[SOLVED] Fractal Meshify C good enough for air cooled Threadripper?

fobos8

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Nov 30, 2019
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Hi guys
I'm going to do a 3960x build with a Noctua NH-U14S TR4-SP3 cooler. I'm conscious that I need to get plenty of air in and out so I'm looking at a front mesh style case.

Will the Meshify C be good enough? I'd put 2 x 140mm Noctuas at the front and top.

My graphics card will be a 1660ti.

Regards, Andrew
 
Solution
Product pages for both of those coolers specifically do not include a listing for TR4 or sTRX4.

The coolers in that video are NOT the coolers you recommended. The Dark rock pro 4 is NOT the same as the Dark rock pro TR4 (In the video) and the NH-D15 is NOT the same as the NH-U14S TR4 SP3 (In the video), which are the coolers used in that video, not the DRP4 and D15. So again, a lack of correctness is evident. It's understandable that you might confuse these coolers, but they are no more the same than two people from different sides of the world are. In fact, overall, they are not even remotely similar other than the fact that they are all CPU coolers.
Not at front and in the top, at front and ONE in the TOP-rear, and another in the rear-top. Two front intake, one rear exhaust, one top-rear exhaust.

You do NOT want to put an exhaust fan in the top of any case that is forward of the primary CPU cooler fan for any tower style cooler in a tower style case because it will tend to "steal" the cooler ambient airflow intended to be supplied to the CPU cooler, leaving only semi-heated air rising from the graphics card and mixed with the lower front intake fan ambient mixture. Better to have as much cool ambient airflow straight to the CPU cooler as possible, not to mention flowing over the memory and VRMs.

Aside from that consideration, which is only a small deviation from your intended configuration, that case should be fine with that setup.

One thing I might consider is that moving up to a case like the Meshify S2 or Meshify R6 gives you the ability to put a rear 140mm fan, which not only helps to increase airflow and cooling performance by increasing the draw through the case but also tends to be quieter than the 120mm models which are all that is supported by the Meshify C in that rear location, and in most cases for that matter.
 
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fobos8

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That's brilliant advice Darkbreeze about the top fans and makes perfect sense.
I looked at the S2 but its a bit large and there'd be a lot of unused space, however I realise airflow is critical and would still consider it. With that case you can also get an extra 140 fan at the front bottom, although its half in the PSU section so I don't know how much use it would be.
 
Not much use. I've never seen anybody actually utilize those bottom fan locations because it's impossible to do and not have the PSU cabling interfere even if you DO have a short enough power supply. Not needed anyhow.

Best cooling is achieved with a combination of intake and exhaust for a relatively neutral pressure arrangement, or even just slightly tilted to the positive side. I tend to run either two or three front intake fans, a rear exhaust and a top-rear exhaust in most systems that have more than just uber basic hardware.

Honestly, the Meshify S2 and R6 aren't REALLY all that big. If you're coming from an OEM case, they might SEEM that way, but they are honestly not that much larger than the Meshify/Define C.

Meshify C is 395 x 212 x 440 mm

Meshify S2 is 538 x 233 x 465 mm

So it's a bit deeper, which it needs to be for AIO and custom loop systems, but the width and height are very close in size to the Meshify C. Mid tower cases that run just a little to the larger size are, I can promise you, a LOT easier to build in for certain. Much more room for cable management, and running the cables from place to place, especially if you don't have tiny hands to get into the limited space on smaller mid or micro ATX cases.

But the Meshify C would certainly work fine too, and Fractal design is a TOP NOTCH company. In fact, there is no other case manufacturer I'd put above them when it comes to customer support and support after the sale of their products. I've had incredibly fantastic support from Fractal through the years. WAY beyond what was expected or required.
 
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With only a SINGLE intake and SINGLE exhaust? It's little wonder.

If you get that case, you will ABSOLUTELY want to not only put two intake fans plus two exhaust fans, but you'll also want them to all be replacement fans. The stock fans are not premium really. They are cheap, as you'd expect for any fan that gets included WITH any case. I mean, they are better than what is included with most cases out there, but they are not great for a build like this.

I'd put one of these in the rear exhaust location:

https://noctua.at/en/nf-f12-pwm-chromax-black-swap

And one of these in each of the three remaining recommended, top-rear and both front, locations. Another benefit of the larger, more premium S2, R6 and R7 cases is that you can put three 140mm fans in front, rather than only two like on the Define C.

https://noctua.at/en/nf-a14-pwm-chromax-black-swap

People buy cases and expect what they come with to be sufficient for cooling. It isn't, and never will be. You aren't going to get a premium cooling solution for free unless (And sometimes not even then) you pay 200+ dollars for a case. Margins are already low on hardware, they aren't going to just give parts away for free so if you want to build a high end system, you need to be willing to pay for (And smart enough to understand that you need, unlike that guy whose build you linked to) the cooling to go with it.

