Ncase M1 has arrived

It’s here! #297 of 1200, I believe.

In all it’s tiny glory.

The transfer was pretty brutal, to say the least. The case was designed to be a tight fit from the conceptual phase, so I knew what I was in for, that and I’m no stranger to tiny builds. (My first project was smaller)

The flat PSU cables I bought helped as well, and I tried to hide the 24 pin molex connector and the 8 pin ATX connector underneath the motherboard itself, but sadly, they are not that agile. Perhaps I will try to move them underneath the tray next I’m in there. I left quite a cable mess in there in my haste to transfer the system.

Here’s some extra perspective and dimensions:

And yes, those are inlet and outlet ports for a liquid cooling system’s reservoir, which I have coming to me in the mail at this moment, custom made for this bad boy alone! The M1 was designed in mind for a liquid cooling system as a viable option, which is generally not the case with smaller setups.

The creators toyed around with a closed loop cooling system (the Swiftech H220, render shown above) to help build a basic idea of what it would require to effectively jam one into the M1. To save space, they used a waterblock with an integrated pump, and a radiator with an integrated reservoir. Their results were as follows:

The Alphacool GPU block didn’t have active cooling for the VRMs (the block covers them, but there are no water channels there), so unfortunately I faced a similar situation as with the Accelero: inadequate VRM cooling under extreme load conditions. Fortunately, under normal usage scenarios, it’s not a problem. Nevertheless, because of this I was only able to get Furmark measurements at stock clocks on the GPU:

Furmark, 1 hour
22C ambient
2×120 side fans in @1800RPM, 1x92mm bottom fan in @1500RPM, pump @1975RPM
7970@stock: ~77C GPU, ~103C VRMs
CPU: ~51C

As with the Accelero, I used Heaven to get overclocked temp readings:

Heaven, 30 minutues
22C ambient
2×120 side fans in @1800RPM, 1x92mm bottom fan in @1500RPM, pump @1975RPM
7970@1125/1575: ~67C GPU, ~80C VRMs
CPU: ~49C

Heaven + Prime95, 30 minutues
22C ambient
2×120 side fans in @1800RPM, 1x92mm bottom fan in @1500RPM, pump @1975RPM
7970@1125/1575: ~71C GPU, ~79C VRMs
CPU: ~74C

Under gaming loads I was able to turn down the fans and pump while maintaining reasonable temperatures:

Gaming
22.5C ambient
2×120 side fans in @1550RPM, 1x92mm bottom fan in @1500RPM, pump @1475RPM
7970@1125/1575: ~64-68C GPU, ~72-77C VRMs
CPU: ~56-59C

Overall, temperatures were a bit higher than what was achieved with the NH-C14/Accelero setup, although the GPU VRMs stayed cooler. It should be noted this setup has only two 120mm fans, vs. the C-14/Accelero’s four, so there’s a significant difference in airflow.

Once again, the top panel got fairly warm under load. Needless to say, whether it’s air or water cooling, the components are still generating the same amount of heat, and it’s going to warm up whatever it passes through. The rest of the case exterior stayed relatively cool, however.

Max temp reported by the Intel PCH on the motherboard was 66C, while the inside front and bottom-mounted SSDs reported 46 and 43C, respectively. Probably on the hot side for a mechanical drive, but acceptable for solid-state.

I will most likely be going with a full custom setup, even though getting a CLC system appeals to my laziness, especially at this point. So I should expect similar or even better results, due to the build quality of custom kits. As of now, my overclock won’t actually function with any sort of stability in this set up, due to the heatsink being inadequate for the task. Which makes sense, seeing as how it’s built for a much smaller environment (it’s a 1U cooler; 31mm) and lower TDP. So I had to revert to the base clock and undervolt, but now all is well, and it still performs amazingly. I’ll just have to start planning for that liquid cooling kit.