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SM550+ : Switching to Ryzen 7 1700X & CPU Air Cooler (IS-60)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Following a pretty complex process I finally decided to update my Sliger SM550+ using my "unused" Ryzen 7 1700X.
Indeed, they are a lot of reasons : AMD AM4 ecosystem, Ryzen 7 1700X has no need of delidding IHS, 8 cores / 16 threads, similar gaming performances as core i7 4770K at same clock speed, nvme 2280 4x gen 3 access, etc...
But, to be honest, the main idea was to test (at reasonible costs) if Sliger SM550+ was truly capable to replace my beloved Cerberus-X...
To achieve this feat, I definitely needed to test cpu air cooler, in order to reach this "silent" area while on low load/idle.
Taking opportunity of amazon second hand Asus Rog Strix B450-i Motherboard + discount on Corsair lpx vengeance 16Go (3200 MTS @16-18-18-36...not brilliant vs my b-die flare-X 3200 MTS @ 14-14-14-34) I pushed "buy" button..
As cpu air cooler I chose ID-Cooling IS-60 (v2 with AM4 support and screws for fans of 15mm or 25mm)
Time to see if Asus B450-I is compatible with IS-60...
It's a pretty tight fit...but it fits with no issues!
As it was a second hand motherboard, I decided to test (bios post basically) it before assembly in SM550+.
For that I used my 2013 AMD R9 290X (with its waterblock, but no water), good old Seasonic 650w psu..
And bios posts on first attempt! The only default I found was a bent pin on USB 3.0 that I managed to unbend it easily.
Now time to move to Sliger SM550+!
Before one short word about dissambly of Asetek 645LT...well it went like a charm as I followed optimised process flow (secret is to make sure waterblock, psu connector and radiator are free to move/pivot.)
Afterwards assembly in SM550+ using cpu aircooler was very easy (only tricky part to plug power buttong connector).
Thumb up also for Asus B450-i layout, placing all connectors to motherboard edge.
I switched also to dual 120mm at bottom, placed as exhaust.
One word about fan that comes with IS-60. To be honest it's not bad at all, but its bearings were making some noise (on cpu load) compare to Noctua NF A12x15, thus I replaced it by Noctua quite quickly.
Now question is : Is SM550+ compatible with standard IS-60 (with its screws, it's reaching 57mm height)....
Yes it's compatible...SM550+ rules!!!
Enough of assembly, time to test this setup!
Here is component list :
Let's answer main question : do i reach silent computer under light load/idle? YES, YES and YES!!!!
What is noise on CPU heavy load? Well completely fine, audible but fan is reaching 1500 rpm for 68.3°C on T die!
Here is my standard Intel Burn Test 2.54 :
Here also, very interesting comparison on 3D MARK Time Spy, using same GPU but with different CPU :
Core i7 4770K (3.5Ghz) vs R7 1700X (Stock)
Core i7 4770K (3.5Ghz) vs R7 1700X (Stock) vs R7 1700X @4Ghz (Cerberus-x, Noctua C14S dual NF A14-2000rpm)
From this comparison I noticed :
To finish with benchmarks here is a screenshot from Gears 5 :
Final toughts
ID Cooling IS-60 with SM550+ is a wonderful combo (similar level as Loque Ghost S1 + Noctua L12).
At the beginning I was planning to still use Asetek 645LT as cpu cooler, but I was surprised by silent operation during windows 10 installation.
On top of that, while gaming, air cooler are better suited than asetek 645LT as they have access to fresh air (@3lfk1ng demonstrated it during its SFF cases battle)
At the end I didn't came back to Asetek 645LT as I knew it would have been worse on idle/low load noise.
Also note that audio output from this Asus B450-I was pretty good, nothing to complain versus my Asus Crosshair VI Hero. And it was definitely WAY better than my Asrock Z97e ITX/AC.
What are next steps ?
PS : Cats have already chosen their prefered case !
SM550+ : Switching to Ryzen 7 1700X & CPU Air Cooler (IS-60)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Following a pretty complex process I finally decided to update my Sliger SM550+ using my "unused" Ryzen 7 1700X.
Indeed, they are a lot of reasons : AMD AM4 ecosystem, Ryzen 7 1700X has no need of delidding IHS, 8 cores / 16 threads, similar gaming performances as core i7 4770K at same clock speed, nvme 2280 4x gen 3 access, etc...
But, to be honest, the main idea was to test (at reasonible costs) if Sliger SM550+ was truly capable to replace my beloved Cerberus-X...
To achieve this feat, I definitely needed to test cpu air cooler, in order to reach this "silent" area while on low load/idle.
Taking opportunity of amazon second hand Asus Rog Strix B450-i Motherboard + discount on Corsair lpx vengeance 16Go (3200 MTS @16-18-18-36...not brilliant vs my b-die flare-X 3200 MTS @ 14-14-14-34) I pushed "buy" button..
As cpu air cooler I chose ID-Cooling IS-60 (v2 with AM4 support and screws for fans of 15mm or 25mm)
Time to see if Asus B450-I is compatible with IS-60...
