Supercharged Noctua NH D14

[trents]

Well, I'm largely done with my dabbling in all in one closed loop water cooling. I had to try it anyway, right? But after trying four different units and having to return three of them for various problems (mostly pump related) I decided to go back to my trusty Noctua NH D14 but with a different twist, you might say.

To begin with, I found that none of the AIO water coolers gave much improvement in temps over the Noctua. The best one was the Coolermaster Nepton 280L that gave about 4c better temps than the Noctua air cooler when both were run in stock conditions. The Nepton 280L was considerably noisier than the Noctua, however. Unfortunately, it also developed an annoying high-pitched pump squeal so I RMA'd it. But I digress.

Last night I swapped out the stock Noctua D14 fans with more powerful ones.

To start with I removed the stock 120x25mm fan in the front and replaced it with a Delta AFC1212D-PWM (120x25mm, 3400 rpm, 10.9 mm-H20). I left the stock 140x25mm Noctua stock fan in the middle between the two halves of the heatsink. This did not seem to make any real difference in temps.

Next, I moved the Delta to the middle position between the two halves of the heatsink and strapped a Silverstone FHP141 (140mm x 38mm, 2000 rpm) to the front of the cooler. The thick Silverston fan made a difference of 3c in idle and max temps. For $17.00 this dual ball bearing fan rated for 150,000 hr. of service has to be the best fan buy I am aware of. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835220056

I should say that when all fans (case and CPU cooler) are running at max speed there is plenty of noise but I have all of them on a Sunbeam Rehostat Extreme fan controller. When I turn them down to just over stall speed the system is very quiet.

There is about 2c difference between quiet fan setting and max (87c-85c) at this stress level. And yes, you loose some fan RPM with the rheostat style controller but I tested the difference and there is only a 4% loss in fan speed.

Also, I was able to use the stock fan clips from the Noctua fans on my replacement ones. The 140mm Silverstone fan has 120mm mount holes.

Here are some pics:

 

[ATMINSIDE]

I have 5 of those AFC1212D-PWM fans in my water cooled build, they never leave 25% fan speed.

Great results though bud!

 

[ehume]

I did a collection of studies on the D14. You can get the links all together here.

 

[trents]

I have 5 of those AFC1212D-PWM fans in my water cooled build, they never leave 25% fan speed.

Great results though bud!

I could never get the Delta to throttle down where I wanted it with it being controlled by PWM. Of course, it could have just been the motherboard I was using at the time had crappy PWM implementation. The rheostat works much better IMO.

 

[ATMINSIDE]

I could never get the Delta to throttle down where I wanted it with it being controlled by PWM. Of course, it could have just been the motherboard I was using at the time had crappy PWM implementation. The rheostat works much better IMO.

Mine won't throttle down until it loads the fan control software in Windows.
IIRC they do ~40% minimum, but then my custom "curve" loads.

 

[trents]

What software do you speak of?

 

[ATMINSIDE]

What software do you speak of?

I did a very minimal install of Asus' AI Suite II, leaving only their fan control portion.

 

[inVain]

not many people have enough guts to slap some 38mm fans in their system today.

nice results, man!

 

[Mandrake4565]

Nice work Trents.

 

[trents]

What's frustrating to me is that no one (that I know of) makes a truly high performance 140x140x25 fan. I mean high performance a long the lines of the Delta AFC 1212D-PWM. It'd be nice to be able to put a screamer 140mm fan in the middle between the two haves of the cooler that would cover all of the cooler's surface area.

 

[ehume]

What's frustrating to me is that no one (that I know of) makes a truly high performance 140x140x25 fan. I mean high performance a long the lines of the Delta AFC 1212D-PWM. It'd be nice to be able to put a screamer 140mm fan in the middle between the two haves of the cooler that would cover all of the cooler's surface area.

This?

 

[BruceUSA]

Noctua ND-14 with 2 120x38 Delta 5500rpm pwm. I love this combo. If I am going air cool, this would be my combo. See for yourself.

 

[trents]

This?

140x25mm. The one you reference is 38mm thick. Won't fit between the two halves of the Noctua D14.

 

[trents]

Noctua ND-14 with 2 120x38 Delta 5500rpm pwm. I love this combo. If I am going air cool, this would be my combo. See for yourself.

