Log NR200 with side-mounted 140mm intake fan - Alpenföhn Black Ridge and Noctua NH-C14S

[Ameubius]

Just wanted to present my little build with the NR200.

The Alpenföhn Black Ridge is cooled by a 140mm fan drawing air from the outside. I've also made a custom duct to guide the air and step down from the 140mm fan to fit the cooler. A smaller 92mm thin Noctua fan contributes to spread the air further on the underside of the CPU cooler. This system ensures that hot air from the GPU won't heat up the motherboard area too much. Both the two 120mm top fans and the 92mm rear fan pulls hot air out of the case.

I've offset the fan about 20mm from the side bracket, as I believe this reduces air turbulence and noise somewhat. I also swapped the Noctua fan in the pictures with a Arctic P14 with higher static pressure.

Made a shallow "duct" to guide fresh air form the bottom directly to the GPU fans, thus avoiding recycling hot air form inside the case.

I'm thinking about blocking off the mesh of the rest of the side panel, because some hot air escapes and is pulled in by the CPU fan. At least the lower part closest to the GPU vents?


Components:

ASRock Z490M-ITX/ac
Intel Core i5-10600K
Alpenföhn Black Ridge
ADATA XPG SX8200 Pro 2TB
Corsair Vengeance LPX DDR4 3600MHz CL18 2x16GB
Cooler Master V850 SFX Gold
ASUS ROG-STRIX-RTX2080TI-O11G-GAMING - OC Edition


The system runs rather quiet and the temps seem fine, but I can try stress testing more and post the results here if anyone should be interested?

 

[tinyitx]

I'm thinking about blocking off the mesh of the rest of the side panel, because some hot air escapes and is pulled in by the CPU fan. At least the lower part closest to the GPU vents?

The system runs rather quiet and the temps seem fine, but I can try stress testing more and post the results here if anyone should be interested?

Maybe you can just do a simple test by using some Scotch tape and paper to block off part of the mesh to investigate any potential thermal benefit. In reality, unless the GPU exhaust is pulled right back in to feed the CPU, the thermal benefit might be small (~1-2C) as those exhaust would be thermally diluted by surrounding ambient air. Surely, no harm to try.

Regarding the temp, would you mind checking the M.2 SSD please? (ambient, idle and load temp). Thanks.

 

[Ameubius]

Maybe you can just do a simple test by using some Scotch tape and paper to block off part of the mesh to investigate any potential thermal benefit. In reality, unless the GPU exhaust is pulled right back in to feed the CPU, the thermal benefit might be small (~1-2C) as those exhaust would be thermally diluted by surrounding ambient air. Surely, no harm to try.

Regarding the temp, would you mind checking the M.2 SSD please? (ambient, idle and load temp). Thanks.

I'll se what I can do. The M.2 SSD gets what I believe plenty cooling via the CPU cooler placed directly above, but perhaps you think the closeness to the GPU backplate will heat it up more than ideal?

Good idea using tape to investigate the possibel effect of the GPU venting hot air into the CPU cooler. Though i also think the effect will be maginal.

 

[tinyitx]

I'll se what I can do. The M.2 SSD gets what I believe plenty cooling via the CPU cooler placed directly above, but perhaps you think the closeness to the GPU backplate will heat it up more than ideal?

Good idea using tape to investigate the possibel effect of the GPU venting hot air into the CPU cooler. Though i also think the effect will be maginal.

Yes. I had a NH-U14S (Edit: NH-C14S) blowing air down to the M.2 SSD (which also sits next to a 2070 with a back plate). The cooling benefit was definitely there but was not as much as I had hoped for.

One thing is that the bend of the heat pipes, sort of, blocked a good portion of the air reaching the M.2 SSD (I could not tell clearly from your pics that you have the bend at the lower side or at the upper side...but it looks like it is at the lower side, thus, blocking the air).
The second thing is that the fins of the cooler run parallel to the M.2 SSD, thus downward air does not really running towards it.

So, checking the idle and load temp with respect to the ambient air temp might be useful.

 

[Ameubius]

Yes. I had a NH-U14S blowing air down to the M.2 SSD (which also sits next to a 2070 with a back plate). The cooling benefit was definitely there but was not as much as I had hoped for.

