[SOLVED] CPU cooler clearance on mini-ITX ?

[liquidkoshman]

Hi,

I'm building a modest Mini-ITX gaming rig. I have the Silverstone Sugo 13 case and the CPU/APU is AMD 3200G and I'm looking for a compatible low profile air cooler. Officially the clearance is 61mm with an ATX PSU but I'm using an SFX one in a bracket that should give me another 22.5mm so about 83mm CPU cooler clearance. My dilemma is this:

1. should I just get a Noctua NH-L9a-AM4 which is 37mm so would comfortably fit. Here using the SFX PSU gives me advantage of more clearance so I guess better air heat dissipation.

or

2. get Noctua NH-L9x65 SE-AM4 which is 65mm. Of course this is a much bigger and I assume better cooler and thanks to using an SFX PSU it would fit, but there would only be about 18mm clearance to the bottom of the PSU thus potentially blocking hot air from dissipating effectively.

What do you think is the better option - a lower performance cooler with more clearance for the hot air or a more powerful cooler with very little space for the hot air to dissipate?

Thanks!
Radim

 

[Eximo]

I have this older one: https://pcpartpicker.com/product/cvrG3C/silverstone-case-sstsg05busb30

With the included SFX PSU.

Currently have the NH-L9x65 for Intel. Seems to work fine. I have an underclocked i7-4770k under there, I believe I set the max boost to 3.6Ghz and a pretty low power limit. I would have to check. Still, gets the job done (used to use the stock cooler from that i7 on an i3-4130T, but the little dual core started struggling on general web browsing)

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: Intel Core i7-4770K 3.5 GHz Quad-Core Processor
CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-L9x65 33.84 CFM CPU Cooler ($54.95 @ Newegg)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z87N-WIFI Mini ITX LGA1150 Motherboard
Memory: G.Skill Sniper Series 8 GB (2 x 4 GB) DDR3-1866 CL9 Memory ($59.07 @ MemoryC)
Storage: Samsung 870 Evo 500 GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($59.99 @ Amazon)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda Compute 2 TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($46.99 @ Amazon)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GT 1030 2 GB Video Card ($125.99 @ Amazon)
Case: Silverstone SG05B-USB3.0 Mini ITX Desktop Case w/300 W Power Supply ($104.79 @ Amazon)
Total: $451.78
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2021-12-10 11:05 EST-0500

 

[liquidkoshman]

Thanks!
I actually found out the SFX PSU would only cover about 1/3 of the cooler so the proximity to the PSU shouldn't be such a big deal.
I'm currently using the stock AMD cooler and when Prime95 testing it gets over 90C in less than 10 minutes. The APU is a 65W TDP part.
I will go for the bigger cooler and decent paste, that seems to be the better option.

Actually one more related question about PSU orientation - is it better to have the PSU fan facing down (to the CPU, default) or rather up out of the case through the top exhaust? Thanks.

Once again thanks for your helpful insight!

 

[Eximo]

PSU fans are intakes, exhaust will be out the rear no matter what. So your choice is to have them fight each other a little or have the PSU draw air from the outside directly.

On the one hand, you lose an exhaust fan if you flip it, and the PSU is now sucking in the dust and debris. Mine sits on the floor, so I have left it stock and let the front filter collect the dust, which I clean every two or three months.

 

[liquidkoshman]

Ok, thanks. Then I suppose the default orientation makes more sense as the PSU fan can actually indirectly help cool the CPU.