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Stalled Winter One -- 15.6L SFF case, 3090 Support, 3-slot GPUs, dual 280mm radiators, CFD Optimized Design

WinterCharm

Master of Cramming
Original poster
Jan 19, 2019
428
1,941
I wasn’t even using dual 240GTS’s. They were Magicool G2 Slims.

Which are about 15% less performance than a 240GTS. And a 240GTS is about 20% less cooling performance than a 280GTS.

?

Yeah. Up until now ALL the thermal performance of Winter One has been under-estimated and under-reported. I don't think people realize just how well this case cools, because I basically went around gathering every spare % of optimization, and adding it all together, in designing this thing. Seeing Qzrx's reaction, when their build was utterly silent during a heatwave with ambient temps in 85F / 30C range was really fun. Their previous build would hit emergency max fan speed and coolant temps of 50ºC in those same conditions, and yet there was winter one With 40% of its thermal capabilities still left on the table shrugging off those conditions like it was a chilly fall morning. And this was while running a TORTURE TEST on the CPU + GPU...

I really don't think any of you will understand until you actually build in this thing... it's something you have to experience for yourself, before it hits you, just how completely insane the cooling performance of this case is.

I really want you all to understand just how far I pushed the aero and acoustics in this case. I shit you not, there is an external SSD with 252GB of aero data sitting on it, just for Winter One. (not the SPK, that's literally another external SSD) -- and y

Greetings! I can probably share my experience of my personal rig using 5.2liter aluminum case by LzMod. The panels are aluminum, super sturdy and they have thickness of around 3-4mm each. After around 5 months of use, the back panel bends due to... the weight of both the motherboard and the gpu?
It behooves me why this happens since the components are not that heavy, I havent changed any of the components ever since i built it; and this hapened just a few weeks ago, it was fine before that.
I know this is rather unhelpful information but I can confirm that at 3mm thickness, it can still bend.

Yup. Welcome to levers. From where it is bending, looks like the weight of the GPU is exerting a massive outward force around the bottom ⅔ of that panel. I'm not sure exactly what grade / material the aluminum is made of in your case, but it's definitely bending. O_O

There's a very good reason Winter One is made almost entirely out of Aluminum 6061-T6 Cold-finished (more properly Cold-rolled T651 billets, for those of you who know your metallurgy) 6061 is heated, then quenched, then tempered / aged for 8 hours, and *then* cold-rolled. Those last few steps increase its strength, stiffness, and straightness beyond "regular" 6061 or 5052 (the two most common alloys).

Is the bottom panel same as top? In other words, can this case be used horizontally if I mount my own feets? This would look gorgous next to Hifi audio.

The bottom and top panels are the same. -- Feet are attached to the holes via a custom countersunk washer (gives clearance to fans above / below. The feet can also easily be respositioned onto the holes in the side panels, meaning you can use the original feet to place the case horizontally. For horizontal cooling, it's best to set flow in one direction (even with perforated panels), as the case is designed to create an "air jacket" that prevents recirculation of hot exhaust air in this configuration.

Here's the Air Jacket. See how it seals the space between the intake / exhaust, on the side with the feet? That prevents hot air coming out of the left from looping back around to the intake on the right. :D


What has made Winter One's airflow *so* tricky to optimize, and so damn difficult, and so incredibly good, was accounting for **ALL** orientations and panel types, and still achieving the airflow necessary in every scenario... Vertical, horizontal, all-exhaust, balanced, etc... It was brutally difficult finding the correct design and range of hole arrangements, sizes, lengths, edge characteristics, and all the other little details, to create something of this caliber.

PS: you need 2cm of space between any panel that's exhausting or intaking air, and a nearby wall, so please don't shove it in a tiny cabinet with no space on each side -- the feet are 2cm tall for a very good reason. :)

Did something change? Because my understanding was..
a) It will also have 280GTS + 27mm fan support (e.g. P14 PST)
b) Using a D5 without a reservoir is possible with Dual 280.

