SFF.Network Behind The Scenes Updates

Revenant

Christopher Moine - Senior Editor SFF.N
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Revenant Tech
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Apr 21, 2017
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I’ve decided to start this thread to help keep the forum aware of upcoming hardware tests as the products come in for testing. Consider this a preview of what Small Form Factor is working on and a bit of behind the scenes.

I’ll be posting pics from testing, early info, and will try to answer questions.

We’re still a bit in the early stage as we return to editorial content, but if you have some products that you would like us to try to take a look at…keeping in mind we all have full time jobs outside of SFFN…we’ll do our best to see if we can get review samples.

Of course, we already have a standing request to look at all the news ITX motherboards, GPUs, and CPUs.

So let’s start this thing…
 
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Revenant

Christopher Moine - Senior Editor SFF.N
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Revenant Tech
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Apr 21, 2017
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Got a nice package from ID Cooling today. They were eager for us to try out their SFF CPU coolers. I took a look at the 47mm model already and the build quality looks pretty good.

279F5D1B-A192-490F-B0EA-7914311228CD.jpeg


I’m also just about finished compiling all the data of our Zotac Magnus One review. It’s a nice little Pre-built, and I ran about 350 benchmark runs in it. I’ll be comparing it to a Zotac EN1070.

E0310255-712E-4D43-A799-9CF3D2B5F124.jpeg
 

Revenant

Christopher Moine - Senior Editor SFF.N
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Apr 21, 2017
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Putting the Noctua L9i as the first cooler through the new test bench right now while working on the Zotac data. The bench a 9900KS that gets nice and toasty. Testing is done at 65,95,125,150 and maximum wattage. L9i made it to the 125 level (barely) before throttling which is a DQ.

CE132303-F2CF-4214-B16E-1A55BD298DDE.jpeg
 

xredlinexx1

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Mar 18, 2019
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Nice, I just recently ordered the is-60 Evo. I'm going to take the top fan off to make it 47-48mm and swap the 92mm with a noctua. Hoping it's performance will be similar axp-90 x47 but with less turbulence.
 

Revenant

Christopher Moine - Senior Editor SFF.N
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Revenant Tech
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Apr 21, 2017
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Nice, I just recently ordered the is-60 Evo. I'm going to take the top fan off to make it 47-48mm and swap the 92mm with a noctua. Hoping it's performance will be similar axp-90 x47 but with less turbulence.

Hmmm. That’s going to be an interesting combo. Part of the testing I’m doing is using a standardized fan which are all Noctuas, so I’ll have performance numbers on that combo. I have a Thermalright AXP model to test, but I can’t recall which one.

What CPU and case are you going to run?
 

Neathdrawls

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Jul 28, 2021
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Hmmm. That’s going to be an interesting combo. Part of the testing I’m doing is using a standardized fan which are all Noctuas, so I’ll have performance numbers on that combo. I have a Thermalright AXP model to test, but I can’t recall which one.

What CPU and case are you going to run?
Might be my chip, but I have tested my 5600X with the L9a, IS-60 Evo without the top 12015 fan, and they both BSOD with PBO while running Cinebench R23 in an open bench previously.

Would be interesting to see your results!
 

Revenant

Christopher Moine - Senior Editor SFF.N
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Revenant Tech
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Apr 21, 2017
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Might be my chip, but I have tested my 5600X with the L9a, IS-60 Evo without the top 12015 fan, and they both BSOD with PBO while running Cinebench R23 in an open bench previously.

Would be interesting to see your results!

Interesting. It should have just throttled down. Was the Windows install fresh? Anything else running in the background?

I've got a 5600X and was going to do a comparison of it on a B450, B550, and X570 board. Which are you running? I should be able to test it on one of those with a L9A
 

xredlinexx1

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Mar 18, 2019
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Hmmm. That’s going to be an interesting combo. Part of the testing I’m doing is using a standardized fan which are all Noctuas, so I’ll have performance numbers on that combo. I have a Thermalright AXP model to test, but I can’t recall which one.

What CPU and case are you going to run?
I'm now running a 5700g in an NFC s4t. The axp90 turbulence is bad, so I'm looking for an alternative.

