High end air on mITX

gropingmantis · 31 Jan 2011 at 18:48

Is it possible? Assuming the case will accept it.

Thinking about a future project, will things like Megahalems or D14 fit a mITX board. I've been looking at dimensions all afternoon but can never find out the crucial distance of PCI-e to CPU center.

Can anyone help/advise?

.:SAmSuNG:. · 31 Jan 2011 at 19:13

I run a Noctua NH-C12P on my itx board. It would fit pretty much most decent coolers I think but not all socket placement is the same. I was tempted by your foxconn board but socket placement seems close to the PCI lane so would need to use either a smaller cooler or no soundcard.

edit* must have been another board i was looking at as the foxconn looks fine.

gropingmantis · 31 Jan 2011 at 19:22

Yeah the Foxconn seems to have decent placement but thats not what I'm intending to use and the Intel and Gigabyte boards are all really close to the PCI lane as you said.

I get the feeling that you could mount a Mega on there as long as the orientation is correct and you only used one fan.

.:SAmSuNG:. · 31 Jan 2011 at 19:44

You selling your fox soon?

gropingmantis · 31 Jan 2011 at 19:53

No not selling its going into an HTPC with an i3-2100T once Gigabyte get their act together and give us a P67 board.

CAT-THE-FIFTH · 31 Jan 2011 at 20:05

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18236417

gropingmantis · 31 Jan 2011 at 20:10

Yeah I know. At the moment I'm only using the 6GB/s ports so I can wait till they are ready to replace it for me

Anyway to the task at hand. Super air cooling for mITX.

cavemanoc · 6 Feb 2011 at 15:39

It's mAtx not mItx but I went for this:

and did a little 'light' modification on the 1U server case:

Was more for fun than anything else, but with a little love and attention I think this kind of thing can look really cool - love the idea of hacking massively over-sized coolers into ridiculously small cases

anemos101 · 6 Feb 2011 at 20:14

cavemanoc said:
It's mAtx not mItx but I went for this:

and did a little 'light' modification on the 1U server case:

Was more for fun than anything else, but with a little love and attention I think this kind of thing can look really cool - love the idea of hacking massively over-sized coolers into ridiculously small cases

Smexy kit

gropingmantis · 6 Feb 2011 at 21:23

Thats MENTAL. What is that cooler in the top right cooling?

cavemanoc · 6 Feb 2011 at 23:08

It's the Thermalright IFX-14 - great beast of a cooler, the twin towers cool the CPU and the little one cools the backplate. Had it kicking around and thought it would be rude not to use it - a little overkill for a silent media centre but it was fun to put together! Does a grand job - would probably keep the phenom 7750 cool passively, but I bunged a quiet fan in at 5v anyway.

WingZero30 · 6 Feb 2011 at 23:39

cavemanoc said:
It's the Thermalright IFX-14 - great beast of a cooler, the twin towers cool the CPU and the little one cools the backplate. Had it kicking around and thought it would be rude not to use it - a little overkill for a silent media centre but it was fun to put together! Does a grand job - would probably keep the phenom 7750 cool passively, but I bunged a quiet fan in at 5v anyway.

I got the same cooler. I agree it is awesome especially with 2 akasa viper fans and mx-4 thermal compound. However I am not very fond of the mounting system. It is very easy to move the heatsink accidently when trying to place the screws into the holes.I think the mounting kit is poorly designed and the screws are tricky to be kept straight when tightning them.

gatecrasherlok · 7 Feb 2011 at 13:42

I managed to fit this on a mITX build

Great cooler, I suppose I could have got away without having the fan on since it is a i3 530 processor.

gropingmantis · 7 Feb 2011 at 17:32

Is that an HR-02? How is the cooling on it with the fan as its touted as a passive cooler.

gatecrasherlok · 8 Feb 2011 at 00:57

The cooler is great with a slow rpm fan on it, on load with IBT it only got to 56 which i think is darn great, and i know it's only a i3 530 but I'm chuffed with it. And yes its an HR-02

gropingmantis · 10 Feb 2011 at 19:19

Excuse me whilst I hijack my own thread couldn't really see the need for a whole new thread though I may put one in cooling.

Does anyone have an opinion on THE best top down cooler at the moment?
I'm guessing the shootout will be between the NH-C14, NH-C12P, AXP-140 and the Shuriken.
But which one is the best?

gatecrasherlok · 11 Feb 2011 at 03:26

I'd probably say the NH-C14. Noctua do some great heatsinks

gropingmantis · 30 Mar 2011 at 11:54

Well here comes the thread from the dead.

My Q06 is on its way to me as we speak. This means I can fit whatever cooler I damn well please...almost. Because nobody has seen a P67 ITX board and the likely contenders for one are Gigabyte, who love to put their socket as close to the PCI-e lane as possible (nice one Gigabyte), we have to assume that whatever cooler I choose has to fit on a board with that kind of socket placement.

So I've narrowed it down to 2 coolers:

Thermalright HR-02, like gatecrasherlok above, This will sit like a hulk on top of the board looking massive and cooling the CPU very well...but nothing else.

OR

Thermalright AXP-140, which will blow top down, not as good CPU cooling but it will be cooling the other components which people have hinted at being important if you want to OC on an ITX board.

Any thoughts on these two or suggestions for other coolers that will fit silly socket placement?

Participant · 30 Mar 2011 at 12:38

gatecrasherlok said:
I managed to fit this on a mITX build

Great cooler, I suppose I could have got away without having the fan on since it is a i3 530 processor.

Awesome. What board / case is that please so I know it fits? I may have to plagiarise that idea!

gropingmantis · 30 Mar 2011 at 13:14

It looks like a Lian-li PC-Q07 and I'm guessing the board is the Gigabyte H55N. Does look pretty damn good.

With a pico PSU as well I think?????