Smallest case for 65W CPU and DDR4

[Phryq]

Nah, keep up the crazy, that's why we are all here!

Not all heatpipes used water, they could contain other liquids such as ammonia as well, although IRRC it's been a very long while since quality heatpipes have contained liquid.

Unfortunately, all heatpipes have to be manufactured in a vaccuum so it's far easier to buy them elsewhere and find a local machinist to make you some form of custom block.

If you would like to play around with some heatpipes, here is good site to start:
https://www.enertron-inc.com/online-store/heatpipe.aspx

Great! I'm glad, because I have a habit of asking tons of theoretical questions before making decisions about anything

I'm seeing this case,
http://www.atechfabrication.com/information/HeatSync_300_Micro-Client_Performance.htm

It only has 4 pipes, but can apparently run an 80w cpu at 100% load? Better than a fan? I feel like I'm misunderstanding, or the specs are skewed. They sell this case with the option of a i7-6700 cpu, or an i5-6600K which is 91w. But looking at it compared to the H1.S, the H1.S must cool better (and is cheaper).

I'm also looking into plate-shaped vapor chambers. I imagine using one as the case lid would work extremely well?

Most modern heatpipes don't contain any liquid at all because a sintered heatpipe has proven to be far more effective at dissipating heat.

I watched this today which made me think water in the pipe was best. I keep reading that on the net as well, but maybe I'm reading old info. Or maybe it's your misunderstanding, and they all have water (but too little to even notice, for example, when the woman in the Youtube vid about cuts the pipe open, nothing spills). I think 'sintered heatpipe' just refers to the wicking structure. When I asked what kind he used, Lary told me "powder", which I think means "Sintered Powder Wick", which seems to me the best for situations where you don't want to rely on gravity.

There are four common heat pipe wick structures used in commercially produced heat pipes; Groove, Wire mesh, Sintered powder metal and Fiber/spring. Each heat pipe wick structure has its advantages and disadvantages. There is no perfect heat pipe wick. Refer to Figure. 2 for a brief glance of actual test performance of four commercially produced heat pipes. Every heat pipe wick structure has its own capillary limit. The groove heat pipe has the lowest capillary limit among the four, but works best under gravity assisted conditions where the condenser is located above the evaporator.

And another video talking about vapor chambers.

So now I'm thinking the ideal design would have a small vapor chamber underneath the heatpipes.

 

[EdZ]

So now I'm thinking the ideal design would have a small vapor chamber underneath the heatpipes.

The ideal design would use heat pipes joined to the vapour chamber, so they share the same working fluid. A vapour chamber is really just a wide, flat heatpipe in terms of mode of operation, so joining the heatpipes to the vapour chamber is mostly an issue of assembly complexity. A few consumer heatsinks already do this (e.g. the Cooler Master MasterAir Maker 8).

 

[Phryq]

The ideal design would use heat pipes joined to the vapour chamber, so they share the same working fluid. A vapour chamber is really just a wide, flat heatpipe in terms of mode of operation, so joining the heatpipes to the vapour chamber is mostly an issue of assembly complexity. A few consumer heatsinks already do this (e.g. the Cooler Master MasterAir Maker 8).

Right. I've been reading about those. But I don't think that could be integrated into a case like the H1.S, because the CPU is always in a different place. Unless he built the heat-pipe system around a specific motherboard. That company linked above seems to do custom pipes, so maybe they would build something like that, but I bet it costs a fortune. How much benefit would you get from this?

 

[Phryq]

Here's someone else trying to run a 65w in his H1.S case.
He's also running the power supply internally, so I'm at an advantage there (I'll just use a laptop brick).

I'd rather not drill holes in the lid - on the other hand, holes would allow me to have some copper pipes stick straight out of the case?

Or I could replace the lid with a dust mesh!

Here's the setup from the person linked above, he has an extra heatsinked and drilled holes in his lid,

 

[Phuncz]

Heatpipes are bad heat dissipators, they are excellent at absorbing heat and transporting it to the top side. For heat dissipation, you want as much surface area as possible and a tubular shape is about the worst form for maximum surface area. Ideally that's where you want to use a heatsink

 

[Phryq]

Heatpipes are bad heat dissipators, they are excellent at absorbing heat and transporting it to the top side. For heat dissipation, you want as much surface area as possible and a tubular shape is about the worst form for maximum surface area. Ideally that's where you want to use a heatsink

Ok, so that means the mesh idea is right out.

The H5 heatsink has 8 pipe slots instead of 6. Could we fit that heatsink into the H1.S, giving it 8 pipes? Then on top of all that, one more heatsink?

Or am I better off with the double-decker heatpipes, with 1 set connecting to the roof (or maybe a couple touching the front / back panels).

Also, in the French case, he's added a bunch of extra spikes to the outside. How much benefit do you think he gets from that?

 

[Phryq]

Ok, my newest new idea.

Take the smallest case possible for a thin-ITX or STX, fill it with mineral oil.

