Case configuration, sensors
Today, we’ll focus on what happens inside a case when a CPU is under heavy load. We’ll run a Cinebench 2024 rendering on a Ryzen R9 7950X cooled by a Noctua NH-D15 G2 air cooler and see how it affects the temperatures and how all the values change with different settings of the system fans’ performance across their entire operating speed range.
In a previous article, we measured temperatures under a typical gaming load in Cyberpunk 2077, with a heavily loaded graphics card and a slighty loaded CPU. Today, we’re going to give the CPU itself a good workout.
The build is the same as in the previous article, titled PC Cooling Guide: Experimenting with Fractal Design Meshify 2. I’ve even gotten around to taking pictures of it so you’ll have a better idea of what the setup looks like. The components are housed in the Fractal Design Meshify 2 case, which offers a variety of interior and cooling configuration options and has an extremely large selection of nine positions for fans up to 140mm. It’s not that interesting right now, as we’re using the standard case configuration with three supplied system fans. But we’ll add more later and play around with their placement and partition configuration near the PSU tunnel.
The interior space is a bit larger than most cases under 80 USD, though it may not seem like it due to the fact that there’s a huge Noctua NH-D15 G2 inside and an even bigger Gigabyte Aorus RTX 4080 Super Master 16G with a 36cm cooler.
In addition to the regular temperature sensors inside the components, I added a pair of Corsair Commander PRO controllers. So in addition to the sensors on the components, we have eight temperature sensors and the ability to individually control up to twelve fans, more than there are positions in the case. These will give us a better idea of what the temperatures are in key places in the case, where cold air is flowing and where warm air is accumulating.
The first two sensors are in front of the front fans to control the inlet air temperature, the third is inside the PSU tunnel above the intake vents in the bottom of the case. The fourth will measure the air temperature in the area under the graphics card. The locations of the sensors are in the photos.
The second controller then measures the temperature in the area in front of the CPU cooler with its first sensor. The next one is for control under the memory module cooler.
The third measures the temperature of the VRM heatsink and the fourth is located in the space behind the CPU cooler. If you can think of any other place where it would be good to measure temperatures, let us know in the discussion.
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- Contents
- Case configuration, sensors
- Components and build
- Clock speeds and temperatures in Cinebench 2024
- Temperatures in the interior of the case
- Short summary
