What would be the next best cooler? Noctua NH-L9i?
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SENTRY: Console-sized gaming PC case project
- Thread starter SaperPL
- Start date
What would be the next best cooler? Noctua NH-L9i?
There's quite a few to choose from and reviews vary. NH-L9i comes to mind first, naturally, but I wonder if something like Scythe kodati/kozuti wouldn't be better in terms of silence with it's fan under the radiator.
Also worth noting is Zalman CNPS2X which is supposed to handle up to 120W TDP cpu which is outstanding compared to others recommending 65W TDP but at the same time some reviews show it isn't really better than NH-L9i.
Check out the NH-L9i TDP guidelines:
NH-L9i: TDP Guidelines
So there's a good chance that generally something over 65W is not a good idea regardless of how good cooler you'll get.
Anyway, I think that if NH-L9i is the safest choice if you have to buy something, and if you don't then maybe staying with BOX will do. NH-L9i should also work ok for this config where the cpu is closer to the pci-e slot and the cooler needs to fit under the hard drive partially.
Also worth noting is Zalman CNPS2X which is supposed to handle up to 120W TDP cpu which is outstanding compared to others recommending 65W TDP but at the same time some reviews show it isn't really better than NH-L9i.
Check out the NH-L9i TDP guidelines:
NH-L9i: TDP Guidelines
NH-L9i TDP Guidelines said:
So there's a good chance that generally something over 65W is not a good idea regardless of how good cooler you'll get.
Anyway, I think that if NH-L9i is the safest choice if you have to buy something, and if you don't then maybe staying with BOX will do. NH-L9i should also work ok for this config where the cpu is closer to the pci-e slot and the cooler needs to fit under the hard drive partially.
Yeah, going by the frostytech review, the Noctua NH-L9i gets ambient 30.8°C for 150W and 19.6°C for 85W at high fan speed, whereas the Zalman CNPS2X gets 56.8°C and 35.1°C respectively, which makes sense to me considering the fan is not only smaller on the Zalman, but the height of the heatsink is only 28mm. This is just one review, but it seems realistic.
EDIT: The Xigmatek PRAETON LD963 (TDP 115W) might also be a good choice. Going by the Hardware Secrets review for the NH-L9i, the LD964 (the LD963's predecessor which with a TDP of 95W) gets 83°C where the NH-L9i gets 95°C, and according to Xigmatek's website, the LD963 "performs better than its predecessor while still maintaining the same compact form-factor".
So I would assume it provides similar or slightly better temperatures, either way it seems to achieve somewhat better thermal performance than the NH-L9i, but is probably a bit louder at idle due to the minimum RPM being 1200 as opposed to 600.
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The noctua however only has two heat pipes. It is well engineered but spec wise it is lacking. The cryorig c7 is much more effective. I wonder if equipped with the noctua 92mm fan instead it would be better.
Have you tested id cooling is40pro? It is 44mm so that gives you a tiny bit more space.
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octagoncow
Limp Gawd
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The C7's fan is 15mm thick, so the extra height wouldn't allow for a 25mm fan.
As I said before - we couldn't replcase 7mm standoffs with nothing smaller than 6.35mm (1/4") since that's the ATX spec requirement. We could've gone with something like 6.5mm (metric stamdoff). Also I already said that there's a problem with the screws of C7 coming out at something like 8mm under the motherboard when tightened.
Note the fact that people want that 7mm under the motherboard to fit m.2 drives as well
Darn, that's a shame. I was hoping.
Saper, I completely get you. I wasn't suggesting that it be something you guys do, but rather a mod that us users could do after if we don't have a bottom-mounted drive and could figure out a way of mounting the heatsink.
I wonder how much cooling capacity would be lost if a slim fan were mounted on the case instead of the fan on the C7. I know the sound of having a fan just slightly too far away from a grill, and it's a somewhat grating one.
But there's just more things to consider than just standoff height.
