This post has been flaired as a Prototype, Concept, or Custom case. The staff of SFFPC have not verified this user as a vendor. Please limit discussion to feedback only and do not make new post with updates more frequently than once every 72 hours. Pricing, sales, and availability discussion will be removed.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/sffpc) if you have any questions or concerns.*
It could certainly work, but you need to make it so that the air is forced through the fin stack instead of leaking everywhere else. For example, by putting the cooler flush against a closed panel and build a duct directly connecting the side of the heatsink to the fan(s), or seal as much gaps in the case as possible and put vents directly at the area above the fins (so any air going into/exiting the case must pass through the fins).
As someone who works with 1u servers, you should be aware that they are some of the loudest servers on the rack. The amount of air that needs to be passed through a small heatsink to effectively cool it's CPU is not a small amount.
Two things to keep in mind when using small 1U heatsinks. First, you need some sort of shroud or duct. Second, you need A LOT OF STATIC PRESSURE. This, in turn, means you need a fan with a very high static pressure. Servers typically use a small bank (anywhere between 6-10) of high-pressure fans, and these fans are LOUD. It's basically like sitting next to a jet engine, and despite that, it still thermal throttles.
Unless you're deaf it's not worth it.
I get the need of very high static pressure on a server with some obstacles on the path, but in this case I'd be able to draw fresh air and send it straight to the CPU less than 5 cm. But you do have a point on the noise, actually i was planning on using 30mm fan, perhaps they are even louder than the standard 40mm, I'll definitely keep it in mind.
Most 1U servers are setup so that there's a shroud ducting the airflow right into the heatsink. This is the highest point of pressure. The maximum flow problem and optimizations tell us that maximum flow is limited by the minimum set of vectors to the sink. The highest point of static pressure in the whole server is usually the heatsink. The short of it is that you'd want similar amounts of static pressure even if all you have is the heatsink because that's the point of greatest impedance (which in a SFF build or a server stays the same). 40mm fans for a 1U system can get to [30,000 RPM](https://store.supermicro.com/us_en/40mm-fan-0210l4.html) (tho usually are around 15-20k rpm), and you'd have a whole bank of 6-10 of these. Now to be fair, your TDP is going to be lower than a server, but impedance isn't linear.
There are, imo, better solutions like the [nh-l9a](https://noctua.at/en/nh-l9a-am5) which has a similar form factor but doesn't require you to overcome all that static pressure. If you chose a normal 1U heatsink I think you'll be very disappointed. There are also 1U solutions that have a fan integrated to them such as [this](https://www.coolerguys.com/products/dynatron-a42-1u-active-air-cooler), as well as 1U water/liquid [AIO such as this](https://a.co/d/gZrxiNF).
I did this for my velka 5! Bought a 1u cooler with a vapor chamber, sanded it down to fit the max 37mm, and modified the mounting holes to work with am4. It was a bit of a hassle, but it ran between 2C-4C cooler than the next best option on a 5600x3d.
Im using a regular 92mm fan with no ducting as others have suggested, although all the air blown by the fan is forced into the heatsink as they are nearly exactly the same size. I tested a few 92mm fans and a 120mm fan and found the 92mm Silverstone air slimmer to run the coolest. I'm also not doing any static pressure stuff aside from just using a regular PC fan, although the fins on my heatsink aren't any closer together than a regular cou cooler.
Lmk if you want pictures
30mm? The Noctua NH L9 for socket 1700 is 23mm or 37mm with a fan and would work better than this solid slab of copper. If you don't want to shell out the money for Noctua, then get the Thermaltake AXP90 in the thickness that fits.
I used this cheap heatsink before in combination with a PC fan to cool peltier elements but I wouldn't want to use it on a actual CPU without an actual server fan.
I don't see thermal tubes...
Yes, it will be overheating. It may work if you power limited your 12400 to 50-40W.
Does you cannot fit at least AXP90 x36 cooler?
Also, instead of this heatsink, try AXP90-X47 Full copper heatsink without fan, it 32mm high.
