Earlier last year AMD and Nvidia had my jaw dropped with the new 5000 series ryzen and 3000 series RTX, I knew it was time to upgrade, but my old build had a full custom loop, I didn't really want to maintain a loop again, pump was screaming at certain RPM, the blocks started discolorating, who knows what kind of deposit is in the rads, I've decided to go back to aircooling and start from scratch
As much as I like sandwich layout, imo it's only ideal with watercooling, low profile CPU coolers don't pair well with high power 8+ core CPUs, especially since I'm very sensitive to noise
I've noticed more and more people deshrouding their GPUs and getting near watercooling performance, at the same time I also luckily scored a 5800x and an ASUS dual 3070, which turned out to be one of the best card for deshrouding as the heatsink is as clean as it gets, no weird tabs and screws sticking out:
(pic cred u/DK426)
So I began searching for the smallest case that would fit this 3070 as well as a CPU cooler w/ 120mm fan, after being off the grid for 3 years I had to catch up with all the new SFF cases and news - it was amazing to see how much this community has grown, mainstream case makers seem be churning out decent and affordable SFF options now; I finally landed on a Sunmilo C01s:
This case ticked all the right boxes for me:
1. supports cpu cooler with full 120mm fans (Thermalright Silver Arrow 130)
2. fits my ASUS Dual 3070
3. tempered glass
4. decent airflow path, gpu gets fresh air from the bottom, cpu from the back and exhausts out the top
5. asap (as small as possible)
And somehow one was available on hardware swap canada? And the seller lives < 50km from me? So I had to pick it up.
And holy is this thing short, width and length is kinda similar to my old case but without the top and bottom rads that's probably where the extra 4-5L went
didn't take too many pics in the beginning.. sorry
First surprise.. this case doesn't officially work with deshrouded gpu, at least not with 25mm fans.. luckily I was able to just lift the bottom panel by 8mm with some stand offs, this doesn't look too bad but I'll get back to this later
GPU power cables were also sticking out like sore thumbs (literally), and I couldn't close the side panel at all, so I ordered some 180 deg adapter, custom cables, while I was at it I also ordered a silver arrow 130 off aliexpress.. and the seller never shipped the cooler and I was refunded after 45 days.. sadge
Second surprise, I was wondering why my gpu temps were terribad when gaming even with the fans at 1400rpm, like 95c throttling bad??
so I took the panel out and I was greeted with this
There was probably some ultra weird turbulance going on that was causing the air to basically recirculate around the hub, either the hole pattern sunmilo decided to put was just too small or poorly designed, or that there was some weird dynamics happening with the hole design and the fans, either way I gave up trying to figure out what it was and just cut out a massive hole on the bottom (that took a while), that brought it back down to 65c @ 1200rpm running cyberpunk.. phew
With the 180 deg adapter I can finally close the side panel
still waiting for the CPU cooler... sold out everywhere...
Surprisingly the rgb stealth cooler I had laying around isn't actually too bad albeit a bit noisy
At this point the build was at a state that I was 70% happy and so I started looking at mods to spice it up
So I was like, hmm the cables are kinda ugly, what if I cover it up with something... hmm maybe a screen??
Yess that's it, look ma no cables
nvm there's still cable outside.. I'll deal with that next time
Now this is pretty much where my build is as of now (Apr 01, 2021), I have a bunch of mods lined up so stayed tuned!
1. the legendary silver arrow 130, finally got my hands on one..
2. cleaned up bottom plate,
3. bottom spacer tray with moar RGB (white ring layer to hide the lifted 8mm spacer)
4. sicc 3d printed legs
5. better screen mounting
6. smoked side panel with better GPU exhaust, saw a 5c difference with and without the side panel on, even though it's getting fresh air the exhaust flow is probably still lacking
feet pic
That's it for now~
As much as I like sandwich layout, imo it's only ideal with watercooling, low profile CPU coolers don't pair well with high power 8+ core CPUs, especially since I'm very sensitive to noise
I've noticed more and more people deshrouding their GPUs and getting near watercooling performance, at the same time I also luckily scored a 5800x and an ASUS dual 3070, which turned out to be one of the best card for deshrouding as the heatsink is as clean as it gets, no weird tabs and screws sticking out:
(pic cred u/DK426)
So I began searching for the smallest case that would fit this 3070 as well as a CPU cooler w/ 120mm fan, after being off the grid for 3 years I had to catch up with all the new SFF cases and news - it was amazing to see how much this community has grown, mainstream case makers seem be churning out decent and affordable SFF options now; I finally landed on a Sunmilo C01s:
This case ticked all the right boxes for me:
1. supports cpu cooler with full 120mm fans (Thermalright Silver Arrow 130)
2. fits my ASUS Dual 3070
3. tempered glass
4. decent airflow path, gpu gets fresh air from the bottom, cpu from the back and exhausts out the top
5. asap (as small as possible)
And somehow one was available on hardware swap canada? And the seller lives < 50km from me? So I had to pick it up.
And holy is this thing short, width and length is kinda similar to my old case but without the top and bottom rads that's probably where the extra 4-5L went
didn't take too many pics in the beginning.. sorry
First surprise.. this case doesn't officially work with deshrouded gpu, at least not with 25mm fans.. luckily I was able to just lift the bottom panel by 8mm with some stand offs, this doesn't look too bad but I'll get back to this later
GPU power cables were also sticking out like sore thumbs (literally), and I couldn't close the side panel at all, so I ordered some 180 deg adapter, custom cables, while I was at it I also ordered a silver arrow 130 off aliexpress.. and the seller never shipped the cooler and I was refunded after 45 days.. sadge
Second surprise, I was wondering why my gpu temps were terribad when gaming even with the fans at 1400rpm, like 95c throttling bad??
so I took the panel out and I was greeted with this
There was probably some ultra weird turbulance going on that was causing the air to basically recirculate around the hub, either the hole pattern sunmilo decided to put was just too small or poorly designed, or that there was some weird dynamics happening with the hole design and the fans, either way I gave up trying to figure out what it was and just cut out a massive hole on the bottom (that took a while), that brought it back down to 65c @ 1200rpm running cyberpunk.. phew
With the 180 deg adapter I can finally close the side panel
still waiting for the CPU cooler... sold out everywhere...
Surprisingly the rgb stealth cooler I had laying around isn't actually too bad albeit a bit noisy
At this point the build was at a state that I was 70% happy and so I started looking at mods to spice it up
So I was like, hmm the cables are kinda ugly, what if I cover it up with something... hmm maybe a screen??
Yess that's it, look ma no cables
nvm there's still cable outside.. I'll deal with that next time
Now this is pretty much where my build is as of now (Apr 01, 2021), I have a bunch of mods lined up so stayed tuned!
1. the legendary silver arrow 130, finally got my hands on one..
2. cleaned up bottom plate,
3. bottom spacer tray with moar RGB (white ring layer to hide the lifted 8mm spacer)
4. sicc 3d printed legs
5. better screen mounting
6. smoked side panel with better GPU exhaust, saw a 5c difference with and without the side panel on, even though it's getting fresh air the exhaust flow is probably still lacking
feet pic
That's it for now~
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