The second one if used on the heat sink of the Noctua D14 would need to be on the backside and not in the middle 'cause it wouldn't fit. On the backside it would be much less effective.

Surely, someone should have made a 140x25 fan that spins at 3000+ rpm but I can't find one. Lots of 120x25 and 120x38 high speed fans but no 140x25s.

 

[BruceUSA]

I had both delta fans sandwiched the heatsink. Middle left empty. However, I did stuff in a 4000rpm delta fan 120x25 in the middle but temp wise, it made no different. So I removed the center fan. This heatsink needs only 2 high power delta fan to do wonder in temp.

 

[trents]

I had both delta fans sandwiched the heatsink. Middle left empty. However, I did stuff in a 4000rpm delta fan 120x25 in the middle but temp wise, it made no different. So I removed the center fan. This heatsink needs only 2 high power delta fan to do wonder in temp.

Ah! I see. Wouldn't have thought that would have worked as well as having the one in the middle. How much temp difference did putting the Delta on the back make compared to going with just one on the front?

 

[ehume]

The second one if used on the heat sink of the Noctua D14 would need to be on the backside and not in the middle 'cause it wouldn't fit. On the backside it would be much less effective.

It would not be much less effective. I proved that in tests done years ago. Look it up by starting here. I think it's in chapter 2.

Surely, someone should have made a 140x25 fan that spins at 3000+ rpm but I can't find one. Lots of 120x25 and 120x38 high speed fans but no 140x25s.

I think the new Noctua PPC fans have something like that. But they all may have square frames.

I had both delta fans sandwiched the heatsink. Middle left empty. However, I did stuff in a 4000rpm delta fan 120x25 in the middle but temp wise, it made no different. So I removed the center fan. This heatsink needs only 2 high power delta fan to do wonder in temp.

I tried some relatively high-powered 38mm fans on the outside, varied the middle, starting with nothing inside. Here. Chapter 3.

 

[trents]

ehume,

I've sort of reached the same conclusion as you. A lot of the jacking around with fans we do only delivers minor improvements and to a large degree it's over hyped IMO, at least when you are dealing with well designed cooling solutions in the first place. The only significant improvement I have had is the 3c drop in temps when putting the 140x38 Silverstone on the front face of the Noctua. Other stuff over the years I have tried with fans yielded more like 1-2c improvement over stock. I think a lot of noobs have unrealistic expectations for these mods, especially adding a pull fan.

 

[RnRollie]

surface is everything!
if you want to get closer to ambient, you need a way bigger heatsink
no fan in the world can blow away more as what the HS is able to "transport" away from the IHS and dissipate into the air ... C/W you know. Even freezing cold air would not bring you closer to ambient when the max dissipation capacity is reached.

This is where watercooling beats traditional "air", because a radiator is basically a heatsink with a LOT more surface area.

This of course does not mean that bolting 5 MO-RA rads in series is gonna bring you any closer to ambient if you are pumping +3v into the CPU. Even while 5 MO-RA's could probably dissipate a few KiloWatts
Because the problem moves away from the heatsink/radiator/surface area, the problem moves to the heatsink/waterblock base & the IHS. A square inch copper wb/hs base just does not have the capacity/surface to move that much heat away fast enough from the even smaller chip.

Now, IF you could only lay your hands on some UnObtainium to make a HS/WB base, but Conumdrum and me have split the worlds stash between us

What is an option thou when using a few MO-Ra's in series, is to stuff a TEC-stack between WB base and IHS

 

[Tech Tweaker]

What's frustrating to me is that no one (that I know of) makes a truly high performance 140x140x25 fan. I mean high performance a long the lines of the Delta AFC 1212D-PWM. It'd be nice to be able to put a screamer 140mm fan in the middle between the two haves of the cooler that would cover all of the cooler's surface area.

The Yate Loon D14SH-12 is the first one that comes to mind for me.

It's a 140mm high-speed fan. Spins at 2000 RPM +/-5%, rated to move 140CFM, but it's loud as all hell at 48-50DB depending upon where you look. And move air it does, I own one and I'd say it moves as much air as my Delta EFB1212SHE fans, if not more.

It has little to no static pressure build-up though, so probably not very good for water cooling radiators, but might work on a heatsink if other fans used do have some decent level of static pressure.