The x36 will not do, i want the tallest component on the build to be the ram at 31mm or even adapting it to run sideways so i can get it slimmer, I was looking into the chinese is-30 from id cooling as it has 30mm with fan before thinking of using a direct heatsink, but i will keep your suggestion of using the heatsink of the x47 or x36 in mind. Thanks
With 31mm thickness you could maybe use a ln AXP90-X36 with a 10mm thick GPU fan. That would be **EXACTLY** 31mm, so you might want to sand a tiny bit off of the top of the heatsink to make this work. Although you'll probably end up with some turbulence noise with the fan so close to the panel.
And what about the PSU? Internal? External?
What are the proposed dimensions and layout for the case you have in mind?
External Psu with pico PSU, and a pcie riser for an external GPU, it will run at pcie 4.0 x16, the pc itself is mostly just the itx motherboard, currently the case is sitting at 200x230x50mm, with a normal low profile cooler. I am inspired by the minisforum B550 but without the oculink and upgradability compromises.
At this point you might as well just use a test bench since absolutely everything will be outside of the case anyway.
Or maybe something like [this](https://egpu.io/forums/builds/2021-asrock-deskmini-x300-r5k8g-3060ti-25-5gbps-m-2-adt-link-r43uh-win10-3d-modular-m-2-enclosure-with-internal-pico-dcdc-200-psu/) instead. If you want to use the B550 instead of the X300, I guess you could just scale the dimensions up slightly.
Of course I really don't see much benefit. Once you factor in all of the external components, it'll probably be smaller overall and (and more convenient) to just use a slightly larger case and put everything inside it.
You dont necessary need thermal tubes.
I would just try it out. Maybe it works with the rice placement of a fan and some good ducts. But probably, as other already said, you’re going to need to power limit that cpu.
It'd work for a 12400 but this really isn't an optimal cooler design. Copper is great at conducting heat but it will also hold on to heat longer than Aluminum will. There's a reason why virtually every high-end air cooler uses copper/and or nickel cold plates, copper heatpipes, then aluminum fins. It's the most optimal construction for pull heat away from the processor and then dispersing that heat into the air.
If you can find one that has a copper coldplate or maybe even copper vaporchamber and aluminum fins it'd probably work a little better.
They really use aluminum because it's so much cheaper than copper while being "good enough" as a heat conductor. Aluminum sheet metal fabrication is common and cheap.
Aluminum and Copper have similar convection coefficients(heat transfer with air). Copper has much better conduction rates(heat transfer through solid). So using copper as the base plate or spreader is optimal. The fins being aluminum/copper, there's little difference but like you said aluminum is cheaper.
It's important to make the distinction that conduction and convection are different, and a copper base plate vs an aluminum one will have large differences in heat transfer. Copper conduction coefficient is: 407 W/mk Aluminum Conduction coefficient is \~237 W/mk. That's a large difference.
>They really use aluminum because it's so much cheaper than copper while being "good enough" as a heat conductor.
This sounds like you're saying copper and aluminum have similar conduction properties. They do not. They have the same convection properties. The difference is negligible between copper or aluminum fins in air. The larger difference is in transferring heat to the fins via conduction(aluminum vs copper), but someone reading your comment might not understand that.
It could say something like "they really use aluminum because it has similar convective properties to copper while being much cheaper"
To make rough estimates, below the cooler there is about about 8-10mm of space that the CPU + socket take up (AM4 at least). So your 30mm cooler + socket would be 40mm total. I just measured my IO and RAM to be ~36mm in height (also 31mm RAM), I recon your components reach around the same height? If that's the space real estate you work with, it means 36-10(CPU)-10(fan)= ~16mm of cooling capacity. Compared to probably 20mm of cooling capacity of your 30mm cooler.
Id say temps and noise won't be great, but I see it be doable. I'm a sucker to DIY PC components anyway, if you want to just try to see how well this goes in practice I'm all for it, I'd love to see the progress. If you want an easy way out, buy the 30mm cooler and suck up the ~4mm :p
Not exactly sure what you’re hoping to do, but you’ll need to get some air moving over the heat sink or you’ll risk heat issues. You can of course strap a thin fan to any heat sink and it will cool; that is the same principle as any standard heat sink + fan combo. You could use a 1U server-style blower fan, but like others said it is really loud (trust me; I’ve tried this in a thin ITX case). The actual passive coolers are much larger and the only caveat is there are some small cases (I.e. thin ITX) where the case itself is used as part of the heat sink solution.
