I recently put together an NCASE M1 v6.1 build using a Noctua C14S with the stock 140x25mm fan in low profile mode and an RTX 2070 Super FE. Aside from the fan in the SFX psu (Corsair SF600 platinum), there are no other cooling fans in the system. While I have no problems with CPU or GPU temperatures, I am finding that my RAM temperature is another issue. In some cases, my RAM is reaching 50 C, leading to stability problems.
Originally, I had the 140x25mm fan on the C14S as intake, pulling air from the side of the case through the heatsink and blowing it on the motherboard and RAM. This setup seems to give the best CPU temps, but resulted in higher RAM temps, which led to instability in Prime95 and several crashes while gaming. I reversed the fan to serve as exhaust, and this resulted in better RAM temps, but it still gets too hot for my tastes during gaming.
Here are some metrics for the RAM temperature.
I think the take away from this is that the RAM is cooler when the C14S fan is exhausting any hot air from inside the case, rather than blowing heated-up air onto the motherboard and RAM. However, once the GPU is loaded and starts dumping more hot air inside the case, the C14S's fan is not enough to exhaust all the hot air, leading to higher RAM temperatures and potential instability.
I'm wondering if anyone has run into a similar issue and how they fixed it. I am going to try adding a 92mm fan as exhaust to the back of the case. If that doesn't do the job, I will probably put an Arctic Accelero III on RTX 2070 Super and add two 120x25mm fans underneath it as exhaust.
Originally, I had the 140x25mm fan on the C14S as intake, pulling air from the side of the case through the heatsink and blowing it on the motherboard and RAM. This setup seems to give the best CPU temps, but resulted in higher RAM temps, which led to instability in Prime95 and several crashes while gaming. I reversed the fan to serve as exhaust, and this resulted in better RAM temps, but it still gets too hot for my tastes during gaming.
Here are some metrics for the RAM temperature.
- CPU idle, GPU idle:
- 30 C
- C14S fan as intake, CPU loaded via Prime95 large FFTs, GPU idle:
- 50 C
- Prime95 failure in less than 10 minutes
- C14S fan as intake, CPU & GPU loaded via Doom Eternal:
- 51 C
- game eventually crashes to desktop
- C14S fan as exhaust, CPU loaded via Prime95 large FFTs, GPU idle:
- 41 C
- Prime95 stable
- C14S fan as exhaust, CPU & GPU loaded via Doom Eternal:
- 46 C
- stable
- C14S fan as exhaust, CPU loaded via Prime95 large FFTs, GPU loaded via Unigine Heaven loop:
- 50 C
- stable for 15 minutes, but needs more testing
I think the take away from this is that the RAM is cooler when the C14S fan is exhausting any hot air from inside the case, rather than blowing heated-up air onto the motherboard and RAM. However, once the GPU is loaded and starts dumping more hot air inside the case, the C14S's fan is not enough to exhaust all the hot air, leading to higher RAM temperatures and potential instability.
I'm wondering if anyone has run into a similar issue and how they fixed it. I am going to try adding a 92mm fan as exhaust to the back of the case. If that doesn't do the job, I will probably put an Arctic Accelero III on RTX 2070 Super and add two 120x25mm fans underneath it as exhaust.