Even if you mod them somehow sawing/sanding off those 2 mm evenly, you'll have to cope with IO Shield being misplaced by those 2 mm AND pray that your motherboard doesn't have any components that are standing out more than those 5 mm that you achieved.
Finally if you do that, then you'll end up blocking your way to a possible future upgrade to any cooler that would require a backplate, since those are definitely going to use that 6.35 mm specified by ATX.
Even if you mod them somehow sawing/sanding off those 2 mm evenly, you'll have to cope with IO Shield being misplaced by those 2 mm AND pray that your motherboard doesn't have any components that are standing out more than those 5 mm that you achieved.
Finally if you do that, then you'll end up blocking your way to a possible future upgrade to any cooler that would require a backplate, since those are definitely going to use that 6.35 mm specified by ATX.
avaiability??
Ah, fair enough. It'd be an easy mod; you can buy 5mm standoffs online. Didn't take the time to consider everything else it would throw out of whack.
i hope between end of august or september
Looks like a video is up on his VESSEL
Watch Smallest Custom Gaming Rig Yet! Dr Zaber Sentry Case - Linus Tech Tips | Vessel
octagoncow
Limp Gawd
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I'm pretty happy with the review. I don't think I learned anything that I didn't already know; but, it's nice to get a little bit of reassurance from a third party about temperatures and build quality. It's also good to know that this isn't the only video that he's planning to do with the Sentry. I feel like the only negative thing he had to say about the case is that the screws aren't Philips head and aren't magnetic which is a very minor complaint.
Edit: Here's basically everything he said in the review (be warned, it's a giant wall of text) for anyone who doesn't want to wait a week for it to release on Youtube, or doesn't want to use a credit card to sign up for the free week on Vessel:
Edit: Here's basically everything he said in the review (be warned, it's a giant wall of text) for anyone who doesn't want to wait a week for it to release on Youtube, or doesn't want to use a credit card to sign up for the free week on Vessel:
- Warning about the risks of crowdfunding projects (which I think is pretty fair even though I trust Saper and Zombi)
- There's a size comparison between the Sentry, PS4, and original XBox One showing how similar the form factor is to the current gen consoles while being significantly more powerful than them.
- The steel construction is pointed out since the NCASE M1 and Dan-A4 use Aluminum and that the steel construction adds, "substantial weight".
- Linus likes the industrial look, but realizes that it might be a turnoff for some.
- He points out the IO Ports and the horizontal and vertical layouts and says that the vertical stand is regrettably non-optional (but also knows that it's required to allow the PSU and CPU to breathe, so I don't know how he'd want that problem solved).
- He points out that the case couldn't be any smaller without sacrificing over-height graphics card compatibility.
- He points out the different configurations that you can do with the case.
- He points out the pressure retention system for the PCI-E ribbon cable, but doesn't actually show it off.
- He mentions that you can use SFX and SFX-L Power Supplies and ultimately tells the viewer to use the Sentry website to use the configuration tool to see all of the different components that can fit.
- Building in the case is straightforward and only took about 15 minutes and that the manual is fairly straightforward.
- If you have a modular PSU, plug the cables into the PSU before placing the components into the case.
- It's frustrating that the case screws are hex screws that aren't magnetic. He can live with the hex screws, but really wants them to be magnetic if possible.
- Cable management is pretty good, but custom length cables were much easier to work with.
- He points out that there aren't any case fans and that there really isn't anywhere to put them; but, it would be nice to space the holes on the case sides to allow for fan mounting if someone wanted to try squeezing a fan into the case.
- He loaded the Sentry with a 22 core Xeon, 64GB RAM, Titan Xp, 1TB 850 Pro SSD, and a Silverstone 700W SFX-L PSU (which he points out is the worst case scenario he could use and isn't representative of what most people will use).
- He plans on doing a followup review with a more realistic config in the 'future'.