A) No nothing has changed. The beta testers will tell you this: I like to leave 1mm of "extra" tolerance on every claimed part fit. So while Winter One officially supports 55mm radiators/fans, the "true" number is 57mm. You will have a *very* tight fit, but it will fit, assuming your chosen fans are toleranced on the outside edge (27mm -0.4mm), and not 27±0.2mm ?.

The reason everything fit perfectly in the Beta units is that this type of padding is necessary if you want to not run into a barely-in-tolerance part being unable to fit. Minor variations matter, hence the official numbers in the sizing chart.

B) It is, provided your GPU is short enough to give you the clearance to do so. The Cad model shot I posted a while back, showing a pump/res was with a shorter GPU. With 315mm GPU length, there is room in Winter one to use something like a 240mm card, giving you 75mm of clearance, for a D5 pump such as the Swiftech MCP655 with a pump top, while using dual 280mm radiators. This is entirely possible, as reference Design PCBs for the 3080 / 3090 are just 220mm in length, even though the *coolers* are much larger, water blocks like the EK block for these designs also top out at 220mm length :D Which leaves room for a D5 with a res.

Anyone have a source for 280 GTS rads in the US? It seems this thread emptied the entire North American stock of them ?

Hehehe oops. ?
 
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Mikecom32

Chassis Packer
Oct 27, 2020
17
26
PPC is out of the regular black version but they still have the crossflow and the white GTS 280.

Heads up for anyone considering the xflow 280 - it will not fit. The total length is 326mm, which is well over the amount of clearance we have. I went with white GTS rads.


B) It is, provided your GPU is short enough to give you the clearance to do so. The Cad model shot I posted a while back, showing a pump/res was with a shorter GPU. With 315mm GPU length, there is room in Winter one to use something like a 240mm card, giving you 75mm of clearance, for a D5 pump such as the Swiftech MCP655 with a pump top, while using dual 280mm radiators. This is entirely possible, as reference Design PCBs for the 3080 / 3090 are just 220mm in length, even though the *coolers* are much larger, water blocks like the EK block for these designs also top out at 220mm length :D Which leaves room for a D5 with a res.

This is incredibly helpful. Building a 5950X + 3080 FE, both on water, with two 280 GTS rads. Would this D5 pump / res combo fit? The dimensions are here for reference (78 x 91 x 198mm).
 
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Goatee

King of Cable Management
Jun 22, 2018
739
1,513
Anyone have a source for 280 GTS rads in the US? It seems this thread emptied the entire North American stock of them ?
Hehehe oops. ?

I have been having a trawl on the UK sites and I see the same. I guess the other option is the B-RD280-TN then. Seems to be the other radiator supported

Guess I should make this in to a list then.

HWL280GTS - 312mm x 153mm x 29.6mm - 16 FPI - 16 flow channels , twin pass
HWL L OEM - 310mm x 140mm x 30mm - 16FPI - 14 Flow channels, twin pass (eg. XR5, Bitspower Leviathan)
B-RD280-TN - 310mm x 142mm x 29mm - 14 FPI - 17 flow channels, single pass
 
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Koxx5D

SFF Lingo Aficionado
Oct 26, 2020
110
98
I have been having a trawl on the UK sites and I see the same. I guess the other option is the B-RD280-TN then. Seems to be the other radiator supported

HWL280GTS - 312mm x 153mm x 29.6mm - 16 FPI - 16 flow channels , twin pass
B-RD280-TN - 310mm x 142mm x 29mm - 14 FPI - 17 flow channels, single pass

There are the HWL oems, ie Corsair Hydro X Series XR5
 
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Post-Newt

SFF Lingo Aficionado
Oct 12, 2020
105
247

DrHudacris

King of Cable Management
Jul 20, 2019
918
1,720
Here's a tidbit of info for everyone here. All the HWL rebrands are using the HWL L-series radiator. The rebrand just throws a name on the side and increases the price.

https://www.performance-pcs.com/wat...-series-280-stealth-radiator-nls280-f2pb.html

However, don't expect the L-series (rebrands) to perform as well as the GTS.

