Cooling options for a Supermicro X9DRL-EF

[Flocons de Mais]

Hey STHers!

I was wondering if anyone has any experience working with a X9DRL-EF motherboard. More specifically, I'm going to be mounting this into a SilverStone GD09 chassis along with 2 x E5-2670 processors. It's going to be running virtualization and transcoding tasks, but needs to be very quiet. Anyhow, I had a quick question about cooling options for the processors. My concern is how close the two offset CPU sockets are to each other, and what types of cooling solutions will actually fit. The smallest 'performance' air cooler I can find seems to be 95mm x 95mm, and I'm not quite convinced that those will fit. Of course, there's water cooling which is a bit more expensive.

How's everyone with this board handling the cooling?

Thanks in advance!

L.

 

[Mirabis]

I have a X10DRL-i board, previously mounted in a Define R5 (bigger case). Supermicro | Products | Motherboards | Xeon® Boards | X10DRL-i

I used 2x Noctua NH-U9DX0i4 which would only fit with the fans pointed to the ram slots. Even then, the way the fans are attached (clips) require some tweaking to get it to fit

just fyi (as that is 95mm x 95mm* as well).

Below, u can see how tight it is without the fans:

 

[TType85]

I used 2 Noctua NH-D9DX i4 3U on a x9drl-ef. They sit VERY close to each other and pretty much touch but they worked. I was running 2 2670's and had no issues.

 

[Flocons de Mais]

I have a X10DRL-i board, previously mounted in a Define R5 (bigger case). Supermicro | Products | Motherboards | Xeon® Boards | X10DRL-i

I used 2x Noctua NH-U9DX0i4 which would only fit with the fans pointed to the ram slots. Even then, the way the fans are attached (clips) require some tweaking to get it to fit

just fyi (as that is 95mm x 95mm* as well).

Below, u can see how tight it is without the fans:

Oh wow!, that's pretty close, but they fit! What happens when you turned the HSFs the other way (90 degrees), was it the fans that wouldn't fit? I was going to do the same thing, but use only one fan per HSF, and have a push/pull setup going, where no fans are between the HSFs, sort of like this:
Do you guys think that will work?

 

[Flocons de Mais]

I used 2 Noctua NH-D9DX i4 3U on a x9drl-ef. They sit VERY close to each other and pretty much touch but they worked. I was running 2 2670's and had no issues.

Yeah, i don't think I have a problem with the HSFs touching, as long it's not overlapping and possibly changing the pressure of either one or both of the HSFs relative to their contact to the CPU. I like the NH-D9DX i4 3U because the fan is mounted in between the fins, so it's not taking a larger footprint than what is needed. What are your temperatures like?

 

[TType85]

Yeah, i don't think I have a problem with the HSFs touching, as long it's not overlapping and possibly changing the pressure of either one or both of the HSFs relative to their contact to the CPU. I like the NH-D9DX i4 3U because the fan is mounted in between the fins, so it's not taking a larger footprint than what is needed. What are your temperatures like?

Unfortunately I didn't get a good view of the temps under load. With some full load cinenbench r15 testing I didn't really see over 70c but the room it was in was ~65f and it was in a case that had great air flow. The rear proc will run warmer than the front though.

 

[Flocons de Mais]

Alright - Parts ordered! I ended up going with exactly what you have; 2 x NH-D9DX i4 3U! Mounted the motherboard in the case today, and now just waiting for the rest of the components to get in! Thanks for the help!

 

[Mirabis]

Alright - Parts ordered! I ended up going with exactly what you have; 2 x NH-D9DX i4 3U! Mounted the motherboard in the case today, and now just waiting for the rest of the components to get in! Thanks for the help!

Nice, Goodluck

I recently switched to a pair of Supermicro 2U active fans and they scream at 5000rpm... And are horrible at 8400.... Miss my noctua's xD


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Mirabis]

Unfortunately I didn't get a good view of the temps under load. With some full load cinenbench r15 testing I didn't really see over 70c but the room it was in was ~65f and it was in a case that had great air flow. The rear proc will run warmer than the front though.

Yeah... swapped my fans to some quiter ones, CPU1 runs 46*C and CPU2 57... can't be good xD

 

[Flocons de Mais]

Yeah... swapped my fans to some quiter ones, CPU1 runs 46*C and CPU2 57... can't be good xD

Are you using the same heat sinks from before? 46/57 isn't *THAT* bad! Is that under load or idle?

 

[Mirabis]

Are you using the same heat sinks from before? 46/57 isn't *THAT* bad! Is that under load or idle?