One thing is that the bend of the heat pipes, sort of, blocked a good portion of the air reaching the M.2 SSD (I could not tell clearly from your pics that you have the bend at the lower side or at the upper side...but it looks like it is at the lower side, thus, blocking the air).
The second thing is that the fins of the cooler run parallel to the M.2 SSD, thus downward air does not really running towards it.

So, checking the idle and load temp with respect to the ambient air temp might be useful.

I checked the bend orientation of the heat pipes, and they are not placed above the SSD. As I recall the SSD temps looked fine when running Time Spy earlier, but I did not try to stress test the SSD. I'll give it a try though.

 

[Ameubius]

Yes. I had a NH-U14S blowing air down to the M.2 SSD (which also sits next to a 2070 with a back plate). The cooling benefit was definitely there but was not as much as I had hoped for.

One thing is that the bend of the heat pipes, sort of, blocked a good portion of the air reaching the M.2 SSD (I could not tell clearly from your pics that you have the bend at the lower side or at the upper side...but it looks like it is at the lower side, thus, blocking the air).
The second thing is that the fins of the cooler run parallel to the M.2 SSD, thus downward air does not really running towards it.

So, checking the idle and load temp with respect to the ambient air temp might be useful.

Ok, I did test the system using Furmark to stress the GPU. The room temp was 23°C.
CPU and GPU ran at stock settings.

Locking all fans, except the GPU fans, to 50% ended up with these results: MOBO 49°C, CPU 60°C, SSD 38°C, GPU 63°C, GPUmem 77°C.

I then blocked off the part of the side panel exhausting hot air from the GPU, and re-run Furmark with the same settings: MOBO 45°C, CPU 52°C!!, SSD 35°C, GPU 64°C, GPUmem 78°C.

Increasing the top fans to 100% only resulted in minor changes: MOBO 45°C, CPU 52°C, SSD 35°C, GPU 63°C, GPUmem 77°C.

Increasing all fans to 100% (except the GPU, which follows the stock fan curve) gave these results: MOBO 41°C, CPU 51°C, SSD 32°C, GPU 63°C, GPUmem 78°C.

I also ran Cinebench at 100% fan speed: MOBO 39°C, CPU 78°C, SSD 36°C, [GPU 31°C, GPUmem 43°C].

The most interesting was the marked drop in CPU temp when blocking the hot air form the GPU entering the CPU cooler.

I did not bother stress testing the SSD since I never run this part of the system that hard anyway, and 38°C max when fully stressing the GPU is plenty good in my books.

Needless to say, I'm going to continue blocking of that side panel.

Cheers

 

[Ameubius]

Ok, I did test the system using Furmark to stress the GPU. The room temp was 23°C.
CPU and GPU ran at stock settings.

Locking all fans, except the GPU fans, to 50% ended up with these results: MOBO 49°C, CPU 60°C, SSD 38°C, GPU 63°C, GPUmem 77°C.

I then blocked off the part of the side panel exhausting hot air from the GPU, and re-run Furmark with the same settings: MOBO 45°C, CPU 52°C!!, SSD 35°C, GPU 64°C, GPUmem 78°C.

Increasing the top fans to 100% only resulted in minor changes: MOBO 45°C, CPU 52°C, SSD 35°C, GPU 63°C, GPUmem 77°C.

Increasing all fans to 100% (except the GPU, which follows the stock fan curve) gave these results: MOBO 41°C, CPU 51°C, SSD 32°C, GPU 63°C, GPUmem 78°C.

I also ran Cinebench at 100% fan speed: MOBO 39°C, CPU 78°C, SSD 36°C, [GPU 31°C, GPUmem 43°C].

The most interesting was the marked drop in CPU temp when blocking the hot air form the GPU entering the CPU cooler.

I did not bother stress testing the SSD since I never run this part of the system that hard anyway, and 38°C max when fully stressing the GPU is plenty good in my books.

Needless to say, I'm going to continue blocking of that side panel.

Cheers

My main concern is that the CPU perhaps runs a little hot when fully stressed? 78˚C with fans at max speed is somewhat higher than I had hoped. Could it be issues with the mounting pressure? Does anyone have experience with the 10600K + Apenföhn combo? The mounting mechanism for the cooler is’nt ideal with screws thightend from the back side. I think I’ll see if I can get some nylon washers and re-mount the cooler.