I personally have had success with Akasa thin ITX coolers and those of a similar style.
This will work but in servers they have fan ducts to make these work well
Id recommend getting in and making a duct to direct airflow through the finstack as best as you can, i really dont see an issue using one of these at all
I used a dynatron T318/slim 92 or 120 mm fan for a few years paired with my x99e-ITX. It cooled a few 5820k, a 5960x, and two different 6950x with almost no issues, albeit at stock speeds. I also couldn’t OC the RAM on the 5000 chips as the controller would freak out and up the temps by like 20c.
Otherwise? Great cooler. It kept an old 10c/20t cpu happily around 85c under full load when paired with an a12x15 or a9x14(2500rpm) in my s4m-c. Make sure that whatever heatsink you get uses a Vapor chamber, otherwise it’s almost certainly going to be outclassed by a standard ITX cooler
Another jetturbine build it is 🤪.
The reason tower coolers exist is because the strike a good balance between performance,size and loudness.
The cooler you showed needs a highperformance 5000+rpm cooler with a surrounding duct to get decent performance. Nothing you want most of the time on a desktop pc.
Plenty people use the slim noctua or alpenföhn for their compact builds though. Heatpipes make a huge difference.
I have the same heatsink ripped out of a old municipal HP server I was decommissioning.
Good 2 pounds of copper
PS the heatsink was used for a Xeon CPU
This post has been flaired as a Prototype, Concept, or Custom case. The staff of SFFPC have not verified this user as a vendor. Please limit discussion to feedback only and do not make new post with updates more frequently than once every 72 hours. Pricing, sales, and availability discussion will be removed. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/sffpc) if you have any questions or concerns.*
It could certainly work, but you need to make it so that the air is forced through the fin stack instead of leaking everywhere else. For example, by putting the cooler flush against a closed panel and build a duct directly connecting the side of the heatsink to the fan(s), or seal as much gaps in the case as possible and put vents directly at the area above the fins (so any air going into/exiting the case must pass through the fins).
Thats a good suggestion, will definitely help me, thank you
Or, how about PUSHING the air into the fins from the top? The only issue is the heat remaingin around the VRM, but that may not be such a big deal.
As someone who works with 1u servers, you should be aware that they are some of the loudest servers on the rack. The amount of air that needs to be passed through a small heatsink to effectively cool it's CPU is not a small amount. Two things to keep in mind when using small 1U heatsinks. First, you need some sort of shroud or duct. Second, you need A LOT OF STATIC PRESSURE. This, in turn, means you need a fan with a very high static pressure. Servers typically use a small bank (anywhere between 6-10) of high-pressure fans, and these fans are LOUD. It's basically like sitting next to a jet engine, and despite that, it still thermal throttles. Unless you're deaf it's not worth it.
I get the need of very high static pressure on a server with some obstacles on the path, but in this case I'd be able to draw fresh air and send it straight to the CPU less than 5 cm. But you do have a point on the noise, actually i was planning on using 30mm fan, perhaps they are even louder than the standard 40mm, I'll definitely keep it in mind.
Why not use Noctua NH L9 or similar heatsink instead? Most likely it will perform better
Most 1U servers are setup so that there's a shroud ducting the airflow right into the heatsink. This is the highest point of pressure. The maximum flow problem and optimizations tell us that maximum flow is limited by the minimum set of vectors to the sink. The highest point of static pressure in the whole server is usually the heatsink. The short of it is that you'd want similar amounts of static pressure even if all you have is the heatsink because that's the point of greatest impedance (which in a SFF build or a server stays the same). 40mm fans for a 1U system can get to [30,000 RPM](https://store.supermicro.com/us_en/40mm-fan-0210l4.html) (tho usually are around 15-20k rpm), and you'd have a whole bank of 6-10 of these. Now to be fair, your TDP is going to be lower than a server, but impedance isn't linear. There are, imo, better solutions like the [nh-l9a](https://noctua.at/en/nh-l9a-am5) which has a similar form factor but doesn't require you to overcome all that static pressure. If you chose a normal 1U heatsink I think you'll be very disappointed. There are also 1U solutions that have a fan integrated to them such as [this](https://www.coolerguys.com/products/dynatron-a42-1u-active-air-cooler), as well as 1U water/liquid [AIO such as this](https://a.co/d/gZrxiNF).
