Prototype The world most flexible SFF case? LOUQE Ghost S1

lawney

SFF Lingo Aficionado
Jun 28, 2018
104
68
I really enjoyed my watercooled Ghost, thermals and noise levels were very good. I always said if I had it to do over I would air cool it because the Ghost just looks better without a tophat. I decided to spend my stimulus money on a RTX 2080 Super and this gave me a perfect reason to air cool the Ghost. So far thermals and noise levels are not bad and I really like the way it looks. Oh and I picked up a new grill for my Ghost.

I have had considerably better thermals and sound levels air cooling with a medium top hat and two NF-A12x25 exhaust fans at the top. It was like an oven without them, but a small tophat and NF-A12x15's would probably be just as good.
 

fabio

Shrink Ray Wielder
Apr 6, 2016
1,885
4,325
Joining the full air team! I agree about the top fans, they helps a lot! I think also to have found a nice way to like the hats in general. Cutting it with another color helps a lot IMO, I love more the proportion and helps to avoid the direct visual connection between panels/hats with not proper identical colors!

BTW, the BlackRidge with a 15mm fan does a GREAT and silent job to cool my 3900X stock, helped by the 2 Noctua S12A exhausting with no noise at all.

Having also the small silver hats allows the top grill to not be in contact with the fan, for lower noise.

Image.jpeg
 

paulesko

Master of Cramming
Jul 31, 2019
415
322
I thought tophats were not possible to stakc! Some told me it was not possible if I remember correctly :( That´s nice!
 

rfarmer

Spatial Philosopher
Jul 7, 2017
2,588
2,702
I have had considerably better thermals and sound levels air cooling with a medium top hat and two NF-A12x25 exhaust fans at the top. It was like an oven without them, but a small tophat and NF-A12x15's would probably be just as good.
I have a small tophat ordered, should be here this week. My CPU and GPU temps aren't terrible but my rear mounted M.2 SSD runs about 10C higher with no exhaust fans.
 

Boki4

Case Bender
New User
Sep 17, 2020
2
0
Hello, everyone!
Last few days, I have been thinking of building mini itx rig. Was looking around, and 2 of my favourites are Ghost s1 and Dan a4.
In my current PC, PSU is https://www.fractal-design.com/products/power-supplies/ion/ion-sfx-650w-gold/black/ (dimensions are 125 x 125 x 63.5 mm ). Can this PSU fit in Ghost s1? I cant find exact dimensions of PSU in Ghost s1, only that it supports sfx and sfx-l. Thank you in advance.
 

rfarmer

Spatial Philosopher
Jul 7, 2017
2,588
2,702
Hello, everyone!
Last few days, I have been thinking of building mini itx rig. Was looking around, and 2 of my favourites are Ghost s1 and Dan a4.
In my current PC, PSU is https://www.fractal-design.com/products/power-supplies/ion/ion-sfx-650w-gold/black/ (dimensions are 125 x 125 x 63.5 mm ). Can this PSU fit in Ghost s1? I cant find exact dimensions of PSU in Ghost s1, only that it supports sfx and sfx-l. Thank you in advance.
It will fit but you won't be able to install a fan under the PSU, also make sure and mount the PSU in the upper position.
 

Boki4

Case Bender
New User
Sep 17, 2020
2
0
Regarding temperatures. Will I be able to manage "healthy" temperatures on my i5-10600k with air cooler only NH-L12 Ghost S1 Edition?.
My GPU is Asus RTX 2060 Turbo, with blower style fans. Top hat with coolers really ruin aesthetics for me so I wonder if you can manage it with NH-L12 Ghost S1 Edition only.
 