 

[tinyitx]

Are you blocking off the red part in the pic?
If yes, where does the GPU exhaust go? I am a little confused...lol

 

[Ameubius]

Are you blocking off the red part in the pic?
If yes, where does the GPU exhaust go? I am a little confused...lol

Apparently the exhaust just finds its way out via the fans at the top and rear, as well as through the vented part of the panel at the other side. The GPU temps suffers about 1 degree though. And yes, I blocked off that part, as well as the part above that didn't cover the intake of the CPU cooler; basically all except the CPU intake.

 

[Ameubius]

My main concern is that the CPU perhaps runs a little hot when fully stressed? 78˚C with fans at max speed is somewhat higher than I had hoped. Could it be issues with the mounting pressure? Does anyone have experience with the 10600K + Apenföhn combo? The mounting mechanism for the cooler is’nt ideal with screws thightend from the back side. I think I’ll see if I can get some nylon washers and re-mount the cooler.

So I re-installed the CPU-cooler, but only improved the CPU temp during 10 min Cinebench by 1°C (77°C vs 78°C). The room was a couple degrees cooler though so in reality no difference, or maybe slightly worse. I also had removed the bottom 92 mm slim Noctua fan, since I use a high pressure 140mm Arctic fan above as shown. Changing two variables at the same time isn't ideal, I know, but I the 92mm fan was quite noisy at full speed. Clearly it dosn't seem to contribute that much anyway. Basically I'm stuck with a somewhat hot CPU, but it is within specs, so i guess that's it... The Alpenföhn is hitting it's limitation with the 10600K.

Cheers

 

[Ameubius]

I'm going to test the Noctua NH-C14S to see how that cooler performs on the 10600K. Seeing from the testing done by Machines & More it shold be fine, but I'm interested in how the rest of my set-up will fare?

 

[Valantar]

I'm going to test the Noctua NH-C14S to see how that cooler performs on the 10600K. Seeing from the testing done by Machines & More it shold be fine, but I'm interested in how the rest of my set-up will fare?

I was about to ask why you chose such a low profile cooler for this case when it can fit a lot more - guess we'll see the difference now. And personally I really wouldn't worry about CPU temps in the high 70s - your CPU doesn't care, and neither should you. Those are completely safe 24/7 temperatures, and I doubt you're running heavy CPU loads 24/7.

Otherwise, I love the build - I really wish we would see more builds exploring custom fan ducting, as there is so much to gain from it if done properly.

 

[Ameubius]

I was about to ask why you chose such a low profile cooler for this case when it can fit a lot more - guess we'll see the difference now. And personally I really wouldn't worry about CPU temps in the high 70s - your CPU doesn't care, and neither should you. Those are completely safe 24/7 temperatures, and I doubt you're running heavy CPU loads 24/7.

Otherwise, I love the build - I really wish we would see more builds exploring custom fan ducting, as there is so much to gain from it if done properly.

The Alpenföhn is destined for my future wood case (read 20L with too many fans?). I just bought the NR200 on sale, and thought I would test out this, as well as other configurations.

As for the NH-C14S, the preliminary reults are bad, unfortunatly, with worse temps on the CPU. I need to check the system tomorrow, so see if there is something I can fix.

Full reprte will arrive later.

 

[Valantar]

The Alpenföhn is destined for my future wood case (read 20L with too many fans?). I just bought the NR200 on sale, and thought I would test out this, as well as other configurations.

As for the NH-C14S, the preliminary reults are bad, unfortunatly, with worse temps on the CPU. I need to check the system tomorrow, so see if there is something I can fix.

Full reprte will arrive later.

Wow, that's weird. There should be no circumstance in which a black ridge outperforms the C14S - the advantage in surface area is just too big. My guess would be a bad mount, though that should be difficult with Secufirm. What fan/duct config are you using on the C14?

 

[Ameubius]

Wow, that's weird. There should be no circumstance in which a black ridge outperforms the C14S - the advantage in surface area is just too big. My guess would be a bad mount, though that should be difficult with Secufirm. What fan/duct config are you using on the C14?

I'll post some pictures later, but bad mount is high up on the list.

I figured the poor results might be related to wrong orientation of the cooler, with the heat pipe bends positioned above the CPU (oriented vertically, terminating downwards). I tried this because I then could fit a 120x25mm fan above, and a 92x15mm fan at the rear. I also used an extra 140mm fan on the radiator for a push-pull system. To acheve this I had to lower the GPU and use a short riser cable. Unfortunatly, this leads to worse GPU temps and noise (the fans spins faster, and are positioned closer to the bottom panel).

