I think I am going to have to go water cooling

[Sarra]

Setup is a 5950X with a Noctua NH D15, Gigabyte Gaming OC 6800XT, Asrock X570M Pro4 board. Case is a Meshify C Mini.

 

I want to add a 10GBE NIC, but... The NIC will block the GPU.

 

So, I could toss a waterblock on the GPU, but there's no room for a radiator above the CPU aircooler for a rad, and I'm not sure it would fit up front either. So, I'm looking at a GPU and CPU cooling solution that will fit in a Meshify C Mini case...

 

The kicker is that I've been considering a different setup, going with a Meshify 2 case, Gigabyte B550 full ATX board, and watercooling anyway.

 

Any suggestions? There isn't an available AM4 board with 10GBE, or I would have just gone that route to begin with, but... Suggestions? Should I wait for a new setup (new case/board), or try a build in the Mini?

[NF-A12x25]

try a PCIe riser cable for the nic and install it in a different slot?

[Sarra]

30 minutes ago, NF-A12x25 said:

try a PCIe riser cable for the nic and install it in a different slot?

I don't have another slot. MicroATX doesn't have much room, sadly.

[fonzz1e]

afaik am4 mobo with 10gb Lan onboard is usually top end atx ones (very pricey) 

 

mini C doesn't have a lot of room for wc if yer keeping the d15... alternatively can always go with external rad & pump setup... but that'll mean extra cost

 

 

[thrasher_565]

you can buy pci mounts and mount it els ware

[Sarra]

6 hours ago, fonzz1e said:

afaik am4 mobo with 10gb Lan onboard is usually top end atx ones (very pricey) 

 

mini C doesn't have a lot of room for wc if yer keeping the d15... alternatively can always go with external rad & pump setup... but that'll mean extra cost

 

 

They aren't available anymore, or they're $800. I already have a 10GBE NIC in the mail, so...

 

5 hours ago, thrasher_565 said:

you can buy pci mounts and mount it els ware

There isn't any place to mount it. There's just no room.

[For Science!]

5 hours ago, Sarra said:

They aren't available anymore, or they're $800. I already have a 10GBE NIC in the mail, so...

 

There isn't any place to mount it. There's just no room.

You can look at my builds in Meshify C, and probably use a 240 mm radiator in the front instead of the 360, but I think otherwise the dimensions are similar.

 

[Sarra]

18 minutes ago, For Science! said:

You can look at my builds in Meshify C, and probably use a 240 mm radiator in the front instead of the 360, but I think otherwise the dimensions are similar.

I'm not sure if a single 240mm rad could keep up with a 5950X at full tilt? Pretty sure a 5950X and 6800XT would overwhelm most 240mm rads. I do render projects that can take several hours to run, plus I run transcode that can hammer the CPU and GPU at the same time.

 

Or should I do front 240 with intake fans and top 240 with more intake fans, and just blow everything out the back? I can remove the panel to get a 360mm in the front, but I have two spinning rust drives down there and nowhere else to put them. They're 4TB drives, and while I could replace them with SSD's, already have 2/3 of the 2.5" SSD spots on the back of the motherboard trey filled already, plus, if they get replaced, I would be putting two 10+ TB drives in.

 

I think I just need to get a bigger case.

[For Science!]

18 minutes ago, Sarra said:

I'm not sure if a single 240mm rad could keep up with a 5950X at full tilt? Pretty sure a 5950X and 6800XT would overwhelm most 240mm rads. I do render projects that can take several hours to run, plus I run transcode that can hammer the CPU and GPU at the same time.

 

Or should I do front 240 with intake fans and top 240 with more intake fans, and just blow everything out the back? I can remove the panel to get a 360mm in the front, but I have two spinning rust drives down there and nowhere else to put them. They're 4TB drives, and while I could replace them with SSD's, already have 2/3 of the 2.5" SSD spots on the back of the motherboard trey filled already, plus, if they get replaced, I would be putting two 10+ TB drives in.

 

I think I just need to get a bigger case.

With radiators I always set them to exhaust because I don't really see the point of bringing the heat close to the case only to blow it back into the case. So even at the cost of running gently negative pressure, I always exhaust on all radiators. 

 

But you will have 2x 240 right? then it should be fine. Single 240 would probably be worst than air.

[Sarra]

1 hour ago, For Science! said:

With radiators I always set them to exhaust because I don't really see the point of bringing the heat close to the case only to blow it back into the case. So even at the cost of running gently negative pressure, I always exhaust on all radiators. 

 

But you will have 2x 240 right? then it should be fine. Single 240 would probably be worst than air.

Hm. It would be heavily negative, I'd have 4 exhaust fans at 120mm each, and a single intake at 120mm.

 

I still think I need a bigger case.

[For Science!]

29 minutes ago, Sarra said:

 

 

I still think I need a bigger case.

Then you have your answer. Fans on radiators are heavily impeded and you normally don't spin them so fast, so the negative pressure is not as bad as many think it is, and can be easily balanced by an unobstructed rear intake on a different fan curve.

[Sarra]

2 hours ago, For Science! said:

Then you have your answer. Fans on radiators are heavily impeded and you normally don't spin them so fast, so the negative pressure is not as bad as many think it is, and can be easily balanced by an unobstructed rear intake on a different fan curve.

This is true, yes. I need more room for storage drives lol

 

Either way, I'll go ahead and plan on a dual 240mm rad setup for this case. Worst case, I end up going with a different case and just run a 360 and 240.