- The torture test is running synthetic benchmarks on the CPU and GPU
- Torture test results:
Open Air:.............CPU 85c, GPU 84c, Fan Speed 56%, GPU Clock 1595MHz
Sentry Vertical:.....CPU 86c, GPU 84c, Fan Speed 51%, GPU Clock 1418MHz
Sentry Horizontal:.CPU 87c, GPU 85c, Fan Speed 63%, GPU Clock 1481MHz
(With the Vertical GPU Fan Curve increased, The GPU Clock is 1747MHz - There's a strong suggestion to use the case in the vertical orientation if you're using high end hardware.
- The SSD's surface was 62c (which Linus suggests placing near (I think he means under the GPU, like Saper and Zombi have shown off if the GPU if you're using a blower style cooler) the GPU intake)
- The RAM and chipset were over 76c which isn't instant death territory, but is hotter than he'd like.
- He doesn't suggest using the torture test config that he used for the review and suggests a flower style CPU cooler which can help RAM and chipset temperatures.
- If you're not running multiple synthetic loads, your temperatures might be ok, anyway.
- Open air vs blower style test (GTX 980 TI EVGA ACV 2.0 vs Reference In Rise of the Tomb Raider)
ACX 2.0...FPS: 93.81 CPU: 71c GPU Clock: 1190MHz Fan Speed: 2200RPM
Reference FPS: 85.69 CPU: 66c GPU Clock: 1013MHz Fan Speed 2576RPM - An i7-6950X can run encode video while turboing and not throttle (the temps look to be around 80c-85c)
- Linus thinks that a lot of these are going to sell, but the price is currently unknown.
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i watched all rewiew....it has been reallty nice to see finally a video of sentry after photos only...it's really small and compact and temperature are great. i must say that i waited this plus dan a4's one...i would to know an indicative avaiability date to buy it
octagoncow
Limp Gawd
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He never specified. But it has a noctua fan on it, so it's either the NH-L9i, or whatever combination he made for the Dan-A4 review which was some cooler that I can't remember, with a noctua fan. I don't think he used a C7 like in he showed in his tweets because the motherboard he used didn't have standard mounting holes.
Aircoookie
Limp Gawd
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He used a Dynatron T318 with a noctua fan, which is IIRC the only cooler that fits both in this case and on the narrow ILM heatsink mount on the Asrock X99 ITX board.
Hi guys, we finally get it! Review is on vessel. For all you who don't have vessel account or dont wanna use a credit card, use card generators, watch video and than cancel subscription. Its actually works (google for working-fake-credit-cards or anything like that, site with "2-ee" in link worked for me, not an adv). Case is awesome, really. Afaik core i7/6700k without crazy overclocking (at 4.2 or so) will be great, with a gtx 1070/1080 blower. At least, that what I want. When it will be available?
D
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So... he did a 50% thorough testing on the Sentry but a 0% testing on the A4. Funny. Still, to me 62ºC for an SSD is a no-no, clearly. Also, 76ºC for the ram approaches the standard 85ºC as the upper limit.
Yeah, those 76ºC are pretty bad, but Linus did those on a X99 platform with 22 core 145W TDP Xeon running synthetic benchmarks (85ºC CPU with open case) on cooler that doesn't really help moving air around the motherboard area. Linus explained it somehow in the video in his own unique way which isn't easy to point out in a way octagoncow outlined the review.
Just stick to the mainstream, keep reasonable TDP and it should be fine. We're simply not recommending going for ultra high-end enthusiast platform like X99 inside our case.
Note the fact that Linus said he wanted to make another video with multiple SFF cases including Sentry and A4-SFX and there's a high chance that it's already made, since Linus is preparing for a vacation, so he was stacking up some videos for following weeks, according to the last WAN show.
62C for an ssd? That's completely fine. I can't remember where but I saw a review a while ago on how temperature affects data retention on ssd's for dark storage. Interestingly, ssd's demonstrate better longevity of data if they're written to while hot, 50-60C and then stored, off, at a mild temperature, say 15-20C. Your ssd will be fine at 50-60C. Keeping in mind Linus's components were twice the tdp of what most people will use, I bet most people will see ssd temps of 40-45c. Ram will probably be more like 50c.