Might be my chip, but I have tested my 5600X with the L9a, IS-60 Evo without the top 12015 fan, and they both BSOD with PBO while running Cinebench R23 in an open bench previously.

Would be interesting to see your results!
Was the is-60 Evo better than the l9a at least?
 

Neathdrawls

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Jul 28, 2021
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Interesting. It should have just throttled down. Was the Windows install fresh? Anything else running in the background?

I've got a 5600X and was going to do a comparison of it on a B450, B550, and X570 board. Which are you running? I should be able to test it on one of those with a L9A

Wasn't a fresh install of Windows unfortunately. Initially, I thought it was mounting pressure that was the main cause of the BSOD/overheating, but I repasted both the L9a and IS-47K to check pressure again, but both BSOD as well.

It's my daily driver work system that I just want to switch out coolers quickly enough to check out which would run better. I am running it with a MSI B550I Gaming Edge Wifi, 32GB of RAM. My totally unscientific results are in my spreadsheet here. My personal belief is that my 5600X didn't win the silicon lottery and probably just passed the baseline for production. Hahah.

Now with a bigger cooler (Thermalright SS 135) mounted on it, the 5600X runs perfectly fine without any issue.

Was the is-60 Evo better than the l9a at least?

With the 12015mm fan on top? For sure. Interestingly, when I used a NF-A12x15, it performed better than the NF-F12. My results for my Curve Optimizer should be taken with a grain of salt, as it ran fine most of the time with those settings but isn't the most stable. I have done further tuning to the CO settings now, but haven't gotten around to testing the other coolers again in an open bench format.
 
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xredlinexx1

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Mar 18, 2019
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Wasn't a fresh install of Windows unfortunately. Initially, I thought it was mounting pressure that was the main cause of the BSOD/overheating, but I repasted both the L9a and IS-47K to check pressure again, but both BSOD as well.

It's my daily driver work system that I just want to switch out coolers quickly enough to check out which would run better. I am running it with a MSI B550I Gaming Edge Wifi, 32GB of RAM. My totally unscientific results are in my spreadsheet here. My personal belief is that my 5600X didn't win the silicon lottery and probably just passed the baseline for production. Hahah.

Now with a bigger cooler (Thermalright SS 135) mounted on it, the 5600X runs perfectly fine without any issue.



With the 12015mm fan on top? For sure. Interestingly, when I used a NF-A12x15, it performed better than the NF-F12. My results for my Curve Optimizer should be taken with a grain of salt, as it ran fine most of the time with those settings but isn't the most stable. I have done further tuning to the CO settings now, but haven't gotten around to testing the other coolers again in an open bench format.
Sorry, I meant without the top fan. L9a vs is-60 Evo with only a 92mm fan underneath.
 

Revenant

Christopher Moine - Senior Editor SFF.N
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Revenant Tech
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Apr 21, 2017
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Wasn't a fresh install of Windows unfortunately. Initially, I thought it was mounting pressure that was the main cause of the BSOD/overheating, but I repasted both the L9a and IS-47K to check pressure again, but both BSOD as well.

It's my daily driver work system that I just want to switch out coolers quickly enough to check out which would run better. I am running it with a MSI B550I Gaming Edge Wifi, 32GB of RAM. My totally unscientific results are in my spreadsheet here. My personal belief is that my 5600X didn't win the silicon lottery and probably just passed the baseline for production. Hahah.

Now with a bigger cooler (Thermalright SS 135) mounted on it, the 5600X runs perfectly fine without any issue.



With the 12015mm fan on top? For sure. Interestingly, when I used a NF-A12x15, it performed better than the NF-F12. My results for my Curve Optimizer should be taken with a grain of salt, as it ran fine most of the time with those settings but isn't the most stable. I have done further tuning to the CO settings now, but haven't gotten around to testing the other coolers again in an open bench format.

Sounds like PBO is just not matching enough voltage to the frequency fast enough. Nice spreadsheet by the way.

I have that same motherboard. Have you tried using the auto OC? It's been stable on my 5950X though it pushes to 90C at all times.
 
