Compatibility - Heatsink with GPU Case and RAM

[Fuzzed_out]

I'm thinking of building a small (quite portable system) for Uni between now and October but I'm getting worried about the heatsink hitting the ram modules and graphics card with these motherboard and parts. I realise I will sadly have to loose the fan on the heatsink to bring it down to 114mm height which is tight in a case that has 117mm of room.

Case: Silverstone SG07
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Silve...e-2-Full-Slots

Mobo: DFi Lanparty mini-ITX
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/DFi-L...-see-full-spes

Heatsink: Noctua NH C12P
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Noctu...ith-NF-P14-Fan


Graphics card will be a 5850, cpu an i5-750 quad and the ram will be Corsair two 2gb modules at 1600mhz http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/4GB-(...-8-24-XMP-165V




I'm worried about the Heatsink hitting the ram and the GPU, also do you think this will get a bit too toasty with a 1TB F3 HDD in there as well?

[Mithrandir]

Unfortunately I don't know enough about the parts you've picked but I was going to suggest using an SSD instead of the Sammy F3. Use an external drive instead for storage.

[Fuzzed_out]

Yeah but the reason I havn't gone for an SSD is they still have comparatively small memory and cost a lot more. Next year I'l be running things like Solidworks as well as my games and I'm not sure if it would be better to have all of these on something not running through a USB.

[Fuzzed_out]

Bump

[Pob255]

Hard to say, the case is still very new.

You'd probably be best off with a top down cooler like the Thermalright AXP-140

[Fuzzed_out]

Thanks for the reply but the cooler is a top down but I'm more worried about the cooler clearing the ram and the GPU because of the small size of the mobo.

[jim]

Get a 2.5" drive instead of a 3.5", that will cut on the heat and stuff and keep it light. Not as good as an SSD, obviously, but an improvement nonetheless.

Are you intending to run the heatsink passively then?

[Zak33]

from an experience SG01 user (3 years) I'd suggest that:

the heatsink is bigger than you need for that CPU. I have /had a QX6700 in an SG01 and it's warm.... and it was fine with a much smaller OCZ cooler.

Second: the SG01 has a PSU ABOVE the CPU, so I reversed te CPU cooler fan to suck UP from the heatsink and into the PSU... which them obviously sucked the warm air straight through and out the back.. in this ew case the PSU can't help with that so make sure the heatisn you choose has plenty breathng space ABOVE it.

Third: I had 2 1 TB drives in mine all the time AND a third in a Caddy in te second optical drive bay... so dont worry about that. Just get a fan to blow over them,... unless you're from the Google school of "dont cool your hard drives, they don't fail faster when warm" in which case ignore the cooling EXCEPT to remove heat from the CPU area.

[Zak33]

http://www.silverstonetek.com/produc...=SG07&area=usa

CPU cooler space: 117mm

That cooler you listed: 114mm

In theory fine.. but what's above it.. I cant tell?

[Zak33]

found it



tha'ts a large cooler but not much cop tbh in that case.

[Zak33]

maybe a smaller cooler if it's not to be overclocked?

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Scyth...-AMD-Intel-CPU

[Pob255]

Zak what's above it is the new Silverstone 180mm Air Penetrator Fan, that's the one with the air guide and blades shaped to give a very tight air cone with minimal turblance.
It should work quite well on a top down cooler without a fan (looks like the NT06-E 5pipe in that picture)

And I got confused over coolers before, I thought you were looking at the Noctua NH-D14, the Thermal right I sugested is there high end top down so ether would be good.
As to motherboard clearence shouldn't be a problem at all, only issue you might have is if you go for ram with tall heat spreaders on them, which you shouldn't actually need as ddr3 runs at lower temps than ddr2 and it'll have air blowing down on it from above.

Although I also agree with Zak33 that you probably don't need that high end a cooler esp if you don't overclock it too much.
The NT06-e 5pipe is only £27 http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Silve...ler-Not-inc%29 and should do fine. 80mm tall, so still room to put a fan on top or get a scythe Slim Kaze Jyuni http://specialtech.co.uk/spshop/cust...cat=885&page=1 that should be thin enough to mount under the main fins

[Fuzzed_out]

Thanks for all the replies (you guys are awesome) I was going to run the cooler passively but I think your right and a smaller one with a fan may do just fine.

As for the 2.5 drive I will take it into account but I'm not sure how I could position a fan to be blowing onto it. Would the positive airflow be anywhere near enough to cool it sufficiently? The cables also seem to be shoved up into the spare caddies anyway which will increase the insulation around the drives. The bad thing about 2.5s is that they have a lower speed and far less capacity than 3.5inch drives. If I were to get a USB external hard drive for some games, design software and such would it hinder the performance on them?

[jim]

As for the 2.5 drive I will take it into account but I'm not sure how I could position a fan to be blowing onto it. Would the positive airflow be anywhere near enough to cool it sufficiently? The cables also seem to be shoved up into the spare caddies anyway which will increase the insulation around the drives. The bad thing about 2.5s is that they have a lower speed and far less capacity than 3.5inch drives. If I were to get a USB external hard drive for some games, design software and such would it hinder the performance on them?

Yeah, it wouldn't need its own cooling so don't worry about it.

If you get a 7200rpm one then it's not particularly slower than a normal disk, and they go right up to 1TB. They're more expensive, I'll agree that readily, but if weight and heat are important to you then I'd get a 2.5" disk.

£62 for a 500GB 7200rpm on Scan, obviously higher capacities are increasingly expensive.

I'm not saying "Go for it, you'll regret having a 3.5" disk", and I reckon most people would say don't bother, keep a 3.5" disk. But, in the right circumstances, you might see the benefits of it.

Oh and USB external would be a disaster. I don't know if eSATA is any better, never used it, but latency is usually the big killer with external disks in my experience.

[Fuzzed_out]

hmm I will defo take a look again at the 500gb one and above but the downsides seem to be a trade off for lower caches. Everything but games and other hungry software (files, music, office etc) could be kept on an external so it wouldn't be that limiting but do you think the heat trade off from 3.5 is worth the loss in cache? Sorry but I'm really thick when it comes to storage =/

[jim]

Just heat alone, probably not. Factoring in weight as well, I'd be tempted to go 2.5".