NCASE M1 picture and build general log

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I'm loving seeing these full loop builds :cool:

Right in the face of all those people who say a 240 rad "isn't enough" for such a powerful rig.

Your design made it happen :D. I'm still amazed that I can get such power and temps in such a small, elegant rig. It's a quarter of the size and at least half the weight of my old PC, while being just as powerful (more powerful now that the 290X has plenty of room to breath temp wise). My monitor now is going to be more of a pain in the ass to haul that the computer.
 
There were some who drew their conclusions based on the temps of your own prototype testing of the 7970. Seeing "62 C max on Furmark" on a 290X I finally feel a bit vindicated in my disbelief of your results :p :D
I wonder if the 290X is throttling under Furmark. The only other thing I can think of is that I ran my watercooling tests with the Demciflex filters and side panel on, which make for moderately restricted airflow. Either way though, I think real-world load performance (e.g. gaming) is more than acceptable, considering. Having this much power in this small a package, while not howling like a banshee was one of the things I was aiming for, so I'm pretty pleased with how it's turned out.
 
I wonder if the 290X is throttling under Furmark. The only other thing I can think of is that I ran my watercooling tests with the Demciflex filters and side panel on, which make for moderately restricted airflow. Either way though, I think real-world load performance (e.g. gaming) is more than acceptable, considering. Having this much power in this small a package, while not howling like a banshee was one of the things I was aiming for, so I'm pretty pleased with how it's turned out.

In BF4 I swear it's not getting more than 52-55 C.

I'll take pictures of my temp results tonight....all the previous reports were informal testing to see what I just put together was capable of.

Furmark was showing that my card was @ 1 GHZ the whole way through. I do not have Overdrive activated yet...I'm a little nervous pushing the card too much because I dont want to overstress the PSU.
 
I'm pretty pleased with how it's turned out.

Indeed, my main doubt about the whole project was more about getting the tubing in than temps. Once you'd shown that with the prototype, then it became clear you really had achieved a decent air and watercooling case in a small size that the main case manufacturers are frightened to go near. Job well done! :D
 
So I ran 8 threads of small FFT in prime95 for 10mins(yes, I know thats not nearly enough time). Hottest core peaked at 80C, coolest at 72C. Seems rather hot at stock speeds no? I wonder if its the gap between the fan and the heatsink or if I put too much paste on. As soon as I clicked stop all the cores jumped down to the upper 40s.

Just noticed this thread. Those are not stock speed temps. Those are 'under load' speed temps. Which makes them acceptable. Now that 40c temps are at idle which is okay but I'm thinking should be a bit lower. In a bigger case anyway.
 
Here's my 290X 2 hours into a BF4 session:

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Dude I love that custom water loop.

This was my first time doing a customized loop (well, as customized as you get with a H220), and looking back I learned a lot. There's a couple of things I'd do different....I'd probably get either a separate reservoir just to ease some of the tension on the tubing, and I'd definitely get a couple of 90 degree shoulders.

Having said all that, I decided to do it like this anyways to see what happened, everything was extremely tight on the endpoints and it passed a 24 hour leak test.

In the end I'm getting 62 C max on Furmark and about 48 max on Prime 95, that's with a 290X and 2500k. I'm very, very happy with my temps.

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Stunning build! I'm glad to see the Silverstone PSU handling your R9 290X, noted! Can you measure the length of the water blocked 290X (For a similar build in a Silverstone SG05)?
 
Stunning build! I'm glad to see the Silverstone PSU handling your R9 290X, noted! Can you measure the length of the water blocked 290X (For a similar build in a Silverstone SG05)?

Thanks!

I measure out around 10.75 '' in length in my case.
 
Pretty much finished with my build. I have a fan question. I wasnt going to put bottom fans on, just push air out the two side fans and have the back fan as intake. Does this make sense or should I do a different config? Card is GTX 770 and CPU is fan cooled.
Thanks.
 
I would just use bottom fan as in take because if you use as exhaust. Your gpu and bottom fan is gonna be fighting for air?
 
