolerable
Ambient: 22 C
CPU: 66 C
GPU: 58 C
Loop is still working some bubbles out (need to figure out how to Vario the pump up to bleed it a little more), but the SF600 has yet to kick the fan on, probably because even at load I'm barely pulling 300W, which was my main concern with using the PSU in the first place. I've been tweaking with everything to get the noise sorted and today I realized that the noise that was bugging me was one of the fans having a disconnected PWM signal so it was running at full 2000 RPM. Tightening the cable brought it back down and it's just beautifully quiet.
My thought is that when I originally bought the SF600, I was using an Intel i5-4690K and GTX 970, which drew a bit more power than the more efficient Ryzen 5 2600 and GTX 1070, which is what spooled the PSU fan up in the first place. Now that it's keeping the fan off most of the time, I may not even need to do the fan mod, but if I do, I may try to reverse it because Raijintek decided to be all cool and have the exhaust pointing down.
I will be posting some finished pictures once I get around to it, all this being at home crap has me busier than when I was working a normal schedule. I did, however, get the chance to clean up my office a bit, which was nice, although the guest bed is still covered in spare parts and doodads. For those who care, here are the pics (Spoiler for a naughty word).
Anyhoo, thanks for looking! Again, final pics will hopefully be up in the next couple of days when I can get some good lighting and time.
First off, I will admit that I *LOVE* that case. It is quiet and fit everything in there, including my silent SeaSonic ATX PSU and 2 x 240mm watercooling loop (which was cut down to one 240mm because I didn't need it). I wanted a project that didn't involve me spending a ton of money to make fit in a smaller case, and I didn't want to compromise on my silent setup. I spent a good week or two looking at all of the cases out there that met my needs, with an emphasis on keeping my PSU (I had a Corsair SF600 on reserve in case). I finally decided on the Raijintek Ophion EVO, not because I particularly like the sandwich-style case design, but because it put me under 20 liters and looked good.
My priorities were fairly simple: quiet. I don't use headphones at home because kids, and although fan noise is generally tolerable, I prefer to only be notified my computer is on by the LED. I don't need a color-themed build, and I don't need to go all Mick Jagger in protest of RGB. I did a bit of mental prep to plan the loop and figure out what I needed to dig out of storage to make it work, and while I waited to receive my new case, I proceeded to break everything down for cleaning out of the Nano S.
Everything, in this situation, is:
AMD Ryzen 5 2600 - XSPC Raystorm Block
nVidia 1070 Founder's Edition - XSPC Blade Block
ASRock Fatal1ty B450 ITX Gaming
16 GB Corsair LPX DDR4-3000
Samsung 860 QVO 1TB SSD
Western Digital Red 1TB NAS
SeaSonic SS-660XP2 (Corsair SF600 on reserve)
Swiftech D5 Vario
Swiftech D5 Pump Top (Koolance on reserve)
Koolance Modular Reservoir (50x60mm tube)
Alphacool ST30 240mm
Barrow Black Fittings
Norprene 3/8" ID 1/2" OD Tubing
Noctua NF-F12 (x3)
Swiftech PWM Fan Hub
Laid out in the Nano S, everything was comparatively roomy:
Step 1: Break down the loop for much overdue cleaning and fit the stock coolers back on the CPU and GPU
Aircooling in this case seems silly to me, but I knew it would take me a bit to get the loop sorted out, so I wanted to be prepared. The Ophion EVO arrived without incident, but I like comparing case sizes even though the Nano S is NOT a large case.
First up was mounting the fans and installing the hard drives, interestingly located on the front panel. The slots for cables leave something to be desired (90 degree SATA cables are highly recommended. . .by me). Off topic, but somebody's OCD is going to be triggered by the Samsung logo not being right-side up.
Next up was the monstrosity that I desperately wanted to keep, the SeaSonic PSU. Removing one of the feet was necessary to access the fourth PSU screw, but it worked.
I installed all the components (now air cooled) and FINALLY removed the plastic cover on my GPU.
I ran a couple temp tests and futzed around with it, and the next day set out to dry fit the watercooling components. Off camera there was a lot of swearing and jimmying, but eventually I installed my SF600 and gave it a go. I was really avoiding the SF600 because of its uber-aggressive fan curve that kept me away from SFX power supplies for the longest time, but I figured if it got too bad I could swap a Noctua fan in there.
Part of my dilemma with this build was not only my desire to keep my full-sized ATX PSU, but also not having anything but D5 pumps laying around, and not wanting to spend money other than on the case to get a DDC. Even the shorter Alphacool D5 and Swiftech pump top were a bit much even with the SF600
I realized that even with a custom mount, a reservoir would not fit over the motherboard, so a pump/res combo might work better.
. . . Just not that pump top. Thankfully, i had a Koolance pump top that married well with the on-brand reservoir tube, so I broke it out of long-term storage and gave it a shot.
And that was the "aha" moment I had been working for. Before tidying up the cable management and putting the blocks on, I decided to show exactly how tight the fit would be with the ATX PSU.
A D5 has nowhere else to go, even with a reservoir-free loop, so I'm glad I had the SFX on hand. If I didn't have the SF600, a DDC or something definitely would have been in order. Now, back to tidying:
The blocks went on as expected, with no issues, and after coaxing the radiator/pump/reservoir unit into place, I set to filling it.
Definitely still need to cable manage the GPU side, but it got me to a spot where I could run some tests and see the temps. And, since I wanted to do a solid comparison, I took tests at every step of the process.
Fractal Design Define Nano S, stable temps (20 minutes Furmark + CPU Burn)
Ambient: 22 C
CPU: 60 C
GPU: 54 C
On air, temps were stable at 10 minutes
Ambient: 21 C
CPU: 67 C
GPU: 76 C
Noise was tolerable, definitely in the background while gaming, but still. . .
Over on the Ophion side, on air
Ambient: 24 C
CPU: 77 C
GPU: 84 C
Once I tweaked a couple of things for noise, (no PSU mod yet, I'll get to it), temps were tolerable
Ambient: 22 C
CPU: 66 C
GPU: 58 C
Loop is still working some bubbles out (need to figure out how to Vario the pump up to bleed it a little more), but the SF600 has yet to kick the fan on, probably because even at load I'm barely pulling 300W, which was my main concern with using the PSU in the first place. I've been tweaking with everything to get the noise sorted and today I realized that the noise that was bugging me was one of the fans having a disconnected PWM signal so it was running at full 2000 RPM. Tightening the cable brought it back down and it's just beautifully quiet.
My thought is that when I originally bought the SF600, I was using an Intel i5-4690K and GTX 970, which drew a bit more power than the more efficient Ryzen 5 2600 and GTX 1070, which is what spooled the PSU fan up in the first place. Now that it's keeping the fan off most of the time, I may not even need to do the fan mod, but if I do, I may try to reverse it because Raijintek decided to be all cool and have the exhaust pointing down.
I will be posting some finished pictures once I get around to it, all this being at home crap has me busier than when I was working a normal schedule. I did, however, get the chance to clean up my office a bit, which was nice, although the guest bed is still covered in spare parts and doodads. For those who care, here are the pics (Spoiler for a naughty word).
Anyhoo, thanks for looking! Again, final pics will hopefully be up in the next couple of days when I can get some good lighting and time.
