Looking for a cool dwarf.

[LaPlume]

Hi everyone, welcome on the quest.

 

Immediate TLDR: looking for a cooling champ 145mm tall or shorter, that isn't a top-down cooler, to cool 105W in less than ideal conditions.

 

Long talk:

I'm done building a nice rig, but bragging the full config isn't the question. Currently running a 3900x, willing to, when the time come, eventually burn my wallet on the biggest baddest CPU the Ryzen 9 4XXXx will provide compatible with a x570 chipset. So, for maths and good investments, let's say we're trying to cool a 3950x there.

 

And the wraith prism is indeed a great cooler... for open bench, or if your case is a fan array or a wind tunnel. Mine isn't.

 

A little bit of angle grinding gave enough space to fit up to a 145mm tall cooler, which is a limit I can't push further. It's a rack-mounted case. Said case NEEDS a big metal bar accross the top to keep its rigidity.

 

Without that metal bar (that I already profusely thinned), I would only gain 5mm at best, and before the angle grinding, it was like 135mm of clearance, which actually collided with the GPU.

 

AIO? No way in this case, unless you find an AM4 AIO with a 3x 5.25bay mount, eventually, but then I would have to keep the front door of the case open, which isn't ideal, else it would be mounted onto the sole 120mm front fan space, which is already busting its noctua blades around to make this barbecue breath (the GPU is a beefy mf )

[Bombastinator]

3900 or 4xxx? 3900 is standard am4.

Afaik 4xxx isn’t out yet.  

[LaPlume]

10 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

3900 or 4xxx? 3900 is standard am4.

Afaik 4xxx isn’t out yet.  

I know it's not out yet.

1 hour ago, LaPlume said:

"willing to, when the time come, eventually burn my wallet on the biggest baddest CPU the Ryzen 9 4XXXx "

 

Yes, indeed, 3900x is standard AM4, and so is supposed to be the futur 4XXX series, as AMD announced they won't break compatibility with Zen2 on the next iteration, but on the one after (5XXX we can assume?), therefor I don't plan on changing anything but the CPU when the next gen comes around, keeping my x570 chipset motherboard.

 

The whole thing isn't about the socket being standard or not.

It's about assuming I'm running a 3950X and not a 3900X when looking for a cooler, as to have a bit of headroom for the next generation of AM4 cpus, in term of heat output.

[AlexTheGreatish]

I feel like the NH-C14S is what you're looking for.  Depending on how you arrange the fan the height can either be 115mm or 142mm.

[Bombastinator]

So what you want is the most powerful cooler available with an AM4 mount that is less than 145mm.  This implies a consumer style system.

 

The whole rack mount thing confuses this.  It kind of sounds like what you are doing is building a rack mount as a consumer system.

 

Rack mount systems use the same cpu mounts as consumer systems but work differently.  They rely on stupendous amounts of airflow from very loud high speed fans and often have simple aluminum extrusion passive coolers, relying on cooling from the tremendously powerful fans in the front.  They’re usually quite small.

 Consumer systems mostly have an attached fan and are mostly concerned with being as quiet as possible.

 

If you’re building a quiet consumer system and not using rack mount fans @AlexTheGreatish‘s answer would be the correct one.  If you are though the fan system on the noctua is largely pointless as it’s features of quietness would be wasted in the face of industrial fan noise.
 

 

[LaPlume]

That's an option I already looked into, Alexander the Greater

 

Noctua's great CPU-cooling evaluation tool already made me scout over their options.

 

But an option I already ditched out because of my particular situation.

The PC case I'm in, top-down cooler would be shooting myself in the foot because of the fan configuration. What I'm really looking for is a front-to-back airflow cooler.

 

In the 3U IPC 4088 case I'm using, with a 120mm NF-P12 at the front and 2x 80mm NF-R8 at the back, I noticed a big area of toastie hell in the area of the ram and the 3 5.25 drive bays, and that's a situation I would like to solve along with the question of having better CPU temps.

 

As for the "rack mount confusion", the inside of the IPC 4088 case is basically the same as a 2005 average consumer computer case, with just 2 differences:
-3.5 and 5.25 bays are rotated 90° (3.5 bays are gone because of the GPU btw)
-that big metal bar needed for rigidity when shelved into a bay.

Other than that, bog standards, just that I'm more limited in cooler height.

 

And yeah, the whole thing was just getting the best air cooler that would fit in a 145mm space, isn't top-down flow, and mounts on bog standard AM4.

 

The sole reason I mentioned the rack thing was to justify why the heck my case had a metal bar that needed angle grinding to even fit a fatbutt GPU.

[Bombastinator]

34 minutes ago, LaPlume said:

That's an option I already looked into, Alexander the Greater

 

Noctua's great CPU-cooling evaluation tool already made me scout over their options.