Yep, the L series is effectively a GTS core minus 2 water tubes. The resulting radiator has higher flow restriction (and GTS is a pretty high restriction rad to begin with) and narrower.

Nonetheless, I still like the bitspower leviathan as they have 4 ports total vs 2 on most other.
 

G23 Mr Gimp

Caliper Novice
Bronze Supporter
Sep 14, 2020
32
90
It looks as if the Leviathan is the only option in the UK currently as everywhere is out of stock of the HWL rads :/
 

WinterCharm

Master of Cramming
Original poster
Jan 19, 2019
428
1,941
Heads up for anyone considering the xflow 280 - it will not fit. The total length is 326mm, which is well over the amount of clearance we have. I went with white GTS rads.
This is incredibly helpful. Building a 5950X + 3080 FE, both on water, with two 280 GTS rads. Would this D5 pump / res combo fit? The dimensions are here for reference (78 x 91 x 198mm).

Only issue that I see is the reservoir is too tall -- you really want something under 154mm for height, so try and get a Res that's 150mm or 100mm tall, and you'll be fine :) but other than a shorter tube, it should be okay.
 
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BigBadGiantHand

Minimal Tinkerer
New User
Oct 29, 2020
4
5
Only found out about this project recently, but instantly backed it when I saw what you’re doing! Love the look/design of the case, and having the panels of the case basically be the entire “support structure” is genius - frees up a bunch of space inside the case.

I’m coming from a NCASE M1, and it’s a great case - been using it for 4+ years - but just too tight and not enough air flow for my tastes. I need cooler temps, especially since getting my hands on a 3080.

Two questions:

1) I currently have a 240mm NZXT AIO - did you think an AIO such as this will play nice with the case? Most of the water cooling discussion in this thread seems to be around custom loops, which is not a thing I’m actively looking to get into.

2) Will we eventually be able to buy different side panels? I’m going with the perforated panels because I want maximum airflow/cooling capability, but I do like the look of the solid of the solid panels and would like to someday play around with mixing and matching different panels.

Super excited for this project - now I just hope it gets funded. Good luck!
 

Qzrx

Buried under radiators
Dec 29, 2019
90
219
1) I currently have a 240mm NZXT AIO - did you think an AIO such as this will play nice with the case? Most of the water cooling discussion in this thread seems to be around custom loops, which is not a thing I’m actively looking to get into.

Can’t see why 240 AIO’s would have any problem fitting. I’ve got enough space to spare using 240mm non-AIO radiators that I routed a good number of my cables along the gutter between the radiators/fans and the case. CPU cooler height clearances shouldn’t pose any issues either.
 
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jupiterking

SFF Lingo Aficionado
Oct 23, 2020
90
163
Winter suggested the 240 NZXT to me. I have an older Corsair AIO but the hoses stick out and I couldn’t bend them enough. The NZXT has the hoses on the side on 90’s so it’ll fit much easier.
 
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BigBadGiantHand

Minimal Tinkerer
New User
Oct 29, 2020
4
5
Can’t see why 240 AIO’s would have any problem fitting. I’ve got enough space to spare using 240mm non-AIO radiators that I routed a good number of my cables along the gutter between the radiators/fans and the case. CPU cooler height clearances shouldn’t pose any issues either.

Winter suggested the 240 NZXT to me. I have an older Corsair AIO but the hoses stick out and I couldn’t bend them enough. The NZXT has the hoses on the side on 90’s so it’ll fit much easier.

Nice! Thank you both.

Now I need this to be funded - literally the type of case I’ve been looking for months, the perfect balance between size and thermals.

...and I need enough people to buy in to get me that silver and black color variant. Looks soooo good.