question for Silverstone Sugo SG05 owners

[simonw]

I'm considering a mini-ITX build for my next PC, and Silverstone Sugo SG05 is a case that interests me.

For any owners out there who have this case, I'm actually thinking of adding an exhaust fan for some extra cooling to the side panel where the PCI slots are located, and mounting it to the air vent holes with cable ties.

From the pics that I've seen, it looks like a 80mm fan should be no problem, but what about a 92mm or 100m fan?

[staffsMike]

I'm not an owner of my so ignore this if you like but given the tiny proportions of the case, one good 120mm fan on the front should be plenty enough for that case. The PSU will still be wirring away and you will have your CPU/GPU cooling. Any more fans will just be confusing the situation I think.

My thoughts would be if you feel the need for more fans you should probably scale the system up to uATX.

[McPhee]

It'll fit but i'm not sure why you'd want to do it. What are you putting in the case that'll need the extra cooling?

[simonw]

It's just an idea that I had.

If and when I get this case, most likely it will be fitted with a LGA775 cpu, and a low profile cooler such as the Scythe Shuriken. My concern is that the top of the HSF is going to be very close to the PSU fan so it may have an issue to exhaust any build up of heat from inside the case.

I'm guessing that the 120mm intake fan will help somewhat, but on a hot day, it will just intake warm air. So if an exhaust side fan helps to lower temps, then I'll go with it.

[McPhee]

First thing to note on the SG05 is that you DON'T want a cpu cooler that blows down on the CPU. You'll wind up with the CPU cooler and PSU fighting each other for air. From what i've seen of other people's rigs a Coolermaster GeminII with a slim profile 120mm fan strapped to the CPU side of the case (blowing inward) is the best way to cool the case.

I'm currently using an NT06-E which was definitely a mistake. It's a PITA to install in this case. The result is bad contact with the CPU and with it some pretty bad temps (50 at idle!). There's also no room to fit a fan blowing across the way, loosing out further to the GeminII. I'll be upgrading to that Corsair water cooling unit that Hexus reviewed soon though. Better CPU temps and it'll move the heat to the front of the case where there's plenty free space to deal with it.

[simonw]

First thing to note on the SG05 is that you DON'T want a cpu cooler that blows down on the CPU. You'll wind up with the CPU cooler and PSU fighting each other for air. From what i've seen of other people's rigs a Coolermaster GeminII with a slim profile 120mm fan strapped to the CPU side of the case (blowing inward) is the best way to cool the case.

Thanks for the suggestion, I will take this into consideration. I have also read that someone was using a CM GeminII S (smaller version) with the fan reversed so that it is pushing the air up into the PSU. The idea was that there was a single direction of air flow, I can't remember what their temps were though.

I'll be upgrading to that Corsair water cooling unit that Hexus reviewed soon though. Better CPU temps and it'll move the heat to the front of the case where there's plenty free space to deal with it.

Be sure to post your results on the forum for the Corsair H50, I'll also be interested in how that works out. But from the discussions that have been going on, the fan works as an intake, so the heat from the rad is still being pushed into the case rather than out. I guess you could reverse the fan, but with the air pulling away from the rad instead of blowing onto it is not as effective.

[Hesky]

First thing to note on the SG05 is that you DON'T want a cpu cooler that blows down on the CPU. You'll wind up with the CPU cooler and PSU fighting each other for air.

This would be TRUE if the CPU HSF was exhausting its air out of the case as internal volume pressure would increase, but as the CPU HSF simply circulates air within the enclosure, the direction of air flow within the case has very little bearing on air exhausting the case as pressure is maintained.

You may end up with a slight bit of air turbulence inside but this will have very little bearing on overall case airflow

simonw, what cpu are you considering?? if you choose an energy efficient c2d or c2q you may find adding an additional rear exhaust fan unnecessary. I mean even the most overclocking friendly itx board will have limited options for over-volting so thermal issues with the standard case set-up maybe pretty unlikely.

As fair as comparability goes the Scythe Shuriken fits with room in the SG05 case.

Cheers

[McPhee]

You can hit some quite nice overclocks on the Zotac 9300, seen reports as high as 400Mhz FSB (mine won't break 350 with my E5200 though). Also discovered something about this case the other day. The PSU is useless as an extraction fan. I flipped it over so that it's pulling air in from outside the case instead of inside and i get the same temps i did before. Now that the PSU isn't pulling in hot air the whole system is quieter too

[Hesky]

With a 12.5 multi on your e5200 you don't really need much over 300fsb though, what sort of stable clock are you running McPhee?