 

But an option I already ditched out because of my particular situation.

The PC case I'm in, top-down cooler would be shooting myself in the foot because of the fan configuration. What I'm really looking for is a front-to-back airflow cooler.

 

In the 3U IPC 4088 case I'm using, with a 120mm NF-P12 at the front and 2x 80mm NF-R8 at the back, I noticed a big area of toastie hell in the area of the ram and the 3 5.25 drive bays, and that's a situation I would like to solve along with the question of having better CPU temps.

 

As for the "rack mount confusion", the inside of the IPC 4088 case is basically the same as a 2005 average consumer computer case, with just 2 differences:
-3.5 and 5.25 bays are rotated 90° (3.5 bays are gone because of the GPU btw)
-that big metal bar needed for rigidity when shelved into a bay.

Other than that, bog standards, just that I'm more limited in cooler height.

 

And yeah, the whole thing was just getting the best air cooler that would fit in a 145mm space, isn't top-down flow, and mounts on bog standard AM4.

 

The sole reason I mentioned the rack thing was to justify why the heck my case had a metal bar that needed angle grinding to even fit a fatbutt GPU.

So a consumer quiet solution with its own fan is needed.  
 

Pure rock slim would work. It’s not especially powerful but more than enough for basic cooling.  It’s both more powerful and quieter than the wraith.  They’re also cheap.

 

a noctua nh u9b se2 would work too.  It’s short enough and you wouldn’t have had to grind that bar.  I don’t think it’s much better than the pure rock though it is over twice the money.

———————

Thinking about and redescribing your problem because I like to do that:

 

It sounds like what you want is an extra short 6 pipe cooler in am4.  The problem is the am4.  A low slung cooler with a motherboard brushing 120mm fan might maybe work.  they’ve been made in the past.  But not for am4.  All the big coolers have 140mm fans now.  It might be possible to pick up something old on eBay that DOESNT have an am4 mount and rig something.  The actual cpu-cooler connection is just a flat plate and it’s been that way for ages.  It’s the cooler-motherboard mount that is the AM4.  You’d need to be able to find a no longer made cooler used and an adaptor plate for am4 that while not designed to fit the older cooler will none the less do so anyway.  Or build one yourself.  A very exacting procedure.  The cooler needs to be supported on its mounts at exactly the right height. Fractions of a millimeter matter.

[LaPlume]

@Bombastinator The Pure rock slim was already in my "for lack of nothing better, guess I'll go for a" bag, in case I could find nothing better, but it doesn't leave much headroom.

 

As for the NH-U9B, already looked over it but would have gone for a NH-U9S instead, which is said to have slightly better performances and still fits in the same footprint, and well under the height limit, and unlike the B variant, doesn't ask for an AM4 mounting kit to be purchased on top.

 

Building my own bracket isn't an option, I lack the tooling to do it.

 

In any cases, I would have had to grind that metal bar, because it collided also with the GPU, so no wasted time there.

 

And yeah, coolers height seem to jump from 130mm to 150mm without much middle ground of shortness and high performance sadly.

 

@Caroline

Thermalright Spirit 90M, and True Spirit 120M seem a bit "slim" while being right up the height limit for the second one.

Thermalright Macho 90 : really tempting, but sadly 1 to 3 month availability in the country next door, and unavailable in my country for some unknown reason, or only without AM4 support, and struggling to find any review on its performances on more recent CPUs.

 

And yeah, Danny Devito indeed answers the topic's tittle.

[Bombastinator]

4 minutes ago, LaPlume said:

@Bombastinator The Pure rock slim was already in my "for lack of nothing better, guess I'll go for a" bag, in case I could find nothing better, but it doesn't leave much headroom.

 

As for the NH-U9B, already looked over it but would have gone for a NH-U9S instead, which is said to have slightly better performances and still fits in the same footprint, and well under the height limit, and unlike the B variant, doesn't ask for an AM4 mounting kit to be purchased on top.

 

Building my own bracket isn't an option, I lack the tooling to do it.

 

In any cases, I would have had to grind that metal bar, because it collided also with the GPU, so no wasted time there.

 

And yeah, coolers height seem to jump from 130mm to 150mm without much middle ground of shortness and high performance sadly.

 

@Caroline

Thermalright Spirit 90M, and True Spirit 120M seem a bit "slim" while being right up the height limit for the second one.

Thermalright Macho 90 : really tempting, but sadly 1 to 3 month availability in the country next door, and unavailable in my country for some unknown reason, or only without AM4 support, and struggling to find any review on its performances on more recent CPUs.

 

And yeah, Danny Devito indeed answers the topic's tittle.

If it helps any the pure rock should be more than enough.  Companies make coolers to fit different somewhat standardized cases and you have a case that is not standard.