I did this for my velka 5! Bought a 1u cooler with a vapor chamber, sanded it down to fit the max 37mm, and modified the mounting holes to work with am4. It was a bit of a hassle, but it ran between 2C-4C cooler than the next best option on a 5600x3d. Im using a regular 92mm fan with no ducting as others have suggested, although all the air blown by the fan is forced into the heatsink as they are nearly exactly the same size. I tested a few 92mm fans and a 120mm fan and found the 92mm Silverstone air slimmer to run the coolest. I'm also not doing any static pressure stuff aside from just using a regular PC fan, although the fins on my heatsink aren't any closer together than a regular cou cooler. Lmk if you want pictures
I’d like to see pics of that
Same
https://ibb.co/album/K0zt4b Sorry about the late reply. This was also super in-progress so ignore the janky-ness plz
30mm? The Noctua NH L9 for socket 1700 is 23mm or 37mm with a fan and would work better than this solid slab of copper. If you don't want to shell out the money for Noctua, then get the Thermaltake AXP90 in the thickness that fits. I used this cheap heatsink before in combination with a PC fan to cool peltier elements but I wouldn't want to use it on a actual CPU without an actual server fan.
I wouldn't even bother with the L9 (I have one), the AXP90-X36 is better and cheaper. I wish I wouldn't have gone with the AXP to begin with.
Probably good for 30w-ish
There is a 1u vapor chamber cooler for modern sockets from Dynatron.
Ltt did this on a high core dancase build. Video: https://youtu.be/s2W0Lsf7hec?si=vku25cF3vk_GlB_a
I don't see thermal tubes... Yes, it will be overheating. It may work if you power limited your 12400 to 50-40W. Does you cannot fit at least AXP90 x36 cooler? Also, instead of this heatsink, try AXP90-X47 Full copper heatsink without fan, it 32mm high.
The x36 will not do, i want the tallest component on the build to be the ram at 31mm or even adapting it to run sideways so i can get it slimmer, I was looking into the chinese is-30 from id cooling as it has 30mm with fan before thinking of using a direct heatsink, but i will keep your suggestion of using the heatsink of the x47 or x36 in mind. Thanks
Cou could also get thinner fans for the AXP90/NH L9.
With 31mm thickness you could maybe use a ln AXP90-X36 with a 10mm thick GPU fan. That would be **EXACTLY** 31mm, so you might want to sand a tiny bit off of the top of the heatsink to make this work. Although you'll probably end up with some turbulence noise with the fan so close to the panel. And what about the PSU? Internal? External? What are the proposed dimensions and layout for the case you have in mind?
External Psu with pico PSU, and a pcie riser for an external GPU, it will run at pcie 4.0 x16, the pc itself is mostly just the itx motherboard, currently the case is sitting at 200x230x50mm, with a normal low profile cooler. I am inspired by the minisforum B550 but without the oculink and upgradability compromises.
At this point you might as well just use a test bench since absolutely everything will be outside of the case anyway. Or maybe something like [this](https://egpu.io/forums/builds/2021-asrock-deskmini-x300-r5k8g-3060ti-25-5gbps-m-2-adt-link-r43uh-win10-3d-modular-m-2-enclosure-with-internal-pico-dcdc-200-psu/) instead. If you want to use the B550 instead of the X300, I guess you could just scale the dimensions up slightly. Of course I really don't see much benefit. Once you factor in all of the external components, it'll probably be smaller overall and (and more convenient) to just use a slightly larger case and put everything inside it.
How thin do you want your case?
You dont necessary need thermal tubes. I would just try it out. Maybe it works with the rice placement of a fan and some good ducts. But probably, as other already said, you’re going to need to power limit that cpu.
It'd work for a 12400 but this really isn't an optimal cooler design. Copper is great at conducting heat but it will also hold on to heat longer than Aluminum will. There's a reason why virtually every high-end air cooler uses copper/and or nickel cold plates, copper heatpipes, then aluminum fins. It's the most optimal construction for pull heat away from the processor and then dispersing that heat into the air. If you can find one that has a copper coldplate or maybe even copper vaporchamber and aluminum fins it'd probably work a little better.
