Slim PC build under 25mm

[R3venger]

Hello guys, girls, ladies and gentlemen,

This is my first post in this forum. I had an idea about a small system, which could be attached behind a screen or perhaps ( maybe its possible) to attach a display to this build.

I´m planning to build a Pc with a Thin-ITX-motherboard, an intel 45w or 65w processor. For some gaming opportunities, im plannig to fill it with a GTX 970.

The heatsink should be realised with a lot of copper, heatpipes and more copper.

The picture below shows the first concept I made with Solidworks.

I Hope its possible to get rid of the heat with one radial fan, but if its not working, im going to use a GTX 950.

The GTX 960 from Nvidia is not an Option because it has a critical power consumption and always uses 2 slots.

The GTX 970 needs 150w and could be powered by a seperate DC-DC converter and +20w prom the PCIE x4 connector.

Same for the GTX 950 with 90w TDP, 75w from a DC-DC power supply + 20-25w from the PCIE connector.

The Radiator should cool CPU and GPU together, with only 20mm from bottom to top

 

[confusis]

I'd love to see this built. uSFF

 

[QinX]

Ow man, that's looking good

Mind if I dive in right away?

1) Are you planning to do a unisink? 1 Heatsink shared between CPU and GPU?
2) The mounting for the CPU Cooling looks reminiscent of the H5 system from HDPlex. Is that how you are planning to make you heatsink?
3) How are you going to attach the copper fins to the heatpipes?

Running with a single blower fan sounds very optimistic. My H2O-Micro had a dual 92mm radiator with 3000 RPM fans and it struggled when CPU and GPU are fully loaded.

I'm really curious how this is going to work out!

 

[iFreilicht]

Very cool idea! I would love to see it work out, but I agree with QinX that you'll probably not be able to cool the thing effectively enough for a 970 to work. A 950 sounds more reasonable. With it you could also dismiss the additional DCDC converter and just go with a single one like H2O-Micro did.

It also seems that 25mm are a little too optimistic. Yes, the thin mITX board you've got modelled there has a rather low component height on the back, but you'll still need about 3mm of clearance there. Add to that the ~1.5mm board, 20mm primary component height, 1mm clearance there and 1mm (probably more) outer case material, and we're already at 27.5mm. Still impressive, though.

 

[R3venger]

The Radiator will be connected with 4 to 5 heatpipes to the cpu and 6-8 heatpipes to the gpu.

I have to test if its possible.
A reason why i want to build this, is that there are Notebooks 40mm thick using a GTX 980 with 185w and a 65w haswell processor.

But i still need a correct modell for a gtx 970 from gainward and a thin itx motherboard.

Then i will work on the heatsink and the mounting system.

I also thougt about a dvi to lvds adapter to put a display onto it.

For sure i will update this thread and give away the STEP datas if somebody wants them.

 

[|||]

The MXM cards the mobile 980 GPUs will be on are limited to 100W (less than a 960). The base clock frequency has been notched down slightly and there will probably be some significant throttling to keep thermals in check. The parts used for the mobile units are probably binned for very low leakage and have their voltage turned down.

 

[R3venger]

The MXM cards the mobile 980 GPUs will be on are limited to 100W (less than a 960). The base clock frequency has been notched down slightly and there will probably be some significant throttling to keep thermals in check. The parts used for the mobile units are probably binned for very low leakage and have their voltage turned down.

I think you got the specs for the gtx 980m
If you look it up i think it should be 185w and a 200w version

 

[R3venger]

Ow man, that's looking good

Mind if I dive in right away?

1) Are you planning to do a unisink? 1 Heatsink shared between CPU and GPU?
2) The mounting for the CPU Cooling looks reminiscent of the H5 system from HDPlex. Is that how you are planning to make you heatsink?
3) How are you going to attach the copper fins to the heatpipes?

Running with a single blower fan sounds very optimistic. My H2O-Micro had a dual 92mm radiator with 3000 RPM fans and it struggled when CPU and GPU are fully loaded.

I'm really curious how this is going to work out!

Im thinking about softly solder the heatpipes into the copper cooler.
Maybe it is an option to thrill the holes an mill an H7 fitting into it.
So it would be possible to fit the heatpipes with a little bit of thermal paste into the cooler.

 

[|||]

I think you got the specs for the gtx 980m
If you look it up i think it should be 185w and a 200w version

If you're going off the MaximumPC MSI GT72 review, they were looking at the 230W brick and just subtracting out the CPU. But they should have also subtracted any storage, memory, motherboard (and any controllers that are on it), I/O (it has 6 USB 3.0 ports which could technically each support 9W devices), LEDs, fans, and, in particular, the screen, to get the what remains over for the GPU. The MXM specification calls out 100W, unless NVIDIA is taking exception to it (which is possible, but I have heard anything about it yet).

 

[CC Ricers]

I've been meaning to find out if a GTX 950 can be cooled passively in a case roughly that size. How big of a copper heatsink you might need (and properly finned) to handle 90W max TDP.

 

[QinX]

Im thinking about softly solder the heatpipes into the copper cooler.
Maybe it is an option to thrill the holes an mill an H7 fitting into it.
So it would be possible to fit the heatpipes with a little bit of thermal paste into the cooler.

Soldering would yield the best temperatures, but thermal paste might make future upgrades a lot easier.

I've been meaning to find out if a GTX 950 can be cooled passively in a case roughly that size. Kudos for QinX for bringing up the HD Plex H5, because browsing through the accessories section, looks like you can! There's this GPU passive heatsink that supports up to 95W TDP, perfect for the 950. It stays within single slot height too. I don't know if you will consider it or use a beefier heatsink, but I would definitely want to buy this and downsize my current system by a lot.

I think you are mistake what that heatsink does, it's meant to attach a lot of heatpipes to the wall of the H5 case and passively vent the heat out. That heatsink on you link doesn't have a real cooling function, maybe 5-10W or so, that heatsink also makes it 2 slot. But take out a dremel and you might have a single slot solution, but you do need to have a good heatsink to attach the heatpipes to.

 

[R3venger]

I just googled the specs for the gtx 980 which is used in notebooks

I think sodlering would be perfect because im planning to make cooling blocks for cpu and gpu like the hdplex version, where you can place the heatpipes and the screw the top down.
So the 30 half a millimeter thick copper plates can be soldered to the heatpipes
Maybe i could use 40-50 0,3mm thick copper plates.

 

[EdZ]

Yup, the GTX980 MXM module has a nominal TDP of 165W, with how much further you can push it dependant on the cooling system and the chip capability (overspecced power delivery). In practice, no laptop with one of these modules will achieve that on battery, and many will not achive that on an AC adapter, being limited by their thermal solution.