Cooling PSA: MetallicGear Neo Mini (and Neo G Mini) intake is choked

Ganelon

Average Stuffer
Original poster
Feb 23, 2017
57
44
So I recently decided to move my system, which includes a custom loop with a 280mm rad with push/pull fans, into the Neo G Mini.

I don't have any pics of my build at the moment (the loop needs flushing with mayhems blitz or something; water is yellowing from some growth residue in the rad) but I will include those later. I just wanted to let people know that if you are looking at the Neo Mini cases, and overclocking a hot chip, you will want to keep in mind that the front intake is more limited than it looks.


I have four 140mm Noctua Industrial PPC fans for intake (on either side of a 280mm rad). So I thought it was weird that, when CPU benching, things were hotter than I was expecting. I put my hand around the back of the case and was shocked to feel barely any passive exhaust happening. Realising what might be the issue, I pulled off the front and immediately saw temps drop by five degrees. Sure enough, putting my hand around the back I felt the amount of passive exhaust you'd expect from four PPC fans at 1500rpm (i.e. a metric fuckton). Temps continued to drop as the water in my system cooled down now that there was actual heat transfer happening.

Even at idle, with all four fans at 20% (~450rpm) my CPU temps are OVER FIFTEEN DEGREES LOWER with the front panel removed. That's not insignificant. Yes the panel blocked some of the noise but that noise was gained back by the fans running 150rpm faster to keep things cool. So it's not even like you can call it a silence-optimised case.

So I'll be hoping that Phanteks or MetallicGear or whoever comes out with a mesh-fronted variant like the one they just showed at CES:


But an ITX version obviously. Until that time, I'm going to make a custom panel with acrylic and mesh. The glass on the front of my Neo G Mini (and, presumably, the aluminium on the front of the Neo Mini) can be replaced while maintaining the side venting and mounting mechanism. Should be easy to cut some acrylic and stretch some speaker mesh over it or something.
 
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