I already have some mods in mind for this case that will probably improve the thermals quite a bit. Whenever I'm actually able to obtain one I'll be sure to post the results.
i hope between end of august or september
Please dont get all too optimistic, ive been in this place for a good year now I guess. This already oughta be "before christmas" "eastern holidays" "summer", so cool your engines my man.
I think "before this Christmas" should be a really pessimistic but safe estimate
so Saper,
Linus has delivered, he maybe even noticed you beforehand ? Where are we at ?
You pondered sending it to multiple reviewers last time I heard. Are those Sentry's already out ? or is linus review enough to reassure your concerns ?
Yeah, sorry about that, it's just that so far when we've planned for something and tried to estimate always something new was coming out.
Also first year of the project was overoptimistic thanks to our initial metal subcontractor reassuring us about their awesome bending precision, they eventually couldn't really achieve, so we've literally spent over a year getting know-how about how to handle not so good bending precision.
It was the same with even packaging and shipping those units to Linus having problems with customs papers etc and it set us back with it more than a month then we thought we'll be with this review.
I think "before this Christmas" should be a really pessimistic but safe estimate
Hopefully we'll get there sooner, but be the judge for yourself with how it looked so far...
Linus will deliver on Sunday on youtube and that'll let us know where we stand with people interested in the case based on subscriptions and it will let us see what we're standing on and prepare the sales.
That's the crucial piece of information we need to talk with the metal shop about some proper contract containing quality restrictions we have to safely enforce the quality we want. We also need those numbers so they will treat us more seriously, and It might help us push the project inside our company to speed things up a bit.
I'll quote myself from the LTT forums since it looks like it'll explain also where are we with the payment handling:
SaperPL said:
Note the fact that if we were to crowdfund such project (like initially planned at the start of the project) before overcoming all those obstacles like quite a lot kickstarter startups you'd have more reasons to be angry then just the fact that we were teasing you with the impossible release dates.
We'll be sending additional units to reviewers but we're not going to wait for those reviews like we've waited with Linus they'll just come out while we're gathering sales hopefully. We just don't want to send a review unit to reviewers that are not interested (hyped) and the package would wait months for them to pick up and review.
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Saper,
I noticed while browsing the gallery of Sentry images that the divider between the two PCI slots is quite wide. It looks as though it would block a significant amount of exhaust area for a blower card such as I have. One entire slot on my 1080 is I/O leaving just the middle (the area between the slots) and half the other slot (half of the other slot is DVI
) for exhaust. Most of that will be covered by this. Is it possible to slim down the divider ? Is it even necessary really? Could it be made removable? I suppose as the end user, I could cut it out (if not structurally critical), but I would absolutely hate myself for destroying the perfect finish on the case and compromising the protective barrier of the paint. 
As you can see, the bulk of the exhaust flows right where the divider is on the Sentry.
It's not that big. It's going to block off single row of those triangles in the middle of the card (the one divided by the biggest screw). It's made the same as in every standard ATX case in terms of width.
it's 7.5mm wide (including powder coat) and while in every normal case its not structurally required, in our its crucial since it supports the screw thread for the middle of the bracket and partially the whole bent piece because of the cutouts in the bent area.
These cutouts are required for us to let you directly slide the gpu into the slot without manoeuvring the gpu inside the case. They are made so your DVI connector won't hit the bent area while sliding.
It's simply not our fault that the card brackets are made to look cool while most of the vented area is blocked either by internal components or the case itself by ATX standard.
it's 7.5mm wide (including powder coat) and while in every normal case its not structurally required, in our its crucial since it supports the screw thread for the middle of the bracket and partially the whole bent piece because of the cutouts in the bent area.
These cutouts are required for us to let you directly slide the gpu into the slot without manoeuvring the gpu inside the case. They are made so your DVI connector won't hit the bent area while sliding.