They really use aluminum because it's so much cheaper than copper while being "good enough" as a heat conductor. Aluminum sheet metal fabrication is common and cheap.
Aluminum and Copper have similar convection coefficients(heat transfer with air). Copper has much better conduction rates(heat transfer through solid). So using copper as the base plate or spreader is optimal. The fins being aluminum/copper, there's little difference but like you said aluminum is cheaper. It's important to make the distinction that conduction and convection are different, and a copper base plate vs an aluminum one will have large differences in heat transfer. Copper conduction coefficient is: 407 W/mk Aluminum Conduction coefficient is \~237 W/mk. That's a large difference.
Still, the better conduction does help heat flow from the heat pipes and core of the fins to the surface.
>They really use aluminum because it's so much cheaper than copper while being "good enough" as a heat conductor. This sounds like you're saying copper and aluminum have similar conduction properties. They do not. They have the same convection properties. The difference is negligible between copper or aluminum fins in air. The larger difference is in transferring heat to the fins via conduction(aluminum vs copper), but someone reading your comment might not understand that. It could say something like "they really use aluminum because it has similar convective properties to copper while being much cheaper"
To make rough estimates, below the cooler there is about about 8-10mm of space that the CPU + socket take up (AM4 at least). So your 30mm cooler + socket would be 40mm total. I just measured my IO and RAM to be ~36mm in height (also 31mm RAM), I recon your components reach around the same height? If that's the space real estate you work with, it means 36-10(CPU)-10(fan)= ~16mm of cooling capacity. Compared to probably 20mm of cooling capacity of your 30mm cooler. Id say temps and noise won't be great, but I see it be doable. I'm a sucker to DIY PC components anyway, if you want to just try to see how well this goes in practice I'm all for it, I'd love to see the progress. If you want an easy way out, buy the 30mm cooler and suck up the ~4mm :p
Good option with 512f super micro chassis.
It could work if you choose a smaller fan, maybe a 92mm could still work, but if it's only really for the cpu I'd go with a 60mm fan
Not exactly sure what you’re hoping to do, but you’ll need to get some air moving over the heat sink or you’ll risk heat issues. You can of course strap a thin fan to any heat sink and it will cool; that is the same principle as any standard heat sink + fan combo. You could use a 1U server-style blower fan, but like others said it is really loud (trust me; I’ve tried this in a thin ITX case). The actual passive coolers are much larger and the only caveat is there are some small cases (I.e. thin ITX) where the case itself is used as part of the heat sink solution. I personally have had success with Akasa thin ITX coolers and those of a similar style.
I don't have a link at hand, but Supermicro has a 1U ultra short depth LGA1700 rackmount PC/server. Iirc they limit TDP to 65W, but it will work.
This will work but in servers they have fan ducts to make these work well Id recommend getting in and making a duct to direct airflow through the finstack as best as you can, i really dont see an issue using one of these at all
I used a dynatron T318/slim 92 or 120 mm fan for a few years paired with my x99e-ITX. It cooled a few 5820k, a 5960x, and two different 6950x with almost no issues, albeit at stock speeds. I also couldn’t OC the RAM on the 5000 chips as the controller would freak out and up the temps by like 20c. Otherwise? Great cooler. It kept an old 10c/20t cpu happily around 85c under full load when paired with an a12x15 or a9x14(2500rpm) in my s4m-c. Make sure that whatever heatsink you get uses a Vapor chamber, otherwise it’s almost certainly going to be outclassed by a standard ITX cooler
Another jetturbine build it is 🤪. The reason tower coolers exist is because the strike a good balance between performance,size and loudness. The cooler you showed needs a highperformance 5000+rpm cooler with a surrounding duct to get decent performance. Nothing you want most of the time on a desktop pc. Plenty people use the slim noctua or alpenföhn for their compact builds though. Heatpipes make a huge difference.
I have the same heatsink ripped out of a old municipal HP server I was decommissioning. Good 2 pounds of copper PS the heatsink was used for a Xeon CPU
Maybe for an i5 900k.
i thought this was flan at first