[LaPlume]

Yeah it seems like they don't consider middle grounds between a 2U and a 4U wide case (wide? tall?), but 3U isn't that uncommon... just "old".

I have 3 cases in storage from the 2000-2010 era, and none would take taller than 150mm, I still have a HP Z600 running, and it's a 3U format.

 

The "consumer-ization" (or un-exotic-ation) of watercooling pushed the industry to wider and wider desktop cases, closer to 4U+ formats, so air coolers are basically made to fit else really slim builds, or girth-y "standard" ones.

 

I'll go for a pure rock, found it for 35.90bucks with shipping, but only as a temporary solution, because right now it's just not OK with the stock cooler in my actual configuration.

 

 

I hope I'll have eventually other inputs to go for and then consider, and I'll resell/shelve/reuse elsewhere the BQ pure rock.

[LaPlume]

The SE904TWIN seem nice, but doesn't come with an AM4 mounting bracket, and seems to be discontinued, sadly.

[Bombastinator]

One more possibly useless thought:  

this metal bar, could it be replaced with a different metal bar? One with a big loop in it that got it out of the way?

The new one would have to be fabricated which by itself may make things impossible.

 

I’m thinking about automotive  strut mount chassis stiffening.  Many cars that get hot rodded have a chassis stiffening bar that goes from the top of one strut mount to the other.  They tend to get in the way of the engine though so the bars are thickened even more and curved in a C shape to avoid the engine.

[LaPlume]

Metal bar thinned with a dremel: 145mm clearance
Metal bar stock: 130mm
No metal bar at all, would gain around 4-5mm more then bump into the side panel (top panel when in the rack bay)

 

I'm not sure it's worth it.

[Bombastinator]

6 minutes ago, LaPlume said:

Metal bar thinned with a dremel: 145mm clearance
Metal bar stock: 130mm
No metal bar at all, would gain around 4-5mm more then bump into the side panel (top panel when in the rack bay)

 

I'm not sure it's worth it.

I’m not either.  149mm would get you a scythe Fuma, which is a six pipe,  but literally no spare space at all.  It might not even wind up fitting after all the effort.

[LaPlume]

And while the Fuma2 takes AM4 (but is 154,5mm high), the Fuma "OG" only takes AM3.

[Bombastinator]

3 minutes ago, LaPlume said:

And while the Fuma2 takes AM4 (but is 154,5mm high), the Fuma "OG" only takes AM3.

I was thinking specifically of the scythe fuma rev b.  I’m seeing a listing of 149mm for it.  Listing as am4 compatible. Apparently amazon has 1 left.  I’m looking on pcpartpicker though and it’s possible they messed up their stats between similar devices.  It’s happened before.

 

Even if it is that height and has am4 I’m still not 100% it would even work though

[LaPlume]

Neither am I, + it would still mean figuring something out to replace the support metal bar, so that's not a -buying it right now- option either.

[WoodenMarker]

8 hours ago, LaPlume said:

But an option I already ditched out because of my particular situation.

The PC case I'm in, top-down cooler would be shooting myself in the foot because of the fan configuration. What I'm really looking for is a front-to-back airflow cooler.

 

In the 3U IPC 4088 case I'm using, with a 120mm NF-P12 at the front and 2x 80mm NF-R8 at the back, I noticed a big area of toastie hell in the area of the ram and the 3 5.25 drive bays, and that's a situation I would like to solve along with the question of having better CPU temps.

Unless you're mainly relying on high front to back case airflow for cooling, you're probably going to still get better results from a larger heatsink like the NH-C14S over a smaller one that faces the same direction as the case fans. What you've described is fairly good for airflow but isn't as front to back as many server racks tend to be with much higher rpm fans. 

Where are you shopping / located? Budget? 

If you can find an Alpenfohn Atlas, that may be your best option if you're adamant about the front to back airflow. 

 

Make sure to quote a post or tag a member when replying or else they won't get a notification that you replied to them.

[Bombastinator]

13 minutes ago, WoodenMarker said:

Unless you're mainly relying on high front to back case airflow for cooling, you're probably going to still get better results from a larger heatsink like the NH-C14S over a smaller one that faces the same direction as the case fans. What you've described is fairly good for airflow but isn't as front to back as many server racks tend to be with much higher rpm fans. 

Where are you shopping / located? Budget? 

If you can find an Alpenfohn Atlas, that may be your best option if you're adamant about the front to back airflow. 

 

Make sure to quote a post or tag a member when replying or else they won't get a notification that you replied to them.

That one lists as no am4 mount available

[WoodenMarker]

Just now, Bombastinator said:

That one lists as no am4 mount available

I don't see any sockets listed on the cooler website but the installation manual does mention AM4. https://www.alpenfoehn.de/images/Produkte/Installationsanleitungen/Atlas/Installationquide_Atlas.pdf

[LaPlume]

@WoodenMarker Advice taken!