I would just use bottom fan as in take because if you use as exhaust. Your gpu and bottom fan is gonna be fighting for air?

Isn't the 770 a blower type card, and is blowing the air towards the bottom slots? Seems putting a fan blowing in would counteract the action of the GPU fan? Correct me if I'm wrong here.
 
I don't think I've seen other people do this with their Wi-Fi antennae, but for those rocking the Asus Z87 ITX or the ROG Impact, the front of the case makes for a great place to strap your antennae to.

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I don't think I've seen other people do this with their Wi-Fi antennae, but for those rocking the Asus Z87 ITX or the ROG Impact, the front of the case makes for a great place to strap your antennae to.

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Nice, but isn´t it blocking the sinal when front panel is closed?
 
I don't think I've seen other people do this with their Wi-Fi antennae, but for those rocking the Asus Z87 ITX or the ROG Impact, the front of the case makes for a great place to strap your antennae to.

I actually considered doing the same (but below my optical drive).. instead I bought 2x RP-SMA 2DBi 2.4/5GHz short external antennas.

Thanks for the pic!
 
From an RF standpoint, would it work a lot better if strapped to the 92mm fan grill?
 
must wonder have anyone install like 92mm or 80mm fan filter on the rear with out a fan? I'm not sure if the filter will stay put. I dont really want a fan there just the filter.
 
If it's just a filter you can probably get away with just double-sided tape.
 
Placing it in front of perforated or solid aluminium isn't going to be of much use I reckon, since metal is an excellent insulator for wireless. I recommend just sticking it to the back with tape.
 
Phuncz, if I get my hands on a case, I will probably build it air cooled with similar components to your build. One question - I didn't see any case ventilation fans in your build - did you put any in? I was assuming one would need at least 1 exhaust fan and maybe a couple of intakes for positive pressure, but not sure what is actually needed...

(referencing Phuncz due to his pretty pics on the 1st page of this thread...anyone else with an air-cooled build feel free to chime in ;) )
 
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No the only fans I have in my system are the CPU, GPU and PSU fans. The PSU and GPU take care of their own, the CPU does it for the rest of the components. I'm not really missing any extra fans but I guess it could help. But since the case is so open, it doesn't really feel that it's required.
 
I doubt you'd have problems getting the Zelos model to fit. Looks pretty straight forward. Not sure about its overclocking capabilities though. Not sure about the Pallas. Looks short enough height wise but it seems to have a wide fin area. Someone would need to do a test fit with it.
 
I have a quick question. Will the Noctua C12P SE14 fit will ram that has tall heatsinks? And can you still use the hard drive cage with both the Noctua and taller ram? I have an H100i that I'm thinking about putting inside my M1, but if I can keep both of my hard drives then I might just buy the Noctua.

Edit: I'm using Corsair Vengeance ram btw. It looks like this: http://www.storagereview.com/images/Corsair-Vengeance-RAM-4GB.jpg
 
This is more or less a noob question, but what's a good testing software suite? Nothing crazy, just want to make sure whatever I build at stock speeds isn't cooking the system.

From what I gather:

1. prime95 - general CPU load testing?
2. heaven/furmark - anything special or just fancy GPU stuff?
3. Just running whatever application/game I'm interested in and recording temps?


For that matter, what are you using to record temps/fan speeds? i.e. all those squiggly line graphs you all are posting?
 
Just finished my build and got pictures all ready, #490 complete for now!

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Full album with interior pictures here:
http://imgur.com/a/3ccvd#0

Build list:

Case: NCASE M1 #490
CPU: Intel Core i5-4670K
CPU Cooler: Swiftech H220
Motherboard: ASRock Z87E-ITX
Memory: G.Skill Ares Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory
Storage: Plextor M5M 256GB mSATA SSD
Video Card: MSI GeForce GTX 760 2GB
Power Supply: Silverstone 450w ST45SF-G
Custom Cabling and Paracord Sleeving
 
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gonna start putting my system into the case this weekend

balance101, is your system on and working in this picture? i don't see the front panel power switch cable being connected to the motherboard. if it is on, how did you turn it on?
 
balance101, is your system on and working in this picture? i don't see the front panel power switch cable being connected to the motherboard. if it is on, how did you turn it on?