And if we're being honest here, the 3960x might very much be a configuration that is better suited to liquid cooling. The U14S TR is a very capable cooler, I actually have and am using the non-TR version, with dual fans on it, but it's not THAT capable. It's not going to match the performance of a top shelf (And not ALL liquid coolers ARE) 280 or 360mm cooler. For that CPU, a GOOD 360 or 420mm cooler might not be the absolute worst idea ever.

I mean, that's a 280w part. It's TWICE the TDP of most i7, i9 or Ryzen 9 CPUs.
 
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fobos8

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And if we're being honest here, the 3960x might very much be a configuration that is better suited to liquid cooling. The U14S TR is a very capable cooler, I actually have and am using the non-TR version, with dual fans on it, but it's not THAT capable. It's not going to match the performance of a top shelf (And not ALL liquid coolers ARE) 280 or 360mm cooler. For that CPU, a GOOD 360 or 420mm cooler might not be the absolute worst idea ever.

I mean, that's a 280w part. It's TWICE the TDP of most i7, i9 or Ryzen 9 CPUs.

Thanks again DarkBreeze for your reply.

I'm leaning more towards the Meshify S2 because like you say you can get 3 big 140mm fans at the front. There is a little panel at the front at the bottom that can be removed, the PSU is at the rear so a fan at the bottom front should work reasonably well too.

I saw on the Puget Systems (they should know what they're doing) that they use a NH-U14S TR4-SP3 fan for cooling in their Threadripper builds. What's also interesting is they use a Fractal R6 which has no mesh front!

https://www.pugetsystems.com/nav/threadripper/TRX40-A/customize.php

I've seen on some other builds that folks improve this Noctua cooler by adding a second fan and set it up to push and pull.

Looking at other forums it appears that the main AIOs don't have big enough plates to cover the Threadrippers.
 
Do you have any links to these "reviews"?

Because I've looked previously, and again now, and I'm not really seeing a lot of focus on that aspect, probably because it isn't necessary to have full coverage of the entire heat spreader in most cases. The internal die surface is always only a fractional portion of the entire heat spreader, usually much smaller, perhaps a bit more spread out with the newer chiplet designs, but almost never is there a requirement to cover the entire heat spreader for the purpose of cooling and mostly that is done only for whatever extra residual heat soak can be absorbed and for the stability of the cooler itself. Maybe there's a difference with TR I'm not aware of. Admittedly, I haven't worked a lot with any of the HEDT systems on AMD, and only a handful on the Intel side of things, so it's possible it's something I'm just not well informed on.
 
That noctua isn't good enough for that threadripper.

There's no way around this, the case is irrelevant if your going to use that combo of cpu and cooler.

I'm not a fan but you honestly want a good 360 aio for that cpu and you want it as a front intake.

I don't that there is a tower cooler that can actually handle it comfortably at heavy loads.
 
Matt, you realize that cooler is specifically made for TR4, right? Although, that model IS at the VERY high end of the pack in terms of TDP.

Vortez, admittedly not my favorite review site but usually not despicable either, seems to think it juuuuuust barely is good enough. I'm not sure I agree just as you have indicated, and have already suggested an AIO might be a better choice,

It's somewhat amazing to me that there are not more "threadripper specific" coolers available, for this exact reason. I assume it's because there are not a hell of a lot of people out there buying these CPUs unlike more mainstream options, so the money to develop and manufacturer them might not see a lot in the way of returns.
 
Matt, you realize that cooler is specifically made for TR4, right? Although, that model IS at the VERY high end of the pack in terms of TDP.

Vortez, admittedly not my favorite review site but usually not despicable either, seems to think it juuuuuust barely is good enough. I'm not sure I agree just as you have indicated, and have already suggested an AIO might be a better choice,

It's somewhat amazing to me that there are not more "threadripper specific" coolers available, for this exact reason. I assume it's because there are not a hell of a lot of people out there buying these CPUs unlike more mainstream options, so the money to develop and manufacturer them might not see a lot in the way of returns.

Hi mate, yes I know exactly what it is and your description of 'barely good enough' is exactly what I'd agree with.

It seems to manage at first glance but the general concensus is that under prolonged heavy load temps rise and rise to the point of throttling.

I have no idea what the op's intended workload is.
I find it hard to believe that anyone could realistically push that cpu's limits for any extended time but I am a mere home user so it's just not my area at all.
 
Well yeah, because it looked like both you(post #7) and Matt were skeptical of the little U14S being able to handle the 3960X.

There are so many reddit posts on this cooler its unbelievable.
Most of the users on there who adopted the noctua in the belief that it was more than enough ended up moving to 360mm aio's after a short time.

Obviously that's case (and case) dependant
I'm not sure if there people were running unrealistic loads (constant benching) or just day to day use - that said what is day to day use for a 48 threaded cpu!?!?