It's a pretty tight fit...but it fits with no issues!
As it was a second hand motherboard, I decided to test (bios post basically) it before assembly in SM550+.
For that I used my 2013 AMD R9 290X (with its waterblock, but no water), good old Seasonic 650w psu..
And bios posts on first attempt! The only default I found was a bent pin on USB 3.0 that I managed to unbend it easily.
Now time to move to Sliger SM550+!
Before one short word about dissambly of Asetek 645LT...well it went like a charm as I followed optimised process flow (secret is to make sure waterblock, psu connector and radiator are free to move/pivot.)
Afterwards assembly in SM550+ using cpu aircooler was very easy (only tricky part to plug power buttong connector).
Thumb up also for Asus B450-i layout, placing all connectors to motherboard edge.
I switched also to dual 120mm at bottom, placed as exhaust.
One word about fan that comes with IS-60. To be honest it's not bad at all, but its bearings were making some noise (on cpu load) compare to Noctua NF A12x15, thus I replaced it by Noctua quite quickly.
Now question is : Is SM550+ compatible with standard IS-60 (with its screws, it's reaching 57mm height)....
Yes it's compatible...SM550+ rules!!!
Enough of assembly, time to test this setup!
Here is component list :
- CPU : AMD Ryzen 7 1700X stock (my previous OC experience with this chip demonstrates little to no interest in OC)
- RAM : Corsair Vengeance LPX sold as 3200MTS @16-18-18-18-36 @1.35v...however, knowing Zen 1 chip I was expecting hard times to get 3200MTS, especially as my corsair sticks were not using b-die...but at the end I managed to get easily 3200MTS @18-18-18-18-36 @1.38v...no cold boot issues. Even if timings are not great compared to my Flare-X b-dies, main point was to reach 3200MTS to force FCLK to 1600Mhz (infinite fabric).
- Motherboard : Asus Rog Strix B450-I (all led desactivated)
- CPU cooler :
- Thermal paste : Noctua NT-H2
- Heatsink : ID-cooling IS-60 v2 (AM4 support)
- Fan : Noctua NF A12x15
- Bottom Fans : Fractal Design Venturi HP-12 PWM (placed as exhaust, calibrated to spin at 650rpm around)
- PSU : Corsair SF450
- Storage :
- Samsung 840 Pro 240Go (Sata)
- Crucial MX500 1To M.2 (put in Startech 2.5" box) (Sata)
- GPU : MSI GTX 1070 Gaming X
Let's answer main question : do i reach silent computer under light load/idle? YES, YES and YES!!!!
What is noise on CPU heavy load? Well completely fine, audible but fan is reaching 1500 rpm for 68.3°C on T die!
Here is my standard Intel Burn Test 2.54 :
Here also, very interesting comparison on 3D MARK Time Spy, using same GPU but with different CPU :
Core i7 4770K (3.5Ghz) vs R7 1700X (Stock)
Core i7 4770K (3.5Ghz) vs R7 1700X (Stock) vs R7 1700X @4Ghz (Cerberus-x, Noctua C14S dual NF A14-2000rpm)
From this comparison I noticed :
- R7 1700X boosts up to 3891Mhz at stock (please note it boots at 3.5Ghz all cores)
- Core i7 4770K has advantage on Graphic test 2 whatever overclocking is applied on R7 1700X
- Loved that +96% bump on CPU bench..
To finish with benchmarks here is a screenshot from Gears 5 :
Final toughts
ID Cooling IS-60 with SM550+ is a wonderful combo (similar level as Loque Ghost S1 + Noctua L12).
At the beginning I was planning to still use Asetek 645LT as cpu cooler, but I was surprised by silent operation during windows 10 installation.
On top of that, while gaming, air cooler are better suited than asetek 645LT as they have access to fresh air (@3lfk1ng demonstrated it during its SFF cases battle)
At the end I didn't came back to Asetek 645LT as I knew it would have been worse on idle/low load noise.
Also note that audio output from this Asus B450-I was pretty good, nothing to complain versus my Asus Crosshair VI Hero. And it was definitely WAY better than my Asrock Z97e ITX/AC.
What are next steps ?
- As I'm reaching silent area on idle/low load I can hear new noise...and first one to complain is Corsair SF450. Its fan is just horrible. Its bearing is starting to make some noise... For HTPC it's ok (as it's pretty far), but If I were supposed to replace my Cerberus-X I'll stick to my SX-800 LTI, SFX-L psu. Definitely I'm disappointed by quality of Corsair SF series PSU.
- ID cooling IS-60 is imposing some restrictions on RAM and Motherboard choice. For X570 mini ITX MB, at least Aorus X570-I pro is compatible with IS-60 :
- In terms of motherboard, I will wait for fanless gen 4 version. But main point is to have 2 m.2 nvme/sata slots without reducing bandwidth of main PCIe port (Asus B450-I is close but the 2 m.2 slots are reducing main pcie to 8x)
- Sliger SM series is still missing Gen 4 riser..
PS : Cats have already chosen their prefered case !
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