You can short the PWR_BTN pins (ie PWR to GND) on the motherboard to start it. Use a flat head screwdriver.
 
^ yes, that's what i thought, but mine didn't start that way :D i need to do a full disassemble-reassemble this coming weekend. so i am trying to gather as many clues/tips as possible.

thanks for replying though :)
 
Why does everyone have so many case fans? I'm running a i7 with a large heatsink and fan, gtx 780 with reference cooler, PSU draws air from outside of case. No other fans.

I just played Civ 5 for about 5 straight hours. GPU sat at 80 and the CPU sat at 40 the whole time.

Are these high?
 
Why does everyone have so many case fans?

Personally, I just couldn't resist the urge to put shit in there just cause there was a spot for it :D

Have 4 fans installed.. 1 for the CPU is more than enough imo. I run mine fairly low, so if nothing else, I'm getting positive pressure to blow the dust out (when the fans are on).

Your temps seem good.
 
Why does everyone have so many case fans? I'm running a i7 with a large heatsink and fan, gtx 780 with reference cooler, PSU draws air from outside of case. No other fans.

I just played Civ 5 for about 5 straight hours. GPU sat at 80 and the CPU sat at 40 the whole time.

Are these high?

The empty space beckons to me to stuff it with components. Empty space seems almost... dirty.

As a comparison, I was running Civ5 with max settings at 1920x1200 and my max temp on my non-reference R9 290 is 63C.
 
Luckily I don't have these "urges" and I can agree that you don't need fans on every spot to have good performance, the case is ventilated well enough through the many holes.
 
The empty space beckons to me to stuff it with components. Empty space seems almost... dirty.

As a comparison, I was running Civ5 with max settings at 1920x1200 and my max temp on my non-reference R9 290 is 63C.

OK now I have the urge to drop my temps - also running at 1920x1200 with max settings.

Let's say I have a single 120mm PWM Gelid fan laying around. Where do I put it?

I feel like I have two options -
1) intake on the bottom towards the rear to help cool the outside of the reference heatsink
2) intake on the side towards the front, and create some sort of a duct to the PSU and remove the damn clicky fan

thoughts?
 
OK now I have the urge to drop my temps - also running at 1920x1200 with max settings.

Let's say I have a single 120mm PWM Gelid fan laying around. Where do I put it?

I feel like I have two options -
1) intake on the bottom towards the rear to help cool the outside of the reference heatsink
2) intake on the side towards the front, and create some sort of a duct to the PSU and remove the damn clicky fan

thoughts?

You can try 1) and see what happens.
It's a bit hard to improve the temperature of a reference cooler with external fans. But on the upside, reference cooler doesn't need as much case fans to help it with cooling.
 
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Grabbed a silver one from another forum member who happened to have an extra... (thanks!)

Nothing too fancy:

Asrock Z87E-ITX
Xeon e3-1245 v3
8 gb mushkin ddr3-1600
eVGA GTX670 FTW
1 samsung 830 SSD + 750 gb 2.5" Toshiba spinny left over from a macbook pro drive upgrade
Silverstone SF45G

Cooler was the noctua NH-L12 - had to put it on upside down/heat pipes up per Phuncz's post...temps look like they are 29-31C idle, ~58-62c after ~5 mins of prime95 mixed before i got bored and quit the program.

Extra fan is a Noctua 120mm pwm in front...kinda felt like maybe I should something there. for "positive pressure". Not sure if it's actually doing anything...

On load, i.e. BF4 @1920/1200, gpu hits ~85c on stock fan settings, where it hits 62%. I've tried a more aggressive fan curve that keeps it in the 70s max but it gets a tad loud-ish...


Honestly, I'm not the best builder so the heat paste might have been a tad thickish and I might have dropped the heatsink on the mobo by accident a cpl of times...but hey, it's running fine AFAIK ;)
 
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