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Revenant

Christopher Moine - Senior Editor SFF.N
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Revenant Tech
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Apr 21, 2017
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Here's a preview of the L9I tests that were run tonight. I haven't made them into fancy graphs yet, but you'll see them in the review.


Screenshot 2021-12-09 000306.png
 
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xredlinexx1

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hey, I just received my is-60 evo. Noticed it was a bit light compared to my l9a, considering its supposed to be 650g whereas the l9a is around 465g. I decided to weigh it and found it be 487g! That's with the additional 120mm fan that weighs over 100g!

If you can, can you please weigh yours. In the meantime, I plan to return mine. Unless i'm being really stupid, I don't see how this isn't a scam. I don't think there is any copper in it.
 

Revenant

Christopher Moine - Senior Editor SFF.N
Original poster
Revenant Tech
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Apr 21, 2017
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hey, I just received my is-60 evo. Noticed it was a bit light compared to my l9a, considering its supposed to be 650g whereas the l9a is around 465g. I decided to weigh it and found it be 487g! That's with the additional 120mm fan that weighs over 100g!

If you can, can you please weigh yours. In the meantime, I plan to return mine. Unless i'm being really stupid, I don't see how this isn't a scam. I don't think there is any copper in it.


That's a bit concerning. I'll weigh mine as soon as I get a new scale in. Though more material generally is better for soaking heat, it's not necessarily better than good fin design.
 

Neathdrawls

Airflow Optimizer
Jul 28, 2021
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hey, I just received my is-60 evo. Noticed it was a bit light compared to my l9a, considering its supposed to be 650g whereas the l9a is around 465g. I decided to weigh it and found it be 487g! That's with the additional 120mm fan that weighs over 100g!

If you can, can you please weigh yours. In the meantime, I plan to return mine. Unless i'm being really stupid, I don't see how this isn't a scam. I don't think there is any copper in it.

The IS-47K (the IS-60 Evo with top fan removed) should weigh around 500g, according to ID-Cooling themselves. I did a non-objective test of weighing both the full IS-60 Evo against the L9a by hand/feel, and yes, the L9a does feel heavier.

That being said, I found that the IS-60 Evo is a good top down cooler, for what it is worth, with both fans. Performance can be improved if you get a better 12015 fan up top, and without the top fan, the IS-60/IS-47K performs a couple degrees better than the L9a. Although at 47mm tall, the AXP90-x47 is still better but might be noisier if the fan is right up against your case.

L9a + Noctua fan ducts might be better for your use case if you are more worried.
 

Revenant

Christopher Moine - Senior Editor SFF.N
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Apr 21, 2017
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I wonder if they're including the box in the weight....
 
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xredlinexx1

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Mar 18, 2019
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I wonder if they're including the box in the weight....
You are correct. I weighed everything separately. Got roughly 655g for the whole package, whereas the website specs says "650g(with fan)". This is very misleading. When I weigh the Noctua l9a radiator and fan, I get the advertised weight in the specs. I did a lot of research before purchasing the is-60. I largely factored my purchase by its weight and composition compared to the l9a. I can't imagine it performing any better than the l9a, especially with a duct on the l9a. But, i'll definitely pay attention to your tests! Maybe I'll be wrong.
 
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Revenant

Christopher Moine - Senior Editor SFF.N
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Revenant Tech
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Apr 21, 2017
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You are correct. I weighed everything separately. Got roughly 655g for the whole package, whereas the website specs says "650g(with fan)". This is very misleading. When I weigh the Noctua l9a radiator and fan, I get the advertised weight in the specs. I did a lot of research before purchasing the is-60. I largely factored my purchase by its weight and composition compared to the l9a. I can't imagine it performing any better than the l9a, especially with a duct on the l9a. But, i'll definitely pay attention to your tests! Maybe I'll be wrong.

That explains it.

I have two Noctua coolers to test, and then I can run the Id Cooling. I’ll post the updates for you in this thread. In the meantime though, here is today’s behind the scenes pic.

02778F8C-9D79-4ED6-A57C-F7783F14548E.jpeg
 
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