CR-95C and Zalman Fanelsss?

[Copyright]

Being a silent forum I am surprised I don't see more talk about the CR-95C in here or the Zalman Fanless option. Anyone running one of these?

[Abula]

I have one on the CAMMI build on my signature.

You don't see as much talk on it, mostly because its expensive, probably as expensive as it gets for air cooling, and there are coolers like Scythe Kotetsu or Thermalrigth HR02 Macho that can cool better while still maintaining an inaudible setup or at least very quiet, for less than half the cost of the NoFan CR95C, personally i bought it more because i wanted a mini itx build with a huge cooler and it looks very good (imo).

[Copyright]

Yeah, I am about to order the Macho Zero.. I was going with the noFan but the Thermalright setup seems so much easier plus I had planned to run my case fans anyways.

[Abula]

Yeah, I am about to order the Macho Zero.. I was going with the noFan but the Thermalright setup seems so much easier plus I had planned to run my case fans anyways.

Seems overpriced with the iodized.... no fan. I would go Kotetsu or HR02 Macho, either offer good value and perform well.

[quest_for_silence]

I was going with the noFan but the Thermalright setup seems so much easier plus I had planned to run my case fans anyways.

There's a difference: the NoFan is a true passive cooler, the Thermalright is not.

[Abula]

I was going with the noFan but the Thermalright setup seems so much easier plus I had planned to run my case fans anyways.

There's a difference: the NoFan is a true passive cooler, the Thermalright is not.

Depends on what you are cooling, it can for sure cool a dual core passively, but a haswell i7 at full load it cant, it will throttle for sure. The test on SPCR were "Core i7-965 @ 3.2 GHz, 1.2V, Prime95, half load". In my testing, on an open bench with prime95 a 4770K @3.9ghz it will reach 90C in 20min and slowly continue, the HR22 or HR02 passively fails much faster, as the SPCR shows, and prime95 is a very unlikely condition, probably gaming and standard task might be fine, but rendering or encoding might not. Although i haven't tested, i do think it would handle fine a Sandy Bridge i7, but with the newer design with the vrm on the chip.... i dont think there is a passive cooler, ran fully passive case, that would fit a standard case with i7 fully loaded. Even more a 4790K @4.4ghz can reach 90C on prime95 with 3x fans on a SA IBE in 30mins, with the fans above 1k rpms, there is no way a NoFan95C can handle this passively. WHat i didnt test and will probably allow an i7 to be ran fully passive is to manually downclock it, my guess around 3.4ghz it might be fine.

[quest_for_silence]

Depends on what you are cooling

You're perfectly right, Abula: I just meant that within NoFan own specs (and so no open bench but forced airflow) the CR95 can handle that load, while any of the original HR derivative cannot match a nearly identical performance (without an heatsink fan).
About the quoted SPCR review test limitations, IIRC those were due to the fact that their 1366 CPU exceeded the actual NoFan TDP specs.

[Copyright]

I had planned to run my case fans either way so the Macho makes the most sense because I can duct it over to my 140mm Noctua Redux. Those spin at 400rpm when at idle and low load.. should be plenty to keep my i7 cool even overclocked. I hardly ever stress it enough to create any real heat issues.

[Copyright]

Has anyone compared the CR-95C to the Macho Zero with noth using case fans? I mean use the duct on the Macho and have case fans running with the CR-95C.

[Abula]

Has anyone compared the CR-95C to the Macho Zero with noth using case fans? I mean use the duct on the Macho and have case fans running with the CR-95C.

With no direct fans on the CPU cooler there is no competition, the NoFan95C should be much more capable, the duct might work some but pulling a lot of times is not as efficient as pushing in coolers, but take my comments with a grain of salt, as although i own 2x HR02 and HR22, i havent ducted them ever. Now if you are into ducts, consider the HR22, it comes with a pre made silicon/plastic duct, i never used it as the HR22 goes super close to the back case fan.

That said.... for only case fans, i would go with NoFan95C, while i believe its not capable of cooling a 4770K on a fully passive case, it can cool fine with some case fans spinning, you can see the CamMi build where i only use a frontal 140 and top 120 and the 4770K has been fine for more than 6 months now, and the camera software does put a load of 30% 24/7, and when it records bump to 50-70%. I usually leave HWmonitor running parallel to the camera software, and never see the 4770K go over 68C. As long as you are not encoding or rendering, the Nofan95 is a good choice, probably the best (no money considered) for wanting just case fans and no direct fan on the CPU cooler.

Now what worries me... is your signature, you are overclocking the 4770K, you should be looking into staying with direct cooling the CPU.

[Copyright]

I have been thinking of removing the oc for silence. My problem with the setup i have is the fans wont go below 600 rpm.

[useful_idiot]

I run the CR-95C on a 4790K clocked at a constant 4.4GHZ and I have 0 case fans. If you are going to run the CR-95C you MUST pick a case that excels at top venting. If you DON'T run Prime95 all day then the CR-95C will be the best money you ever spent, follow you from build to build because you cant live without it, and compel you to start optimizing your system around it however if you DO run Prime95 all day everyday then the CR-95C really sucks.

