SC-836 Air Shroud vs Active Coolers?

[cyantist]

Sorry if this has been discussed elsewhere, but I just picked up a chassis to put together a new system. Came with a TQ backplane and an X8 motherboard, both of which I'm going to replace. This got me wondering how important the air shroud is. It didn't come with one. Is it something I should add to the list of things to get, or do they make much of a difference? Do they have much effect on temps using passive heatsinks? Is money possibly better spent on active coolers and no shroud? Since it's in my home, lowest possible noise output is always a factor as well. What has been your experience?

Thanks for any insight.

 

[StevenDTX]

I use that case almost exclusively, because I can use the Noctua 3u coolers.

 

[cyantist]

Is that the Noctua NH-U9DX?

 

[i386]

Your questions can be answered with "It depends"

What mainboard do you want to use?
Something xeon d based? In that case get the shroud and a fan that you put on the heatsink (see Near silent powerhouse: Making a quieter MicroLab platform), this will give you the best results for cooling and noise.

 

[StevenDTX]

Is that the Noctua NH-U9DX?

Yes. On Xeon E5s.

 

[svtkobra7]

Is that the Noctua NH-U9DX?

Yes. On Xeon E5s.

• NH-D9DX i4 or NH-D9L, difference being the NH-D9DX i4 comes with LGA 2011 Narrow ILM brackets, but the NH-D9L does not.

Your questions can be answered with "It depends"
What mainboard do you want to use?
Something xeon d based? In that case get the shroud and a fan that you put on the heatsink (see Near silent powerhouse: Making a quieter MicroLab platform), this will give you the best results for cooling and noise.

• I concur with the remark regarding cooling / noise and think that the air shroud with heatsinks is well engineered.
• I did an extensive review of the passive heatsinks, Super Micro SNK-P0047AP4, and Noctua NH-D9DX i4 on X9 board with dual E5-2670 available here if you care to see how the three cooling solutions stack up against one another: CPU Cooling Comparison: Noctua NH-D9DX i4 / NH-D9L | SuperMicro SNK-P0048AP4 | Passive Heatsink
  
• Disclaimer: Didn't read the cited article.

 

[cyantist]

Excellent write up. Thanks for posting it. This was exactly the information I was looking for. Very informative.

 

[svtkobra7]

Excellent write up. Thanks for posting it. This was exactly the information I was looking for. Very informative.

You are quite welcome and thanks for the compliment. I'm glad that my "quest" was able to help someone else. I found the results interesting, eh?

Sent from my HTC6545LVW using Tapatalk

 

[PigLover]

Writeup was very interesting. Thank you.