Or simply fill the H1.S with mineral oil (I know you'd have to seal off some holes).

How well would that work? I think I'd have to drain it before taking it on a plane.

 

[Phuncz]

It's more hassle than it's worth if you need to clean it out regularly. Most cases are also not "waterproof" so it might make liquid spil out of panel openings. Hot or cold temperatures could also make this an issue. I'm not saying it's not possible but it seems like something that can fail catastrophically and is not going to be allowed on the plane anyway.

 

[blubblob]

Mineral Oil is a bad idea. Aside from the mess it'll make, the thermal conductivity of mineral oil is actually worse than water (but better than air) and much worse than copper (by a factor of ~2000 at least).
Even with the low thermal conductivity, with such a low volume the mineral oil would be heat saturated pretty quickly at which point you are back to the size of the external surface area of the radiator fins.

 

[Phryq]

Ok, thanks.

I've read on the overclocking forum that passive cooling is problematic because other parts on the motherboard (chipset etc.) will overheat, and wear out. I don't really understand this because

1 - There seem to be no problems with passively cooled low watt CPU systems. Does the motherboard for a 35w cpu also have a low wattage chipset etc?

2 - Will these parts gradually wear out, giving me a slowly deteriorating / malfunctioning system? Or will is simply work perfectly until 1 day it dies? If it's the latter, I'm not really worried; I'll just use it until it dies, and then buy a new one. If it (overheating) will gradually slow down my system, then that's a big issue, and I'll definitely go the fan route. (Should I ask specific technical questions like this in a separate thread?)

I was thinking, I could passively cool the CPU, and then get a case fan, for example this

https://www.quietpc.com/na-ds-140-pwm

I could even cut a hole in the lid of the AS Rock, and put the fan in that hole, for maximum airflow (with an anti-dust mesh over the fan).

Doing it with an H1.S, I could either poke holes in the H1.S lid, or just forgo the lid all together, make the top 1 giant fan, and put an anti-dust mesh over it?

I'm also wonder, on a case like the H1.S, what is the 'bottleneck' of heat loss? I mean, what is the weakest link? The heat pipes? The surface area of the case?

If it's the surface area of the case, would putting copper heat-sinks on top of the case, or using a lid that had fins help significantly?

And ANOTHER idea, heatsinks on the back of the motherboard,

 

[Phuncz]

I've read on the overclocking forum that passive cooling is problematic because other parts on the motherboard (chipset etc.) will overheat, and wear out.

Overclocking and passive cooling are different mindsets, they usually don't have the same objectives. Generally you don't want the cheapest hardware because of lesser quality components (reduced temperature tolerance and lifespan with high temperatures) and if possible put heatsinks on components that don't have cooling but scald your fingers.

If passive cooling wasn't possible, companies like LogicSupply wouldn't have any business. Though it should go without saying that you don't plop high power consumption components into a passive case unless it has the capacity to cool it.

 

[Kmpkt]

Just throw a 180mm fan overtop of the whole motherboard and use a passive copper heatsink from someone like Dynatron IMO.

 

[Phryq]

Ok, which brings up the point... I've been reading about motherboards, and it seems some motherboards in some tests have run cooler than others (using the same CPU, case etc.) So... I'm looking ideally for an STX, or if not Thin-Itx case (because I want power supply from a laptop brick). But what is the 'best' motherboard in that form factor? It looks like there aren't many STX cases, and it looks like none of them have Intel vPro (I'd like to control the computer wirelessly though my laptop. vPro let's me control the bios wirelessly as well.)

I'm wondering if there will be any next gen (200 series) chipsets in STX or thin-itx form factor. I read the Q3 2016 will have h270 and z270 chipsets, but no next gen version of H110 (which is what they use in most STX boards).

Anyhow, so another totally new question - what is the 'best' STX board, and are there any (I'm almost certain there aren't) that have 2 m.2 2280 slots (so I can put in 2 NVMe drives, I know I'm asking too much). Should I wait for a 200 series motherboard?

 

[Kmpkt]

I personally prefer the AsRock Mini STX board right now, largely because I know for a fact it has a PCIe 3.0 x4 link to the M.2 slot, whereas I think some of the other models may be a slower connection. Of the ASUS boards I believe the S1 model has a slower M.2 slot while the S2 has a faster one, but I am not certain. The only other STX board out there right now are from ECS who has a longstanding history of less that optimal quality products as I understand it. Gigabyte was supposed to be releasing a board and it is up on their website, but I haven't seen it in the wild yet. The potential upside of that board is it has the PCB points for an auxiliary power in, but doesn't have the actual connector which means the board would need to be modded to apply auxiliary input (if even possible).

As far as power consumption goes, that information isn't anywhere out there so far as I can tell. You're probably talking about +/- 5W from board to board which is pretty negligible and shouldn't (in my opinion) be a deciding factor when you consider the other things that differentiate one board from another.