I'd say if someone is buying the threadripper because they actually need the multithreaded performance it offers rather than just 'because' then it's likely they'll be running prolonged workloads with heavy cpu usage - that's the scenario in which that noctua looks to suffer badly after a fairly short period of time (seems to be 30 minutes or so before it starts to get into the high 80's)

On a perfoemance to value basis I'd go with the s36 and the mesh 2 performance

For a little over $200 you've got something that is going to perform very very well indeed.

360 aio in the front, swap the front 2 included 140mm fans to top exhaust and you're good to go.

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU Cooler: Fractal Design Celsius S36 Blackout 87.6 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler ($118.99 @ Newegg)
Case: Lian Li Lancool II Mesh ATX Mid Tower Case
Total: $118.99
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2020-09-05 02:44 EDT-0400


EDIT - I'm seeing the issue now with the aio baseplates not covering literally 50% of the die area on the tr3***cpu's.

Yeah this is somewhat of a big issue!!!
 
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Well yeah, because it looked like both you(post #7) and Matt were skeptical of the little U14S being able to handle the 3960X.
I don't see anything on that page that indicates ANY specific cooler. All I see are thermal images of the 3960x with various dates and nothing at all regarding what kind of cooling, case, case cooling or any other part of the configuration. What am I missing here?
 
It's the U14S in the actual pictures if you look hard enough.

...
Sorry, imma leave your lawn.

I'm inclined to think as they're selling these systems with a choice of either the noctua or a 140mm aio they're not going to leave bad results up there.

From the reddit posts I've seen no one is actually happy with the noctua 100% but there honestly aren't that many choices cooler wise so people have been literally forced to use it.

An I right in thinking that only the cm ml240/280/360 and the enermax liqtech have released in proper tr formats with a full sized heatplate??

That's what my googling has garnered so far.
That seems bizarre when Threadripper is heading towards its third year now.
 
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An I right in thinking that only the cm ml240/280/360 and the enermax liqtech have released in proper tr formats with a full sized heatplate??

That's what my googling has garnered so far.
That seems bizarre when Threadripper is heading towards its third year now.

Which is exactly why I said

It's somewhat amazing to me that there are not more "threadripper specific" coolers available, for this exact reason. I assume it's because there are not a hell of a lot of people out there buying these CPUs unlike more mainstream options, so the money to develop and manufacturer them might not see a lot in the way of returns.

It's much like Lowe's and Walmart. Stuff I've been buying there for ten or fifteen years, suddenly I go there and it's just.............gone. Why? Because it didn't move enough VOLUME to make it worth the shelf space and manufacturing costs I guess. In some cases, it was the only product of it's kind available locally and now I have to source it online, except obviously in this case it's more a matter of companies already knowing that the volume of Threadripper CPUs being sold is probably significantly less than for other segments, although it's still somewhat surprising, to a lesser degree, because while the Epyc processors are socket SP3 they can use heatsinks designed for TR4, TRx4 and sTRx4 so you'd think there'd be SOME kind of interest in developing these coolers designed for that socket and architecture.

It actually kind of baffles me that there is a major architecture that almost completely lacks cooling products specifically designed for it.
 
Aug 20, 2020
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mobo:aorus trx40 pro wifi
CPU:3970x
Case: MEshify C
Cooler: NH-U14S-TR4sp3
mem"8x32gb corsair lpx3000
GPU: geforce GTX1660

I'm finalizing a build very close to this. My last two fans will be here Thursday and I can finish the build. I have been struggling with high temps and what I believe to be is throttling. I was using a x73 AIO previously which doesn't cover the entire IHS. I believe I'm to blame since I'm a rookie applying paste(just used preapplied stuff) and the cooler prob wasn't level (tightened down correcly). This go around I think I did a good job on the paste and really made sure to tighten the cooler down snugly. I'm going to be putting the two NF-A14 in front as intake and like @Darkbreeze said one more NF-A14 on the top-rear(exhuast). Unfortunately the rear can only fit the NF-F12 so I will put that there as exhaust. Previously I put two exhaust fans up top one of which was ahead of the CPU cooler which as stated in the posts above is bad. I'm running a ton of memory and I thought I was having an issue with that but again Darkbreeze helped me with that and I had no issues there. So anyways I will report my findings in a couple days.

EDIt: You cant use preapplied paste on this cooler with this large of IHS.
 
Aug 20, 2020
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My temps under load were low to mid 80s and sometimes hit 90-94C. The application I was using for my simulations which puts the CPU under full load would make the application unresponsive at random intervals. I figure it had to be throttling.
 

dimtodim

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Hi guys
I'm going to do a 3960x build with a Noctua NH-U14S TR4-SP3 cooler. I'm conscious that I need to get plenty of air in and out so I'm looking at a front mesh style case.

Will the Meshify C be good enough? I'd put 2 x 140mm Noctuas at the front and top.

My graphics card will be a 1660ti.

Regards, Andrew
i think case is good but go for better cooler...dark rock pro 4 or noctua nh-15