Silverstone SG-05 mini ITX case
Silverstone 450 watt PSU
Asrock Z77E ITX mobo
Intel 3570k @ 4.2ghz
EVGA GTX 680 Signature 2 2gb
Gskill Trident 2x4gb 2400mhz CL9
Antec Kuhler 620 with 2x AP15's in push pull
Crucial M4 256gb mSATA for storage
Samsung 840 Pro 128gb 2x in RAID 0 for OS
This was a pretty straight forward build. Everything fit well, just a little snug. I have the fan on the PSU pointing up for better cable routing. I drilled 142 holes in the front of the PSU so the AP15's are blowing directly into it. I did the delid on the CPU and used Coollaboratory Liquid Pro above and below the lid for a stunning 25C drop in load temps. I removed the tall fins on the Gskill Trident memory leaving the heatsink. I took a 2.5" to 3.5" adapter and bent it to hold the two Samsung drives next to each other and hide some of the cables. Opened the PSU and removed the unused molex and floppy wires to reduce clutter. All of this I am very happy with.
The EVGA Signature 2 680 has two fans, one vents out the back and one vents upwards. I was hoping the stock cooling would be good enough, but I would like to improve on it. I am in Thailand and the ambient temperatures are very high. Typically it is 30-32C and I only run the aircon at night. My card overclocks very well, up to 1297mhz and over 7ghz on stock voltage. That is out the window until I can drop the temps though. I adjusted the fan speed profile a little but don't like it very loud. I noticed the front fan of the 680 was creating a hot spot on the case so I cut a vent hole and hot air blasts out of it while gaming. With the EVGA OC Scanner after 5 minutes it hits 81C.
I don't see a lot of options. I don't want to do a custom loop based on the expense. It would probably cost me at least $400 for high quality parts. I could use liquid pro on the GPU and drop a few degrees. I haven't read any results from others who have done this. My goal would be to drop load temps to under 70C. I think a closed loop cooler and adapter bracket is my best option. However space is very limited in this case.
Here comes the question. Right now in the front of the case is the 35mm rad for the cpu and two 25mm AP15's. The best option I see is an Antec 620 on the GPU with a fan on the vram and vrm's. The question is where to mount the rad. I see three options. I could modify the mount of the PSU and lower it about 45mm. This would allow for the rad to mount above the PSU and possibly have room for a slim fan. Although possibly only allowing the using of the 80x15 PSU fan. I could remove one of the AP15's in the front of the case mount rad-AP15-rad which would give limited airflow to both. The third option is to mount the rad above the RAM so the sequence would be AP15-rad-AP15-rad. This sounds like it would work the best. The rad would fit very tightly to say the least. I would need to make a bracket to offset it vertically from the fan. The hoses from the CPU rad would interfere somewhat.
Out of those three mounting locations which do you think is best? I think my goals for temperature are realistic and achievable. I don't expect to get 40C load temps in this tiny case! Under 70C will be acceptable and under 60C would be terrific. Any other ideas are welcome. Thanks guys.
My goals with building this system where to have the most power I could get into the smallest case. That was achieved. Now I want to make it as cool and quiet as I can. I run the AP15's at full speed here in Thailand. In the US I run them at 1400rpm which is barely audible to me. Here there is a lot more background noise (Bangkok) so I can't hear them at all at 1800rpm, however when the GPU fans get up to 50% and beyond they are getting pretty loud. I'm running 1920x1080 and the use it for mostly gaming. I was able to get 10837 in 3dmark11. I have some modders mesh to cover the hole in the case waiting for me in the US. I'll get it installed in a month or so.
Silverstone 450 watt PSU
Asrock Z77E ITX mobo
Intel 3570k @ 4.2ghz
EVGA GTX 680 Signature 2 2gb
Gskill Trident 2x4gb 2400mhz CL9
Antec Kuhler 620 with 2x AP15's in push pull
Crucial M4 256gb mSATA for storage
Samsung 840 Pro 128gb 2x in RAID 0 for OS
This was a pretty straight forward build. Everything fit well, just a little snug. I have the fan on the PSU pointing up for better cable routing. I drilled 142 holes in the front of the PSU so the AP15's are blowing directly into it. I did the delid on the CPU and used Coollaboratory Liquid Pro above and below the lid for a stunning 25C drop in load temps. I removed the tall fins on the Gskill Trident memory leaving the heatsink. I took a 2.5" to 3.5" adapter and bent it to hold the two Samsung drives next to each other and hide some of the cables. Opened the PSU and removed the unused molex and floppy wires to reduce clutter. All of this I am very happy with.
The EVGA Signature 2 680 has two fans, one vents out the back and one vents upwards. I was hoping the stock cooling would be good enough, but I would like to improve on it. I am in Thailand and the ambient temperatures are very high. Typically it is 30-32C and I only run the aircon at night. My card overclocks very well, up to 1297mhz and over 7ghz on stock voltage. That is out the window until I can drop the temps though. I adjusted the fan speed profile a little but don't like it very loud. I noticed the front fan of the 680 was creating a hot spot on the case so I cut a vent hole and hot air blasts out of it while gaming. With the EVGA OC Scanner after 5 minutes it hits 81C.
I don't see a lot of options. I don't want to do a custom loop based on the expense. It would probably cost me at least $400 for high quality parts. I could use liquid pro on the GPU and drop a few degrees. I haven't read any results from others who have done this. My goal would be to drop load temps to under 70C. I think a closed loop cooler and adapter bracket is my best option. However space is very limited in this case.
Here comes the question. Right now in the front of the case is the 35mm rad for the cpu and two 25mm AP15's. The best option I see is an Antec 620 on the GPU with a fan on the vram and vrm's. The question is where to mount the rad. I see three options. I could modify the mount of the PSU and lower it about 45mm. This would allow for the rad to mount above the PSU and possibly have room for a slim fan. Although possibly only allowing the using of the 80x15 PSU fan. I could remove one of the AP15's in the front of the case mount rad-AP15-rad which would give limited airflow to both. The third option is to mount the rad above the RAM so the sequence would be AP15-rad-AP15-rad. This sounds like it would work the best. The rad would fit very tightly to say the least. I would need to make a bracket to offset it vertically from the fan. The hoses from the CPU rad would interfere somewhat.
Out of those three mounting locations which do you think is best? I think my goals for temperature are realistic and achievable. I don't expect to get 40C load temps in this tiny case! Under 70C will be acceptable and under 60C would be terrific. Any other ideas are welcome. Thanks guys.
My goals with building this system where to have the most power I could get into the smallest case. That was achieved. Now I want to make it as cool and quiet as I can. I run the AP15's at full speed here in Thailand. In the US I run them at 1400rpm which is barely audible to me. Here there is a lot more background noise (Bangkok) so I can't hear them at all at 1800rpm, however when the GPU fans get up to 50% and beyond they are getting pretty loud. I'm running 1920x1080 and the use it for mostly gaming. I was able to get 10837 in 3dmark11. I have some modders mesh to cover the hole in the case waiting for me in the US. I'll get it installed in a month or so.
