My MicroATX system

[BloodyIron]

In the last year I have been paying attention to modern motherboards quite a bit, as well as other things. As such I designed my current rig (a work in progress still) to be a Micro ATX rig. I looked up a whole tonne of cases and other such things and have settled on my Silverstone Sugo case ( http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.as ... -_-Product ).

Why you might ask?

Well, my design had to maintain a few criteria:
-Has to be able to accomodate full length graphics cards (at least 1 that takes up 2 slots, along the lines of the ATI 6990 or 5890)
-Has to have sufficient room for a proper PSU, and not a piddly built in one

In anticipation of this drive I originally bought an Asus Rampage GENE II. At the time it was the superior Socket 1366 motherboard that was Micro ATX, and I sure was wowed by the LCD message device. Since then I have wedged my system into the Sugo case, out from it's previous Antec 1200 monolithic host.

All along this path I have wanted this system to be absurdly powerful without spending excessively. Some parts there are people would argue is excessive, but certain aspects I find make them worthwhile. For starters the inclusion of the Intel Core i7 980x turns some heads. When I first was using this processor I was using the stock HSF, as it was the style at the time (and I had it in a much larger case). For those who are not familiar with the stock HSF that pretty much only used to come with the 980x I direct your attention to ( http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.as ... -_-Product ). Take note on the size, and the switch to make it go faster. Yes, that is the stock HSF provided by Intel.

When I migrated my system into the Micro ATX case I had to find a more space-conscious replacement. So I picked up the Scythe Shuriken Rev B (100mm version http://www.newegg.ca/Product/ImageGalle ... U%20Cooler ) from Memory Express. I have since had plenty of thermal issues, due to the 980x's 130TDP. My attempts to mitigate this started by replacing the fan with the 2000rpm version (originally 1000rpm version), which helped a bit.

I recently did some additional research and found what appears to be a more suitable heatsink, which comes with no fan, but can sport 120mm standard chassis fans. As such I picked up the highest CFM fan I could find, which is rated for I believe upwards of 110CFM. After getting frustrated with the thermal issues I jury rigged the fan onto the Shuriken as a temporary solution while I waited for my new HS to show up. This has helped quite a lot.

Some example details are as such:
-Ambient room temperature of 22oc
-Idle core temperatures of 42-47oc
-Running Prime95 full boar on all threads produces 77-82oc
-After stopping all processor intensive processes the cores take about 10-15 minutes to cool back down to 42-47oc, but they drop to about 60oc pretty much immediately after turning off Prime95


Today, I plan to take my new heatsink (tada, the Samuel 17: http://ncix.com/products/?sku=54405&vpn ... rolimatech ), throw the highest CFM fan on it and try to break it. I will report back after the procedure is done, hopefully I'll remember to take pictures.

[BloodyIron]

Here are the results with the new HSF configuration:
-Ambient room temperature of 23oc
-Idle core temperatures of 30-34oc
-Running Prime95 on full boar on all threads produces 76-83oc
-Stopping all processor intensive processes the cores take less than 5 minutes to drop below 44oc
-The processor eventually returns to an idle temperature range of 33-37oc

So far it looks like a worthwhile installation. It is a bit louder, but nothing really obnoxious, just slightly louder than silent, I'm not sure if a happy medium could be found with noise from a fan and maintaining the necessary CFM for this processor.

Pictures coming soon!