As far as having two NVMe drives, the only device right now that supports that functionality is the Skull Canyon NuC. Both M.2 slots are PCIe x4 3.0 which means you can max out two drives for speed as there is no practical BUS limitations on the drives. While you'd lose the capacity to swap your CPU with this option, it's probably the most robust device in this size range and the 6700HQ it has is a true quad core processor and by all accounts is quite ballzy.

Finally I think I'd wait until the early season tech trade shows (CES in January) for more information about Z270/H270 etc as well as more options for for mini STX. This is the show that AsRock announced the DeskMini 110 at last year and hopefully they'll have something more to offer later this year. I do know that this summer one of the AsRock reps was on here dropping hints that they're working on something. I am really hoping it is either a mini STX with multiple NVMe or some sort of PCIe slot (x4/x8 would be amazing).

 

[Phryq]

Thanks!

I looked at the Skull Canyon NuC, and it's perfect with the only downside being the CPU, although I guess an overclocked 6700HQ is as fast as a base-clocked 6700... but then I heard it's actually quite loud, (and expensive).

I think you're right that a 180mm fan over a passive CPU heatsink (vapor chamber) is best, maybe inside the ASRock (only lacking vPro)...

I also came across this looking at Dynatron heatsinks. It's that new Kinetic cooler, so the fans are metal. It's getting mixed reviews, but could fit inside a PT-13!

 

[Kmpkt]

Yeah I have an Engine 27, but I've been so busy with life and kids lately it's still in it's box. I think the 1151 equivalent of the T318 from dynatron would be your best bet assuming you still have clearance for a 180 x 25mm fan over it. Also the thing to consider when looking at the H110 Mini STX boards is that they won't upgrade past Kaby Lake anyhow. If you compare the 7700 non K with the Skull Lake 6700HQ I don't think it's that significant a difference.

 

[Stevo_]

I'd pitch the Morex 557B, just a bit taller than the Silverstone but will take full size IO shield giving more mobo options, rated for 65W CPU with HSF http://www.logicsupply.com/557b/

I've used this for fanless builds, case works out to 2.3L I believe. Right now it houses an Asrock J3710 based system for Linux distro testing.

 

[Phryq]

I'd pitch the Morex 557B

Would it work well however for Thin ITX or STX? I'm thinking these form factors are ideally for heat because of the power brick being external.

Yeah I have an Engine 27, but I've been so busy with life and kids lately it's still in it's box. I think the 1151 equivalent of the T318 from dynatron would be your best bet assuming you still have clearance for a 180 x 25mm fan over it. Also the thing to consider when looking at the H110 Mini STX boards is that they won't upgrade past Kaby Lake anyhow. If you compare the 7700 non K with the Skull Lake 6700HQ I don't think it's that significant a difference.

Oh! I'd be so happy if you could try it out and tell me how loud it is. If it's quiet, then it's really the ideal. When I was reading earlier about the new 'kinetic cooling' tech, it sounded like it would be revolutionary...

I'm a bit shocked though... how can a 7700 not be significantly faster than a 6700HQ, when it's 45w to 65... so a 20w increase as well as a generation. Right now I'm running a 4800MQ in my laptop; I was hoping for at least a 50% increase in CPU, and ideally more.

Another crazy idea - I could rip apart my current laptop. Put the motherboard in a case, add some ram, improve cooling.

These are my system's benchmarks,
http://www.userbenchmark.com/UserRun/2248805

 

[Phryq]

I'm also thinking - I don't *need* thin-ITX or STX small, but I really prefer their power system (using an external power brick)...

I've searched the next, but there's no such thing as an mATX that uses this system, right?

There are some mini ITX that have 4 ram slots, but they're for servers, expensive, and only take weak CPUs...

 

[Stevo_]

Would it work well however for Thin ITX or STX? I'm thinking these form factors are ideally for heat because of the power brick being external.



Oh! I'd be so happy if you could try it out and tell me how loud it is. If it's quiet, then it's really the ideal. When I was reading earlier about the new 'kinetic cooling' tech, it sounded like it would be revolutionary...

I'm a bit shocked though... how can a 7700 not be significantly faster than a 6700HQ, when it's 45w to 65... so a 20w increase as well as a generation. Right now I'm running a 4800MQ in my laptop; I was hoping for at least a 50% increase in CPU, and ideally more.

Another crazy idea - I could rip apart my current laptop. Put the motherboard in a case, add some ram, improve cooling.

These are my system's benchmarks,
http://www.userbenchmark.com/UserRun/2248805

Here's my setup, https://smallformfactor.net/forum/threads/mini-box-pico-psu-120wi-25v.876/

A direct ATX plug-in DCDC PSU from mini-box running from a 19v brick thru a 7.4mm to 5.5mm reduction cable

EDIT: There's several solutions involving either 12V or 19V bricks, 12V probably cleaner for mini-box PSUs and allow higher power solutions as well fro direct plug-in ATX DCDCs until HD_Plex comes out with theirs. A thin-ITX could be used especially if it has a full shield supplied. STX not so much without modding for mobo standoffs.