Issue with Heatsink in Silverstone GD04/GD05

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darunium
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Joined: Tue Apr 20, 2010 9:29 am
Location: Boston

Issue with Heatsink in Silverstone GD04/GD05

Post by darunium » Sat Jun 11, 2011 5:10 am

Hi All,

So I've started putting together an HTPC in Silverstone's GD04 case. I've got a lot of good things to say about how that case is designed but I won't get into that here, suffice to say however it is well suited to taking the NT01-E passive CPU cooler (I'm running an i3-2100 stock in there). If you look at pictures of the case you can see that the two 120mm intake fans supply it with plenty of air, especially the one nearby, and if need be placing 2x80mm outlet fans above the I/O panel will give you as much cooling performance as a heatsink with a fan - good deal considering there is a 70mm height restriction on the CPU cooler. This is elegant in that it is made even more effective by the presence of a graphics card, which effectively divides the case into two chambers each with their own intakes, forcing air in the CPU chamber to be routed up past the CPU through the heatsink to the only accessible outlets. It's an elegant design, and they suggested using the NT01-E with the GD04.

So I did, but lo and behold a major issue rises: the NT01-E blocks the PCIe 2.0 x16 slot on every single commercially available mATX intel Mainboard I can find!.

This is a serious issue: I'm not using a VGA card in their now, but given how beautifully the cooling system is designed I am near certain that it can take a legitimate VGA card, even handling I suspect some of the upcoming passively cooled solutions. So while I don't need it right now, I see no reason not to spend the extra hundred bucks down the line to give it moderate gaming ability without major cooling or noise losses, perhaps when one of our laptops loses its secondary gaming viability.

So, as much as it kills me, because the NT01-E as a passive solution really does work so elegantly in this case, I'm looking for a new CPU heatsink with a 70mm clearance requirement (more headroom the better). Top-down looks like the only option, but it's a real shame because a passive cooling design works perfectly with this case and top-down options generate a lot of turbulence (since their airflow runs perpendicular to all the intake fans), so it'll keep the CPU cool but it'll make the intakes work harder and will negatively effect airflow in the rest of the case.

A lot of people have been building with the Big Shuriken, but that will block my RAM ports and frankly I've built with it before - it is a pain to get it 'locked in' on the mainboard comfortably.

That brings me to either the stock intel cooler (heaven forbid) or the NT07. The NT07 review I saw at tweaktown gives it basically no advantage except height over the stock core2duo cooler (which was if I recall on of intel's better stock coolers). I'm still considering it though since in a space like this the extra headroom (it's only 36mm high) may mitigate some of the turbulence and *may* give enough space for some laminar exit stream above the CPU.

Any other ideas? Passive options that work with the flow of the case would be great, but I haven't found any yet that fit that height restriction.

What about the Scythe Shuriken (not big shuriken) without the fan? Does anyone have experience with that?

darunium
Posts: 31
Joined: Tue Apr 20, 2010 9:29 am
Location: Boston

Re: Issue with Heatsink in Silverstone GD04/GD05

Post by darunium » Sat Jun 11, 2011 6:59 am

Another option: http://www.arctic.ac/en/p/cooling/cpu/1 ... tml?c=2181
Edit: nevermind, looks to be 5mm too tall. Maybe I could run it passively?
This would fit though: http://www.arctic.ac/en/p/cooling/cpu/1 ... tml?c=2181
OCO review
OCC review

Still top-down though, I'd love to find a low-profile passive cooling solution. With the rising popularity of HTPCs I don't know why there aren't more!

darunium
Posts: 31
Joined: Tue Apr 20, 2010 9:29 am
Location: Boston

Re: Issue with Heatsink in Silverstone GD04/GD05

Post by darunium » Sat Jun 11, 2011 7:31 am

So I just measured the height of the stock intel cooler that comes with the i3-2100 and it is only 45mm tall, so nearly the same height as the NT07, so I think I'll sadly end up going with that, hopefully I won't run into noise issues.

If anyone can think of a passive cooling option that would fit though, this seems like the perfect environment for it. It's just too bad the NT01 blocks the critical port (pic:http://imageshack.us/f/190/img1589e.jpg/

Luke M
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Re: Issue with Heatsink in Silverstone GD04/GD05

