MINI-ITX I5 Watercooled

[e0lz]

I'm assembling a MINI-ITX rig this week. My only concern is the heat since this PC is going to be used in New Calédonia with a room temp of about 30° and 80% humidity all year!

There is only 1 x 120mm fan on the front panel, do you think the H50 can still do his job without overheating the case in those conditions?

Please feel free to add your comments and advices

Thanks for the advices, here are some pics of the build:

CASE: Silverstone Sugo SG05B

GPU: Club 3D Radeon™ HD 5770 1Go, DirectX® 11, ATI Eyefinity

CPU: Intel® Core™ i5 750
Corsair Hydro Series H50

MOBO: DFI LANPARTY MI P55-T36

RAM: G.Skill Kit Extreme3 2 x 2 Go PC10600 NQ

HDD: 1T Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 S-ATA

Optical: Samsung SN-S083C - OEM

 

[BillParrish]

I am guessing your implied concern is with using the fan direction recommended by Corsair (and myself) to have the fan suck in cool ambient air and exhaust the warm air into the case would cause an issue with the high ambient room temp ?

If that is the issue, a look at the case you are using and the situation that is unique to your location makes me want to recommend the lesser effective method of going ahead and using an exhaust fan setup for the H50.

My reasoning is in order of how the system is affected (again guesses)
1) higher ambient negates the common valid "cool room air" method of operation.
2) the case appears heavily vented on the sides providing better airflow that most cases and heat buildup in the case seems unlikely unless a very low speed fan is used.
3) the miniITX is not something one would normally use for a massive OC despite the i7 and DFI board. So a few deg C of additional core temp would not limit a medium OC.

Hopefully that brand of video card exhausts the heat out of the back.

It is likely the side vent holes could be used to add a fan.

H50 likely no better or no worse than an small standard HS/fan as the heat from that unit will be totally inside the case and need to be removed while it is likely better that the H50 will have the heat right at the exhaust fan and be blown immediately out.

All that said, you have put a high performance multi core CPU and board in a SFF case with a high ambient temp environment. Your have already realized that heat is going to limit any OCing. But other than temps that will run high compared to us in a cooler climate it should not be a big deal. If you intend to try to OC to extremes you have messed up. Otherwise I see no problems. Install ceiling fan over the system to prevent stagnant air around the case.

All a bunch of blah blah blah, its easy to flip the fan around and see what works better and take/ship a couple of slim (15mm if you can find them) 120mm fans along. You could even velcro them to the sides of the case if no other way could be found.

 

[e0lz]

The case wasn't really what I expected and I had to go MacGyver. I've replaced the front fan by the corsair radiator then "glued" the Thermaltek fan outside the case to suck fresh air inside the case.

I was really skeptic about the fan fixation but it works like a charm! I've set core speed of the i5 @ 3.2Ghz, temps are really satisfying around 27°- 32° (idle) 60-70° (load).

I'm still thinking about adding a 80mm fan somewhere on the vents as you suggested but I'm going to do more bench first!

My goal wasn't extreme O/C, the thread was moved around this section, it's a mobile/productivity rig to work on PS and do some basic rendering but I'm happy the H50 allowed me to push it abit.

Overall it's a really good rig, I'm going to put some SSD into it ASAP. Thanks for the advices, here are some pics of the bluid:

 

[jacmorel]

I am looking at doing a similar setup. In the picture it seems that there are no place for an optical drive. Is it the case? It seems Cyberpower had the same design but had enough space for an optical drive
Also I was thinking of putting 1xSDD + 1x3.5'' HDD or 2x3.5'' HDD. Will they fit?

Have you tried pushing your oc a little bit more? I was thinking of going for a 860 and hoping for 3.6-3.8Ghz. But i may be dreaming in such small case.

Good system anyway. Got me thinking at OC w/ shuttle xpc size again.
So thanks for the post and the pics.

Jacques

 

[Down8]

Resize pics, please.

If you can't see them on a 19x12 monitor, you've gone waaaayyy too big!

 

[DeathFromBelow]

Resize pics, please.

If you can't see them on a 19x12 monitor, you've gone waaaayyy too big!

+1. 1920 x 1080 here and I had to zoom all the way out in Firefox.

Nice build. I've considered doing something similar.

 

[CrimandEvil]

This is the third time I've looked at this thread and not read it because the pics are way, way too big. Resize, for the love of god.

 

[e0lz]

sff-gaming-pc/"]Cyberpower[/URL] had the same design but had enough space for an optical drive

I don't know how this guy did it but the version of the H50 I've got was too big and I really had little room left for the 2.5" optical drive on top. I really didn't want to use force so I went for an external USB instead. Not to say that the Mini-Sata cable is a bitch to find.

Also I was thinking of putting 1xSDD + 1x3.5'' HDD or 2x3.5'' HDD. Will they fit?

You certainly could fit two 3.5" HDD but you are going to have to mod the case abit in order to allow the 2nd HDD to be screwed. The 1x3.5" HDD + 1x2.5" SSD configuration seems more convenient and there's plenty of room for it.

Have you tried pushing your oc a little bit more? I was thinking of going for a 860 and hoping for 3.6-3.8Ghz. But i may be dreaming in such small case.

I would have pushed it abit further if it wasn't for the tropical climate. The H50 performed really well, you need to do the test yourself but I'm pretty sure it would be stable under normal room temps.

This is the third time I've looked at this thread and not read it because the pics are way, way too big. Resize, for the love of god.

Sorry for the pix size, it's a shame that Hardforum doesn't have a proper BB code like [/IMGw]; chillax and don't feel compelled to visit my thread every week!

 

[Erasmus354]

You could probably get enough room for the optical drive by rotating the radiator of the H50 by 90 degrees. The cyberpower system uses the exact same watercooling system (Asetek LCLC which is basically the OEM for the Corsair H50).

 

[CamaroRacing]

Would it be possible to mount the 120mm fan inside of the case with the radiator attached behind it? I think that would look more pleasing, I've been thinking about this setup.