Sijnk

Chassis Packer
Apr 2, 2019
14
8
Hi Guys... i look for a black top. Not a tophat. The top. Is there someone who would sell it? I am from Germany
 

lallyt

Efficiency Noob
Oct 29, 2019
5
3
Hi I'm looking for a Ghost S1 TopHat Small Limestone for my build, is anyone looking to sell their Small Top Hat? :)
 

darkthom

What's an ITX?
New User
Oct 21, 2020
1
0
For the French buyers: PostNord will not send you a lot of details, but they use Chronopost in France, you can use the number they give you on the website here: https://www.chronopost.fr/fr#/step-home

I have used chorno, but wasn't very satisfied with it. So I started looking for a better alternative. And found this delivery service https://www.parcelabc.fr/ . I am very happy that I found it. The speed and price is really good. So if you will ever need delivery services I would highly recommend trying them.
 

flar

Average Stuffer
Jan 19, 2020
78
46
For reference, my current build.

The EKWB 3080 FE water blocks just came available for preorder so I grabbed one. I'm still trying to get a 3080 FE for my build, so I have a month or so to get a 3080 and plan how I'm going to fit it.

The 3080 FE water block is the easy part. It's really short - EKWB lists the length as 205mm - but I want to add a reservoir in the extra space while I'm at it. The S1 allows 316mm for the GPU which gives me just over 100mm of space to work with.

To that end, I have also ordered a Swiftech MCRES Micro Rev 2. The MCRES is 103mm if you leave the mounting tabs on it, but since I have nothing to attach them to I will probably be filing them off leaving me with the main body that is only 76mm long. (See measurement diagram below.)

So, 205mm + 76mm == 281 mm in total length, leaving 35mm free space, but the complications come in when you try to plumb it all together.

The FE water block will come with 2 terminals - both have the in/out ports at the back end of the card where the FE PCBs have the V shaped cutout. One terminal will have the ports mounted in the typical direction - facing the front of the card, i.e. facing the Ghost side panel. The other terminal will have the ports mounted facing the rear of the card, i.e. towards the Ghost front panel and the empty space where I want to put a reservoir.

The FE block will be 29mm thick which doesn't leave much room for fittings installed in front-facing ports to clear the side panel. The space for the GPU is only just over 51mm wide and I don't know if that counts the space between the back of the GPU and the backbone of the case. The Koolance low profile connectors that I'm using for my current build with the 2080Ti block are just under 20mm from the face that they mount into so this would just squeak by, but the gotcha with the Koolance fittings is that the exit port is flush with the surface so I may not be able to use them if the lip of the terminal is too wide. Also, they don't leave a lot of clearance in my current build and the 2080Ti block seems a lot thinner than the 3080 block (I can't find a spec for the 2080 Ti block to compare with, though).

Alternatively, using a straight out fitting on the rear-facing terminal gives plenty of room for tube routing if you ignore the reservoir I want to put in that space. If I mount the reservoir flush against the front panel, then I have about 35mm between the two ideally (it remains to be seen if the 205mm length that EKWB quotes includes the rear bracket or not). That would be a tight fit for a straight through connection between the two. Also, only one of the connections would go straight into the reservoir, the other connections on the reservoir and GPU would have to angle off to different destinations all within that 35mm space. Not even 2 Koolance low profile connectors could sit end to end there.

Potentially I could offset them so that the straight through path would connect top port on one to the bottom port on the other, allowing the other ports to get the full 35mm gap to vector off somewhere else. I'd have to diagram that out to see if the routing looks nice or just makeshift. I'm also hoping to reclaim the space under the PSU for a fan and so the offset positioning would likely have the reservoir encroaching on that space. I'm assuming that the GPU ports are intended to be used as intake on top with outlet on bottom. I know that most GPU blocks run within a degree or so in reverse, but the 3080 block is kind of weird so I'm not sure I want to buck the design intent there. Similarly the reservoir ports seem to be similarly designed, assuming that the lowest port is best used as an outlet to put it as far from the air pocket as it can get. This means that I'm likely to have to offset the reservoir downwards so that its intake lines up with the GPU's outlet.

The MCRES does have other ports - 2 on the side that would face the GPU. One on the bottom that they typically show holding a temperature sensor. And one on the top that is typically indicated as a fill port. That tasking of the ports makes sense for the four ports so I don't see trying to get fancy with alternate routing, though I currently have my temp sensor in an extra port on the radiator so I haven't decided if I'm going to swap it to the reservoir.