 

Well, concern with a top-down is that the 2x 80mm are pretty "high"/closer to the side panel than the motherboard, while a big part of the air going through the CPU cooler end up in going front of the case, toward the actually empty 5.25 bays. Bays that I plan on populating with storage drives, drives that I don't want to bathe in CPU heat goodness.
 

+ the PSU is a semi passive, directing hot air to the back and out instead of against the motherboard then into the PSU intake might allow it to stop running its fan more often, or at least go lower RPM.

 

Also, a top down taking its bowl of "fresh" air from closer to the side panel, with the exhaust fans being also really close to the side panel just near it and sucking air away from it, with the GPU sides spitting hot air against the side panel just under... I admit I haven't studied the airflow enough to affirm it, but it sounds like starvation with sips of heated air.

 

These are the reasons I tried to avoid top-down coolers.

 

If I'm completely wrong on my instinctive assumption, tell me I can take it. I'll admit gladly that all the computers I built for others were all in more "consumer" cases designed with plenty space for big tower coolers or spaces for AIOs or watercooling loops, and that all the computers I had myself were until now based of refurbing servers I would frankenstein a GPU into and various daughter cards to still benefit from modern commodities these old beasts lacked (sata 3, usb 3.1 and the likes).

 

That's actually the first time I build in a rack-mountable case that is just a case, not a barebone, and in ATX form factor.

 

 

 

And the Alpenfohn Atlas actually looks like a very compelling option! I will have to check for clearance, as I do have dims and VRM cooler on the taller side, but it could very well be the one!

I still have the BQ pure rock incoming monday anyway, so if I end up going for the Alpenfohn, I will post comparative results on here, might be usefull to someone else down the road... as for the BQ pure rock, would just re-use it in an other build probably.

 

 

I don't know if someone will come up with a better option than the Alpenfohn Atlas (on paper at least), but I'm all ears for propositions.

 

Budget? Would like to keep it under 100€
Location? Mhh... 127.0.0.1

Shopping on german, french, spanish and italian online merchants mainly. If it can be delievered for less than 8€, they have a sale!

 

 

Edit: Okay, that's an expensive one AND an older one that comes WITHOUT the AM4 socket apparently

 

[WoodenMarker]

2 minutes ago, LaPlume said:

a top down taking its bowl of "fresh" air from closer to the side panel, with the exhaust fans being also really close to the side panel just near it and sucking air away from it, with the GPU sides spitting hot air against the side panel just under... I admit I haven't studied the airflow enough to affirm it, but it sounds like starvation with sips of heated air.

 

Budget? Would like to keep it under 100€
Location? Mhh... 127.0.0.1

Shopping on german, french, spanish and italian online merchants mainly. If it can be delievered for less than 8€, they have a sale!

The fan can also be mounted under the NH-C14S heatsink instead to push air up towards the side panel. From what I've read, that seems to perform better in cases which tend to also have exhaust fans near the side panel. 

I was asking for location mainly to see what's available for purchase. Country or general region is fine. From what you've described, finding the Atlas doesn't seem too far fetched but it's up to you if you want to be more specific. 

[LaPlume]

That's a sneaky farfetch'd.

 

Yeah I actually found it in my country just now, for 119.89€ + 9.30€ for the AM4 mounting kit, but it's a slight bit above what I had left on the side for cooling (and damn they were fast to withdraw the 30bucks for the BQ pure rock), so I guess it will be early january for the Atlas if no one has a better proposition until then.

 

And yes I saw the low profile configuration for the NH-C14S, which actually tempted me at first, but from the girth of the fan, I really do feel like I lack RAM clearance for that to happen.

 

...

...

 

They had a promotion on a GSkill Neo 4x16GB 3600mhz CAS16... and... well... can't fight that!

[Bombastinator]

38 minutes ago, WoodenMarker said:

I don't see any sockets listed on the cooler website but the installation manual does mention AM4. https://www.alpenfoehn.de/images/Produkte/Installationsanleitungen/Atlas/Installationquide_Atlas.pdf

Pcpartpicker has it listed as am3+ but no am4. Pcpartpicker has its problems though.  It also doesn’t list it as buyable.

i did find a review on it from 2015.  The company website doesn’t have “atlas” listed under current cpu coolers.  They have a discontinued button, but it breaks when I try to use it.

[LaPlume]

Found it there on their website, seems like only the german page works, but I have the basics to get what it says:

https://www.alpenfoehn.de/index.php/en/products/cpu-cooler/10-cpu-kuehler/206-ben-nevis-deutsch

And here is the mounting kit page, in german also:

https://www.alpenfoehn.de/en/2-uncategorised/292-upgradekit-olymp-atlas-matterhorn

 

As for where I found both available: Amazon.