Meh avg load.. 15 VM's / 3x CCleaner wiping disks & StableBit doing surface scans on 8TB disks..

Task manager shows 14% so pretty low.

Will try and run some stresstests/benches tomorrow

Problem seems to be, CPU2 is getting the hot air from CPU1.. as my sockets are so close.. (if only i could have windows prioritize CPU1 xD)

@Heatsinks: Supermicro SNK-P0048AP4 2U Active CPU Heat Sink with 60MM SilenX Fan Ixtrema Pro IXP-34-16 fans (2000RPM, 16dba,
18,02cf/m ) so I kinda run them fullspeed

 

[Flocons de Mais]

Meh avg load.. 15 VM's / 3x CCleaner wiping disks & StableBit doing surface scans on 8TB disks..

Task manager shows 14% so pretty low.

Will try and run some stresstests/benches tomorrow

Problem seems to be, CPU2 is getting the hot air from CPU1.. as my sockets are so close.. (if only i could have windows prioritize CPU1 xD)

@Heatsinks: Supermicro SNK-P0048AP4 2U Active CPU Heat Sink with 60MM SilenX Fan Ixtrema Pro IXP-34-16 fans (2000RPM, 16dba,
18,02cf/m ) so I kinda run them fullspeed

I heard that the noctua 60mm fans were pretty good! Have you given them a try before?

I've received my RAM, CPU and Mobo, so I'm just waiting on the two Noctua HSFs to come in before I power it up! ETA should be early next week. I'll run some stress tests and report back with my temp readings!

 

[Mirabis]

I compared and those seemed a better deal than those noctua's dba, cfm wise (more air, comparable noise + cheaper )

 

[Flocons de Mais]

I compared and those seemed a better deal than those noctua's dba, cfm wise (more air, comparable noise + cheaper )

I think i'm going to mount my HSFs blowing parallel to each other as opposed to in series. Once I get numbers back, report back!

 

[whitey]

I think those proc's can run pretty darm HOT though, I know when I was testing and had lid off w/ passive heatsinks (wrong ones for my application) and no baffle/directing air over heatsinks they ran near 85-90C...then...BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP :-D

So 46/57 not even close but it is obvious you have a 'hot spot' and room for cooling/airflow optimization

2cents, whitey

 

[Mirabis]

I think those proc's can run pretty darm HOT though, I know when I was testing and had lid off w/ passive heatsinks (wrong ones for my application) and no baffle/directing air over heatsinks they ran near 85-90C...then...BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP :-D

So 46/57 not even close but it is obvious you have a 'hot spot' and room for cooling/airflow optimization

2cents, whitey

Got it down to 42 (1) / 46 (2) by modding the chassis top to place a 150mm Noctua fan on top of the heatsinks to pull air lol.

 

[whitey]

NICE!

 

[Flocons de Mais]

Alright! Got all the parts and managed to put everything together! TType85 was right; they are literally touching! Anyhow, I installed the fans so that they are blowing in parallel. I'm getting 50c and 60c on moderate load though... I might have to shove more fans in there!

 

[Flocons de Mais]

After running the processor overnight and having the thermal compound settle, temperatures decreased to 46 and 48 degrees C @ 30% load. Not bad!

Update: Just ran Prime95 on all cores for awhile - Temperature at full load goes all the way up to 78C and 72C!!!

I think I'm going to need to get a few more fans :|!!!

Anyone have any tips?

 

[Flocons de Mais]

I've added two more fans to my case, and went the positive pressure route. I've moved the Silverstone fan over to the side of the case with the PSU, and although I originally wanted to push air out on that side, I decided on pulling air in. The reason being there were a lot of open, unfiltered access from the back of my case, and didn't want to start pulling air through those places. By forcing air in through both sides of the case would create positive pressure and hopefully push air out that back, therefore eliminating the accumulation of dust particles over time. On the right side of the case, I picked up two Noctua NF-F12 120mm fans. They are extremely quiet, and I would highly recommend them. They do cost a bit, but I think are totally worth it! Anyhow, here's what my setup looks like:



With this setup, I managed to decrease my idle temperatures nicely:


So idling, with under 5% load, I'm holding steady at 41C and 43C. Given that my ambient temperature of my living room is 25C, I think there may still be a bit more room for improvement, but I am quite happy with it right now.

With load, before the additions of the fans, I was hitting 72C and 78C using prime95.



After the additional case fans, I'm happy to say that I've gotten the core temps down to 68C and 71C; which is what I would consider a substantial improvement, and at a temperature that I am pretty happy with for my PLEX server.

Thanks everyone for their input!