Main questions I have:
  • Is 35mm too short to connect port to port in a straight through fashion?
  • Is there another reservoir to consider for that location that might be slimmer and have a wider port spacing?
  • Is a reservoir under the radiator considered a bit odd?
  • Reservoir should usually go right before the pump, but I don't think I have the space for that here. Is Rad/Pump/CPU/GPU/Res/Rad a reasonable order?
  • I could probably also consider Rad/Pump/CPU/Res/GPU/Rad.
  • Rad/Res/Pump/CPU/GPU/Rad would have a lot of tubes coming and going in the narrow space between GPU and Reservoir and I'm not sure I can offset them enough to avoid collisions.

Block diagram of MCRES for reference:
 

Revenant

Christopher Moine - Senior Editor SFF.N
Revenant Tech
SFFn Staff
Apr 21, 2017
1,670
2,698
Dear Louqe,

I finally bought and built your case. Very well made and I like the materials. However...

It needs to be 5mm bigger in all directions.

5mm width GPU side massively improves GPU compatibility.

5mm width on the CPU side gets users the Ghost L12S with no mods. Massive improvement in CPU cooling.

10mm in length improves GPU compatibility.

10mm in height...thing fan up top? Not sure really. I just included it for proportions.

Yes...I am completely ignoring that this would basically mean a massive retooling and redesign making it completely unrealistic. 😅

Ghost is great though.
 
Last edited:

fabio

Shrink Ray Wielder
Apr 6, 2016
1,885
4,325
Dear Louqe,

I finally bought and built your case. Very well made and I like the materials. However...

It needs to be 5mm bigger in all directions.

5mm width GPU side massively improves GPU compatibility.

5mm width on the CPU side gets users the Ghost L12S with no mods. Massive improvement in CPU cooling.

10mm in length improves GPU compatibility.

10mm in height...thing fan up top? Not sure really. I just included it for proportions.

Yes...I am completely ignoring that this would basically mean a massive retooling and redesign making it completely unrealistic. 😅

Ghost is great though.
They will never do it. People have asked for it BEFORE the general first production, and they didn’t want to do 😉
 

Revenant

Christopher Moine - Senior Editor SFF.N
Revenant Tech
SFFn Staff
Apr 21, 2017
1,670
2,698
They will never do it. People have asked for it BEFORE the general first production, and they didn’t want to do 😉

LOL. So I've heard. Doing it would cost a fortune now anyway. Sill a nice case.
 

admirerden

Cable Smoosher
Apr 4, 2019
11
11
I've made a build with Ryzen 5900X in Ghost S1. It wan't easy considering I don't like “top hats”.

 

Questors

SFF Lingo Aficionado
Oct 28, 2018
122
82
I've made a build with Ryzen 5900X in Ghost S1. It wan't easy considering I don't like “top hats”.

The build looks nice. I like the full copper heat sink.

I don't mind the top hat myself. I am using them in current build. My only issue with them is, with the precision CNC machining can attain and the cost of the case, there should have been a better fit. Rather than a fine line running around the chassis, there is more like a demilitarized zone, a no-man's land, where the top hat and the main chassis meets.

I am still going to use them though. While caring about how the build looks, it is more important to have the functional water cooled loop doing it's job. Lack of GPU has the project on extended hold.
 

admirerden

Cable Smoosher
Apr 4, 2019
11
11

The build looks nice. I like the full copper heat sink.

I don't mind the top hat myself. I am using them in current build. My only issue with them is, with the precision CNC machining can attain and the cost of the case, there should have been a better fit. Rather than a fine line running around the chassis, there is more like a demilitarized zone, a no-man's land, where the top hat and the main chassis meets.

I am still going to use them though. While caring about how the build looks, it is more important to have the functional water cooled loop doing it's job. Lack of GPU has the project on extended hold.
Top hats are nice idea, but I'd prefer them to be different versions of the case itself, not additional parts. (I understand it significantly raises the cost of production in that case, that's why it's done like we have it now.)
 
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