Post by Luke M » Sat Jun 11, 2011 9:59 am

darunium wrote:So I did, but lo and behold a major issue rises: the NT01-E blocks the PCIe 2.0 x16 slot on every single commercially available mATX intel Mainboard I can find!.
There are certainly microATX boards with x16 slots in the #3 position. For example (socket 1155 boards):

http://usa.asus.com/Motherboards/Intel_ ... 8P67M_PRO/
http://www.gigabyte.com/products/produc ... id=3854#ov

darunium
Posts: 31
Joined: Tue Apr 20, 2010 9:29 am
Location: Boston

Re: Issue with Heatsink in Silverstone GD04/GD05

Post by darunium » Sun Jun 12, 2011 5:04 am

Those are P67 and X68 chipset boards though, I mean H61/H67 boards, which have the HDMI out and are more affordable - hence my application for the HTPC. At least on Newegg all the H67 boards I found had the PCIe 2.0 x16 slot in position 1 :-(. A Z68 board would work but are nearly twice the price of H67 boards, and for an HTPC rig that seems hardly worthwhile.

darunium
Posts: 31
Joined: Tue Apr 20, 2010 9:29 am
Location: Boston

Re: Issue with Heatsink in Silverstone GD04/GD05

Post by darunium » Sun Jun 12, 2011 5:40 am

Actually I did find an mATX Z68 board for $124 (so $40 more than my current board, but not a deal breaker) that has a PCIe 2.0 x16 slot in the 3rd and 4th positions, although I'm not sure either of those actually gets 16 channels: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6813128495

Nicias
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Re: Issue with Heatsink in Silverstone GD04/GD05

Post by Nicias » Sun Jun 12, 2011 7:51 am

If you zoom in on the image of the board on newegg you can see that the 3rd and 4th slots are labeled x4 and x8 respectively.

darunium
Posts: 31
Joined: Tue Apr 20, 2010 9:29 am
Location: Boston

Re: Issue with Heatsink in Silverstone GD04/GD05

Post by darunium » Sun Jun 12, 2011 8:47 am

Nicias wrote:If you zoom in on the image of the board on newegg you can see that the 3rd and 4th slots are labeled x4 and x8 respectively.
yeah that's too bad since they have that board at microcenter too: http://www.microcenter.com/single_produ ... id=0364087

It's too bad but I think I'm just going to go with the stock cooler. It will keep the i3 and components cool and if I put a VGA card in that will seperate compartments anyway so it shouldn't harm airflow in the GPU region anyway, which is the trickier component to cool. The top-down cooling will make the side fans work a little hard but I can probably keep it cool with the fans at minimum voltage anyway (here's hoping!).

The biggest concern is the noise of the stock fan, in which case going with the Silverstone NT07 *might* be a better option, I don't know if anyone has experience with that.

I will call silverstone this week though to express my frustrations over this issue, because they recommend using the NT01-E with this case without making any mention of blocking the first slot position, and indeed the picture on their website (now taken down, but can still be found posted elsewhere) with the NT01-E in the GD04 makes it look quite clearly from that angle like the slot is clear, only if you notice the shadow of the bar in the zoom in can you tell that it is a perspective issue and that the slot is indeed blocked. If there are any silverstone reps online they should take note

ceejaysp
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Joined: Wed Jul 13, 2011 4:40 am

Re: Issue with Heatsink in Silverstone GD04/GD05

Post by ceejaysp » Wed Jul 13, 2011 4:53 am

Hmm, shame I didn't see this thread earlier - I've just run into exactly the same problem!

Building an HTPC with a GD04 case, wanting it to be as quiet as possible, and swallowing the sales pitch for an NT01-E !

In my case I have an Asus P8H67-M Pro mobo, and, as you found, the cooler obstructs the GPU slot (which I will definitely be filling).

This really messes up my cooling plan! I have a fanless GPU (GT520), and I've just got three slipstream pwm fans to replace the case fans (as I found them way too loud).

For now I will try the stock cooler that came with my GT620 CPU - its about 52 mm above the board and fits under the 5.25 bay ok, though I am worried about the noise levels (not been able to try it all together yet, I still have some parts to come).

Is it possible that the CPU location is varying slightly from one mobo to another? I've seen at least one review in which you can clearly see the cooler just missing a GPU card in slot 1, though that was an AMD build.

Are you still with the stock cooler, or have you found a better alternative?

Ceejaysp

darunium
Posts: 31
Joined: Tue Apr 20, 2010 9:29 am
Location: Boston

Re: Issue with Heatsink in Silverstone GD04/GD05

Post by darunium » Wed Jul 13, 2011 1:11 pm

sorry to hear that it got you too!

I'm still going with the stock cooler for now, but I'm in the middle of the move so I haven't been playing with it yet.

It's sad that Silverstone hasn't made this issue clear or addressed their customer's needs when it doesn't work out. It would be one thing if it was just products on the market, but they suggest putting these together, making the buyer confident it will work, a real shame.

It may work for some AMD builds, although all the mATX intel boards I looked at had it blocked.

If they remade the same heatsink with one less heatpipe, it would fit.

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