I'll remount the NH-C14S horizontally like all the others, and then investigate if using some kind of duct to lead the cool air from the outside is beneficial. Hopefully the temps will be better then.

As mentioned, I'll post some pictures of the system, as it is now, for documentation.

 

[Ameubius]

I'll post some pictures later, but bad mount is high up on the list.

I figured the poor results might be related to wrong orientation of the cooler, with the heat pipe bends positioned above the CPU (oriented vertically, terminating downwards). I tried this because I then could fit a 120x25mm fan above, and a 92x15mm fan at the rear. I also used an extra 140mm fan on the radiator for a push-pull system. To acheve this I had to lower the GPU and use a short riser cable. Unfortunatly, this leads to worse GPU temps and noise (the fans spins faster, and are positioned closer to the bottom panel).

I'll remount the NH-C14S horizontally like all the others, and then investigate if using some kind of duct to lead the cool air from the outside is beneficial. Hopefully the temps will be better then.

As mentioned, I'll post some pictures of the system, as it is now, for documentation.

 

[Ameubius]

I'll post some pictures later, but bad mount is high up on the list.

I figured the poor results might be related to wrong orientation of the cooler, with the heat pipe bends positioned above the CPU (oriented vertically, terminating downwards). I tried this because I then could fit a 120x25mm fan above, and a 92x15mm fan at the rear. I also used an extra 140mm fan on the radiator for a push-pull system. To acheve this I had to lower the GPU and use a short riser cable. Unfortunatly, this leads to worse GPU temps and noise (the fans spins faster, and are positioned closer to the bottom panel).

I'll remount the NH-C14S horizontally like all the others, and then investigate if using some kind of duct to lead the cool air from the outside is beneficial. Hopefully the temps will be better then.

As mentioned, I'll post some pictures of the system, as it is now, for documentation.

As you can see I was able to fit the GPU under the PCIe slot using a short riser cable. This way the CPU cooler could be mounted as shown in the first picture. I was able to fit a standard 120mm fan above, but the CPU temps were terrible, rising to above 95 degrees C when looping Cinebench. Most likely due to the orientation of the heat pipes.

By reverting to the "normal" cooler orientation the CPU only reached 73 degrees C during Cinebench at 50% fan speed (PWM). I haven't tried to make a duct on the cooler yet, so stay tuned.

BTW I also tried to mount the fan under the cooler, but then I couldn't fit the top fan, leaving the case with only the 92mm (slim) rear fan... There was additionally a problem with the PSU shroud getting in the way, and I had to detach it and let it "hang" using a couple zip ties to keep it in place.

 

[Ameubius]

So basically I've proven that the orientation of the NH-C14S is critical. By just flipping the case on its front I managed to replicate my first results. Running Cinebench with max fan speed the CPU tops out at 68°C, but when flipping the case it runs off to more than 95°C (I actually stopped the test so it's possible it could go even higher). The CPU also trottled, no surprise.

Similarly the GPU also experienced worse temps during the Furmark test with 70°C vs 60°C just by flipping the case. The fans also spin much faster, 2000 vs 1700 rpm. The GPU results are in line with others reporting worse temps in cases where the GPUs are top-mounted.

I wonder it the Alpenföhn would get better temps when flipping? It's designed to be mounted on a reverted mobo, so it might not function well in the NR200, where the mobo is in a normal orientation. I’ll consider checking it out later.

A

 

[Ameubius]

I have a little update:

My best aircooled setup so far in the NR200 with the 10600k+Noctua NH-C14S and Asus ROG strix OC 3080ti.

airduct directing cool air to the CPU cooler (140mm on both sides).
airduct directing cool air to the GPU bottom intake
airduct directing cool air to the PSU
plastic shroud blocking hot air escaping out below the ducted intake for the CPU and PSU.
One 92mm slim fan at the back and one 120mm normal fan at the top pulling out hot air.

Running Furmark and Cinebench with the GPU in OC mode, temps topped out at 68˚C for the GPU and 71˚C for the CPU, whereas RAM, SSD and motherboard sensors stayed below 50˚C.

That is +/- 450-500 W in this small case…

 

[Ameubius]

some pics of my current rig.

I’ve upgraded to the 3080ti by ASUS (rog strix OC), and the temps are just great at described earlier.

The CPU is a bit wimpy though, but works fine at 4K gaming.