It's simply not our fault that the card brackets are made to look cool while most of the vented area is blocked either by internal components or the case itself by ATX standard.
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If you were to do it yourself with some proper tools then maybe you could probably do that and make some 4 mm diameter holes, but if you are not 100% sure you'll do that properly centred without bending the whole piece, then I wouldn't recommend that.
And no, there's simply not enough space for the punch machine to punch through that without risk of bending it.
And no, there's simply not enough space for the punch machine to punch through that without risk of bending it.
Ah, that'd do it. I'm used to the different design constraints for laser-cutting.
By adding a new screw thread at the bottom (and probably widening a little bit, as as the top one), would it affect too much the structural strength?
It's not that big. It's going to block off single row of those triangles in the middle of the card (the one divided by the biggest screw). It's made the same as in every standard ATX case in terms of width.
it's 7.5mm wide (including powder coat) and while in every normal case its not structurally required, in our its crucial since it supports the screw thread for the middle of the bracket and partially the whole bent piece because of the cutouts in the bent area.
These cutouts are required for us to let you directly slide the gpu into the slot without manoeuvring the gpu inside the case. They are made so your DVI connector won't hit the bent area while sliding.
It's simply not our fault that the card brackets are made to look cool while most of the vented area is blocked either by internal components or the case itself by ATX standard.
By adding a new screw thread at the bottom (and probably widening a little bit, as as the top one), would it affect too much the structural strength?
We can't leave the bar between those pci-e slots/brackets, because many people are going to use their SENTRYs as NAS. It means, they won't use external GPU, so they will have to cover those empty slots somehow, and without this middle bar, it won't look good.
If You want to cut out this bar on your own, then i think there shouldn't be any bigger problems with stiffness, because there are many bendings on sides of this area. Of course the stiffness will be affected, but You shouldn't worry about it, when everything will be screwed together. What is more, we are using galvanized steel, so there shouldn't be any points of corrosion, if You paint the edges with some kind of lacquer (even nail-lacquer would be ok - this area won't be huge or even especially visible).
What we can do at this point, is that, we can think about adding some holes during laser-cut (as Saper said, this middle bar isn't thick enough for punching machine). We will consider this.
Finally, we need answer on one question:
What is the amount of venting holes really needed for Your graphics card? I'm asking, because 99% of pc-cases has that middle bar, which would block that middle row of holes in Your graphic card. Did the designers of Your graphic card assume that You will cut-out the middle bar between pci-bracket panels in every pc case You insert their product? Please investigate that.
Haha that's very true. I've been running on an open test bench because I'm waiting for the sentry. I don't currently have a case that can fit the 1080 so I can't confirm how the standard ATX pcie slot configuration may block exhaust performance.
Anyone else with a reference blower have any input?
I'm probably being overly cautious with the exhaust concerns. I definitely don't want to cause any reworking of the design or extra unnecessary headaches for you and SaperPL.
I think that vessel video is unlocked now, dunno when will it kick on the youtube though.
Watch Smallest Custom Gaming Rig Yet! Dr Zaber Sentry Case - Linus Tech Tips | Vessel
Watch Smallest Custom Gaming Rig Yet! Dr Zaber Sentry Case - Linus Tech Tips | Vessel
We're trying to simplify things with the screws:
1) external screws will definitely be black hex screws for the sake of the looks - those are magnetic as they were in the units sent to Linus
2) Internal screws may end up being all Phillips screws and as it happens we've shipped Linus hex screws for internal use that were stainless steel and it's not working with magnetic screwdrivers. We're going to keep that in mind and fix that.
1) external screws will definitely be black hex screws for the sake of the looks - those are magnetic as they were in the units sent to Linus
2) Internal screws may end up being all Phillips screws and as it happens we've shipped Linus hex screws for internal use that were stainless steel and it's not working with magnetic screwdrivers. We're going to keep that in mind and fix that.