[McPhee]

None right now, too many thermal issues from OC'ing in the SG05. The case is sat in my AV rack at the moment, running on a passive NT06-E. Combined with the weather i've been getting some pretty bad temps really. In a test i ran when i got the PC i hit 3744 but that was with the case open and sat on my desk with an extra 120mm fan blowing on the CPU and the GPU removed (was worried about overloading the PSU).

I'm unlikely to bother overclocking really, much more likely to just buy a more powerful CPU instead (got my eye on a Q9550 at the moment )

[Hesky]

Heck if your struggling to keep a e5200 cool a 95w TDP quad is going to be even more of an issue, overclocking aside. mind you Intel are soon to realise new 65W TDP quads (same TDP as current duals), the Q9550S may even be on sale already, you stand a much better chance with that quad in this case.

I think the NT06 is a little small to run passive in this case even with an efficient dual such as the e5200. the cooler itself is a little tall to fit a fan on top, have you thought about running a slim 120mm fan actually underneath the cooler fins? Im pretty sure you could fit a slim fan between the cooling fins and the heatsink base.

As far overloading the PSU goes Ive know someone on OCUK who has crammed an 8800GTX and Q6600 G0 in a sugo 05, granted its a little ott with those power hungry components but im lead to believe it runs very stable (hard to believe the q6600 is running remotely cool though). If silverstone thought the PSU wasnt up to it they may have thought twice before making it possible to fit a full 9″ long graphics card in there.

edit:
McPhee, what stepping is your E5200? M0 or R0?

The reason I sk is because I have what I believe is an R0 stepping E5200 sitting in front of me (on the retail box the sSpec number is stated as SLB9T which according to Intel is an R0 stepping E5200) and I will soon take delivery of a Zotac 9300 ITX board. Apparently the later R0 stepping E5200 have been known to play silly buggers with this zotac board, possibly due to the bios not fully supporting the cpu yet.
I asked Zotac about it and they claim they have fully tested an R0 E5200 on their board with good results, It will be interesting to know which stepping you have.

Cheers

[McPhee]

Not sure on the stepping, will check when i can.

Temps-wise stock is perfectly fine, ~45'C. However i know it's the CPU cooler letting the side down, i could easily be a good 10'C lower than that. When i do upgrade to the Q9550 i'll probably grab a new CPU cooler, got my eye on the Big Shuriken now. The NT06 was definitely a mistake, but somebody had to make it, i was one of the first to grab one of these cases. Now it's been out a bit longer and more people have bought them i know that the GeminII and Shuriken are the best coolers for the job.

I did consider a Q9550S but take a loot at the price to see why i changed my mind All the "S" models are a good £40 more than the 95W versions. The Q9550 is at the top of what i'm willing to pay as it is so unless the Q9400S drops to the same price i'm gonna stick with the 95W chips.

Good luck with the Zotac BTW. It's not a bad board really, quite amazing what they've managed to squeeze on it. The only grumble i have so far is about Zotac themselves, not a helpfull bunch of people at all. Their customer service department seem capable of two answers; "It worked fine in our tests so the problem is your fault. Bye." when there's a technical problem or "I'm not sure why you'd want to do that?" when it's an email about a missing feature (fan control, resume from USB, undervolting).

[Hesky]

I've got my eye on the Thermalright's AXP-140 low profile cooler, its huge just like the GeminII but it is still low enough to pop a 120x12mm slim fan on top and still have decent clearance from the PSU.





With regards to Zotac I've heard that about them to, I'm sure they will learn to be more proactive with there support in time

[McPhee]

Let me know how you get on with that cooler, seen a few pics of it around and it certainly looks good. Need to make sure that whatever i buy next it's a safe bet, can't afford to keep buying stuff on the off chance lol.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

This thread maybe useful:

http://hera.hardocp.com/showthread.php?t=1414331

[McPhee]

I'm expecting people with the GeminII to run in to the same problems i did with the NT06. With no fan on the CPU cooler and the 3.5" HDD caddy blocking air flow from the front fan the motherboard area heats up really badly on a hot day. I've swapped to a 2.5" HDD now, inverted the PSU, tidied up the cables and my temps have dropped by 10'C on the CPU. Not only that but there's no longer hot air spewing out of the back of the machine and the components are no longer burning up. Before this there were days where the chipset, RAM and even the board itself were hot to the touch!

Gonna take this whole thing as a lesson, passive isn't good. When i think about it properly there was never any advantage on going passive, there's still fans in the system so the system will never be more silent than the nosiest fan anyway.