[Copyright]

I dont have top vents i want to open but i do have case fans i will be running... is that enough?

[Copyright]

Well I picked up the Macho Zero and the 140mm duct. Going to give this setup a try and see if I can mange to keep my oc.

[Copyright]

Well I picked up the Macho Zero and the 140mm duct. Going to give this setup a try and see if I can mange to keep my oc.

Well I backed out on my order.. can't make up my mind..

[Abula]

Well I backed out on my order.. can't make up my mind..

Its easy, if you want to avoid a CPU Heatsink fan and want to only use case fans, go with the NoFan95C, its the most capable cooler for this setup. Just be sure that you are not loading the cpu with stress tests and while being overclocked.

Now if you do want to use a fan on the CPU heatsink, then go with Thermlaright HR02 Macho (BLACK) or Scythe Kotetsu, both are very good value heatsinks that should handle the i7 quietly under standard task or even gaming, they might get loud on stress test, but this are scenarios that are very unlikely to happen in real world, unless you do heavy encoding/rending.

One thing you need to account is that the NoFAN95C will likely take the first two PCIe slots, in most motherboards the 16x PCIe is on the 1st or 2nd, so you will need to drop your Video Card to the next 16x physical (8x wired).

[xan_user]

the noise floor in 99% work/home environments is higher than a single slow fan. I cant justify spending that much to be fanless, if the difference can't actually be heard (unless you stick your ear right next to the case).

[Copyright]

Abula, I recently made some changes they I wonder will help me keep my OC or not if I go with the CR-95C. I de-lidded my CPU and my load temps went from 84C down to 69C with the Phanteks heatsink i am using. I also just made the swap to a 16gb Ballistix LP Tactial 1600mhz 1.35V ram kit. I should have no issues clearing the heatsink and also noticed my idle temps dropped a little bit. I am thinking being 1.35V ram this could be helping the temps? My only other issue is knowing if the 2nd PCIE slot on my mobo will give me any negative performance effects when I put my video card in that slot.

[Copyright]

the noise floor in 99% work/home environments is higher than a single slow fan. I cant justify spending that much to be fanless, if the difference can't actually be heard (unless you stick your ear right next to the case).

Normally I would agree but my office is dead silent.. as soon as I disable the pair of 600rpm fans on my phanteks I can hear them stop. My office is so quiet I can hear my brain working lol.. it's strange but I almost got this setup dead silent. From where I sit the 400rpm Noctua fans are impossible to hear. I can still hear my 6tb WD Red even inside the 2002C case but the drive is setup to power down after 10 min so at that point I hear nothing.

[Abula]

I de-lidded my CPU and my load temps went from 84C down to 69C with the Phanteks heatsink i am using.

Thats some really nice temps you drop the i7 =), you might be fine with the Nofan95 even overclocked and fully loaded, but somthing that you have to test once you build.

I also just made the swap to a 16gb Ballistix LP Tactial 1600mhz 1.35V ram kit. I should have no issues clearing the heatsink and also noticed my idle temps dropped a little bit. I am thinking being 1.35V ram this could be helping the temps?

The ram bieng lower voltage will run very cool, not that dd3 run hot, but it will run cooler than standard, either way that ram wont need any cooling but i doubt it will help significantly on the total inside temp, just a more versitile ram in my experience, specially big dual tower coolers.

My only other issue is knowing if the 2nd PCIE slot on my mobo will give me any negative performance effects when I put my video card in that slot.

I dont think a GTX980 can saturate a PCIe 3.0 8x, in my SLI of GTX970 i saw almost no loss in benches, there is like 5% or so, but the scaling is very good this days on SLI (as long as drivers are released optimizing it), this leads me to speculate that you will have the same performance on the 2nd 16x (or an 8x wired), but you should crosscheck in other forums and reviews to confirm if the GTX980 will not be crippled.

Post some pics when you finish the buld =)

[quest_for_silence]

I de-lidded my CPU and my load temps went from 84C down to 69C

Which thermal paste did you use?

[useful_idiot]

I de-lidded my CPU and my load temps went from 84C down to 69C

Which thermal paste did you use?

I suggest Liquid Metal (Amazon) between the die/ihs.

[dan]

newegg only sells zalman fanless.

how about that one?

[Copyright]

I de-lidded my CPU and my load temps went from 84C down to 69C

Which thermal paste did you use?

I used liquid metal pro between the die and IHS... then Tuniq-TX4 between the IHS and my heatsink.. really really happy with the results.

[Copyright]

Abula, Still debating the fanless option.. at the moment I have my Phanteks cooler running zero fans at idle and only come on as the CPU heats up. So tempted to try the NoFan.. if I do I will report back my results for sure. Right now it's cold out so my house temps are 68F so much cooler than the 76F I will have the house temp at during the summer. Now is probably the best time to test 100% load since I will normally never see that kind of load anyways at least my cooler ambients will make the test a little safer.