Share your Chassis knowledge and experience!
Posted: Wed Aug 21, 2019 8:33 am
Hi everybody,
TL;DR; I found a nice Air Cooler. Now I seek a proper Chassis to match it.
-fox
I CAN READ; BRING IT ON; As I said in another thread, now I am kind of stuck in finding a good Air Cooler and the Chassis to house it. Looks like all Intel 9th Gen processors easily run hot.
For a while I searched for the best air cooler for the i7-9700K and always the same few names would pop up. Is there actual merit in them, or is it because word of mouth repeated without first-hand knowledge on the subject?
So I searched for benchmarks both from reputable sources and from less known parties.
The general consensus is that a 120mm fan-based air cooler is not going to keep the i7-9700 cool enough in all scenarios. Some such air coolers are better than others at this, but eventually all of them are outmatched when the i7 is under load for extended time periods -- and overclocking is pretty much out of the question.
Soo... a 140mm air cooler is required.
And with it comes a bulky (large + wide + tall) heatsink which takes a lot of volume in the chassis.
There also is the problem of the co-existence with the RAM banks. Most 140mm [fan-based air] coolers will collide with the 4th RAM slot. Either live with it, or use short RAM sticks... as if it is that easy a pick.
For the moment I am eyeing the Noctua NH-D15S 6-pipes air cooler. It is big, 140mm (the fan), very effective, pretty silent (as a boon), and keeps somewhat clear of the RAM. More precisely, it hangs over the 4th RAM slot at an height of 65mm. Of course, plugging and unplugging RAM in said slot while the heatsink is mounted ranges from difficult (if the RAM stick is low-profile) to impossible (if the stick is high-profile). Thus, one has to choose well which banks to mount and where.
I appreciate a lot that the D15S is offset to the side to keep distance from the graphics card
Last, but not least, the fan is easy to remove & reinstall for when I want to dust off the heatsink. Living in a dusty environment like I do, dust IS a prime concern; it is everywhere and in just 2 days a thin veil appears on most surfaces. You cannot even imagine what settles inside the chassis after 6 months.
The problem with the NH-D15S heatsink is that it wants 160mm clearance in height. It is no short device and I have to pick a proper chassis for it.
And since dust is such a problem, I would like the chassis to have filters (which is easy); possibly magnetic ones (heh -- not that easy anymore).
So my next quest is to find a Mid-Tower chassis with magnetic dust filters and 160mm (or more) clearance for the CPU heatsink.
And it appears that I will have to cope with the RGB craze. Ahhhh, fine, so be it
-fox
TL;DR; I found a nice Air Cooler. Now I seek a proper Chassis to match it.
-fox
I CAN READ; BRING IT ON; As I said in another thread, now I am kind of stuck in finding a good Air Cooler and the Chassis to house it. Looks like all Intel 9th Gen processors easily run hot.
For a while I searched for the best air cooler for the i7-9700K and always the same few names would pop up. Is there actual merit in them, or is it because word of mouth repeated without first-hand knowledge on the subject?
So I searched for benchmarks both from reputable sources and from less known parties.
The general consensus is that a 120mm fan-based air cooler is not going to keep the i7-9700 cool enough in all scenarios. Some such air coolers are better than others at this, but eventually all of them are outmatched when the i7 is under load for extended time periods -- and overclocking is pretty much out of the question.
Soo... a 140mm air cooler is required.
And with it comes a bulky (large + wide + tall) heatsink which takes a lot of volume in the chassis.
There also is the problem of the co-existence with the RAM banks. Most 140mm [fan-based air] coolers will collide with the 4th RAM slot. Either live with it, or use short RAM sticks... as if it is that easy a pick.
For the moment I am eyeing the Noctua NH-D15S 6-pipes air cooler. It is big, 140mm (the fan), very effective, pretty silent (as a boon), and keeps somewhat clear of the RAM. More precisely, it hangs over the 4th RAM slot at an height of 65mm. Of course, plugging and unplugging RAM in said slot while the heatsink is mounted ranges from difficult (if the RAM stick is low-profile) to impossible (if the stick is high-profile). Thus, one has to choose well which banks to mount and where.
I appreciate a lot that the D15S is offset to the side to keep distance from the graphics card
Last, but not least, the fan is easy to remove & reinstall for when I want to dust off the heatsink. Living in a dusty environment like I do, dust IS a prime concern; it is everywhere and in just 2 days a thin veil appears on most surfaces. You cannot even imagine what settles inside the chassis after 6 months.
The problem with the NH-D15S heatsink is that it wants 160mm clearance in height. It is no short device and I have to pick a proper chassis for it.
And since dust is such a problem, I would like the chassis to have filters (which is easy); possibly magnetic ones (heh -- not that easy anymore).
So my next quest is to find a Mid-Tower chassis with magnetic dust filters and 160mm (or more) clearance for the CPU heatsink.
And it appears that I will have to cope with the RGB craze. Ahhhh, fine, so be it
-fox