NCase M1 mkII
I really enjoying making my first SFFPC in the NCase M1 v6.1 a few years ago. I have wanted to make another one for a while, but this time with an emphasis on cool and quiet efficiency (keeping the WFH bills low)...
Spec
I decided to stick to an 8-core AMD CPU, but this model draws around half the power while being slightly more powerful. With a bit of an undervolt this should run really nice and quiet. Although I tried to put a newer and more efficient RTX 5060 GPU in here, it gave me some problems so I decided to drop back to using an older RTX 3070Ti. This is not a bad GPU, even if it only has 8GB of RAM, but it will do for some light gaming and 3D applications, until I can swap it out for something newer and more cutting edge...
Case:
MB:
CPU:
GPU:
RAM:
PSU:
SSD:
Cooler:
Fans:
OS:
Sound:
NCase M1 v6.1 (12.7 Litre)
Gigabyte Z870i Aurus Pro ICE (AM5)
AMD Ryzen 7 9700x (8x 5.4GHz - 65w)
MSI Ventus RTX 3070 Ti (8GB - 290w)
2x16GB Kingston DDR5 (5600MHz cl 36)
Corsair SF1000 ATX 3.1 (80+ Platinum)
1TB Samsung 9100 + 4TB PCIe gen4
Thermalright Peerless Assassin 120 Mini
Noctua Case (2x NF-A14)
Win 11 Pro / Linux CachyOS
Topping D90SE + Teac AX-505
Here is the motherboard layout, which is mostly for me to easily refer back to when building the PC. I kind of like the white colouring, not that I had a choice here, but I think I will try to swap out the components as I upgrade them.
Fan Fun
The NCase M1 can fit a cooler up to 135mm in height. When it was new, there were no no vertical 120mm coolers within that size, but that has now changed. The ThermalRight Peerless Assassin 120 Mini is exactly the size. Its fan is a special design so that it fits inside that height, but unfortunately its standard 25mm thickness, which left a 5mm gap between heatsinks. Since I had a spare Phanteks T30 (30mm thick) from the previous build, I had to try it out. To my surprise, it fitted really well. You can even get the case's side panel on, but as long as you don't want the side fan bracket on as well. I was not happy with this, so I did a little DIY...
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The heat sink screws were holding the fan up a couple of milometers, but the contact points were something we could live without, so I decided to Dremel them off. It almost worked, but one more millimeter had to go. I had to also remove some of the top corners to get the fan mount attached to the case. As you can see from the image below, it was just enough to get two 120x30 fans in there. This provided good airflow, while maintaining pretty quiet operation.
I made three different fan profiles for this machine to tune how cool and/or quiet I can make it. Here they are with information about component temperature, fan speeds and volume levels:
NCase mkII - Fan Profles (1.Silent, 2.Quiet, 3.Norm)
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CPU: 39°c - 570rpm | GPU: 30°c - 400rpm | Vol: 42dB (Idle)
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CPU: 35°c - 670rpm | GPU: 28°c - 560rpm | Vol: 44dB (Idle)
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CPU: 33°c - 810rpm | GPU: 27°c - 690rpm | Vol: 46dB (Idle)
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CPU: 65°c - 860rpm | GPU: 65°c - 670rpm | Vol: 47dB (Gme)
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CPU: 59°c - 870rpm | GPU: 58°c - 730rpm | Vol: 48dB (Gme)
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CPU: 57°c - 1080rpm | GPU: 57°c - 820rpm | Vol: 52dB (Gme)
Notes:
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The speeds mentioned above are for the two 120mm CPU fans (T30) and two 140mm GPU fans (NF-A14) respectively.
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The noise floor in the room is 42dB so the silent one really is inaudible unless you press your ear up to the side of the case.
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The Dell tower I use for work idles at 54dB (despite having a significantly less powerful i9-10980XE CPU), and sounds like a vacuum cleaner.
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The gaming test uses Half-life 2 RTX, 1440p resolution & 60fps.
The silent profile impressed me the most as it allows for light work (multiple browser tabs and a music app) while listening to delicate music on open back headphones and not hearing the computer while it's right beside me on the desk.
I thought my previous NCase M1 build was quiet, but the new mkII is on another level. Although the original used the same T30 fan on the CPU, the heatsink was a larger single stack, horizontally mounted design. That meant it was often drawing hot air from the other components. Here are the temperatures and noise levels for that machine:
NCase mkI - Fan Profles (1.Silent, 2.Quiet, 3.Norm)
3. CPU: 44°c - 620rpm | GPU: 34°c - 470rpm | Vol: 48dB (Idle)
3. CPU: 66°c - 930rpm | GPU: 77°c - 980rpm | Vol: 56dB (Gme)
I remember being impressed with how quiet the original NCase M1 build was, considering how powerful it was. The fan noise of the new build, while gaming, being the same as the old one was at idle is crazy!
This build is still a work in progress at the moment. I have more plans involving 3D printed fan shrouds for the CPU and GPU, so I will update this section as the project progresses.
Another fun thing I am trying on this machine is dual booting a debloated (anti-AI), local-account, Windows 11 and Linux Mint.