Cooler for Antec Fusion - Ninja Mini replacement?

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potsy
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Cooler for Antec Fusion - Ninja Mini replacement?

Post by potsy » Tue Jul 20, 2021 4:19 pm

Hi Folks,

After a good run I’ve decided it’s upgrade time. I’d like to reuse my Antec Fusion case. But of course the old Scythe Ninja Mini won’t fit a new mobo with a different cpu socket. Does anyone know of a good 115mm high cooler for the Fusion?

Possibly I could invent some other way of attaching the Ninja Mini but I’m not too sure about that…

Thanks!

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Re: Cooler for Antec Fusion - Ninja Mini replacement?

Post by Japanese Capacitor » Tue Jul 20, 2021 11:45 pm

What is the CPU and motherboard?

potsy
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Re: Cooler for Antec Fusion - Ninja Mini replacement?

Post by potsy » Wed Jul 21, 2021 2:15 am

I'm thinking: ASUS Prime B450M-A/CSM AM4 Micro-ATX Motherboard and Ryzen 5 5600x CPU. Those are chosen by one of my kids after a fair amount of internet research, and we're going to build together! So I'm keen to go with those even if they're not perfect. But the Ryzen 5600x looks like a pretty good balance between power consumption & performance.

potsy
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Re: Cooler for Antec Fusion - Ninja Mini replacement?

Post by potsy » Wed Jul 21, 2021 2:43 am

And maybe a mod to fit the ninja mini isn't so hard...
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=62723&start=60#p611085

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Re: Cooler for Antec Fusion - Ninja Mini replacement?

Post by Japanese Capacitor » Wed Jul 21, 2021 3:57 am

To be honest Prime B450M-A is one of the worst choices from B450 and I wouldn't also go with 5600X, but let's leave any hardware discussion on a side.

The <115mm coolers I would go are be quiet! Shadow Rock TF2 or Dark Rock TF. Shadow is great performer and reasonable choice, Dark is paying much premium for the best, but hard to say, if noticeably better and secound fan you won't be able to use due to added height or use anywhere else thanks to unique size. With one fan they are comparable performers in cooling and noise, so with Dark you pay for higher build quality (but Shadow is already decent or far from garbage), better motors and bearing of the fans (a little quieter and sound better, but also theoritically longer lifespan) and difference in termal paste included - Dark has small tube of decent one, Shadow has garbage silicon-based one pre-applied, so some minus to thermal performance and faster need of changing.

I thought it's some HTPC, but if we talk about gaming one and you plan to put into this Antec case some serious GPU, it may not do fine in terms of cooling, noise or both.

potsy
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Re: Cooler for Antec Fusion - Ninja Mini replacement?

Post by potsy » Wed Jul 21, 2021 4:45 am

Thank you! The shadow rock would probably be fine. I'm doing mostly music production but a little bit of video editing, so want to speed up my rendering. But for most of what I do my current set up is fine: i5-3570 and gigabyte GA-Z77M, with a fanless AMD 5750 card. I've run that with one fan for years and it copes ok. It's old so any upgrade is going to be a big step up!

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Re: Cooler for Antec Fusion - Ninja Mini replacement?

Post by Japanese Capacitor » Wed Jul 21, 2021 5:16 am

Yeah, Shadow Rock is very good and nicely priced choice, but I would also buy some thermal paste to replace garbage default one - it costs nothing and will make this cooler working the best as it can. Great, but fair priced ones are Gelid GC Extreme, Arctic MX-4 or newest MX-5 or Alpenfoehn Glatteis.

Mentioned i5 and fanless card wasn't anything serious, so be awared that new - maybe more power hugry - build may happen to not work the best in Antec case and definitely don't try to cut corners with components.

potsy
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Re: Cooler for Antec Fusion - Ninja Mini replacement?

Post by potsy » Thu Jul 22, 2021 12:33 am

I'm hoping that cooling will be easier. The 5600x has a TDP of 65w and my old i5-3570 has a TDP of 77w. Faster, 2 more cores, more threads. Seems like more performance for less power. But your first post was that you wouldn't go for the 5600x - what's your thoughts on the performance/power compromise for a quiet machine?

Thanks for the thermal paste recommendations I'll definitely do that!

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Re: Cooler for Antec Fusion - Ninja Mini replacement?

Post by potsy » Thu Jul 22, 2021 12:36 am

Also I really appreciate your replies. I thought maybe everyone had drifted away over the years but it's nice the forum still seems to be pretty active!

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Re: Cooler for Antec Fusion - Ninja Mini replacement?

Post by Japanese Capacitor » Thu Jul 22, 2021 2:50 am

I start with the story of the guy, who I helped on another forum. He came for full system recomendations for gaming build, nothing hardcore: Ryzen 1600AF or 2600 with RTX 2060. Wanted also some possibly compact case, because "he doesn't have space in his living room" and keeping everything budget was his likings. He linked his desired case and I told him that I don't see it - this rig may end being hot, loud or as it happens usually both. Few months later, during summer he came back with exactly this problem. What worse, to be able to use desired case he changed the build I recommended, went with one-fan 2060 and some garbage low-profile cooler. To solve the problem I reccomended him Pure Base 500 as cheapest decent case, which I know is capable to handle thermally even more. It made things much better, but he still had shitty coolers, so whatever case I would recommend him, this pc was just sentenced to be hotter and louder - all thanks to damn desired case, which determined components choices. Funny thing he immediately found space in his living room for not so tiny PB500 (which btw and even more funny was my original recommendation), paid for both cases money, which would buy him way better than PB500 and just top notch Define 7 Compact and still had far from good computing experience thanks to forced by previous case component choices.
potsy wrote:
Thu Jul 22, 2021 12:33 am
I'm hoping that cooling will be easier. The 5600x has a TDP of 65w and my old i5-3570 has a TDP of 77w. Faster, 2 more cores, more threads. Seems like more performance for less power. But your first post was that you wouldn't go for the 5600x - what's your thoughts on the performance/power compromise for a quiet machine?

Thanks for the thermal paste recommendations I'll definitely do that!
Don't look at TDP as it doesn't tell the full story. E.g. Ryzen CPUs are harder to cool due to the way they are built, so 100W from Ryzen vs 100W from Intel isn't the same job for cooler.

My thoughts about 5600X is I wouldn't go with it looking at your needs. For music production you need strong single core performance, which it has, so it's fine. But assuming that things will work how they worked for last ten years, don't expect from 6/12 as gaming CPU to serve you well and without giving reasons to upgrade more than maybe two years from now. Games like the most strong CPUs, so 5600X is here great, but also get more and more "core/thread hungry" with the years and if your CPU lacks them, they don't smooth. 6/6 started to have this problem two years ago, 6/12 is fine now, but next. That's how it's worth to buy yourself strong CPU with somehow more cores and threads than needed now to future-proof your gaming machine, but they also get handy in video editing, if you like to multitask and generally make your computing experience better. As reasonable in terms of price/what you get choice for you I see non-overclockable 11700 on B560 board.
potsy wrote:
Thu Jul 22, 2021 12:36 am
Also I really appreciate your replies. I thought maybe everyone had drifted away over the years but it's nice the forum still seems to be pretty active!
Yeah, me and Steve meet minimum of being considered as croud of active members :D

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Re: Cooler for Antec Fusion - Ninja Mini replacement?

Post by CA_Steve » Thu Jul 22, 2021 3:38 am

tl;dr: The 5600X will run hotter than your 3570, but a better cooler will keep it in check for your use.

The 5600X has a small die size* (~81mm^2) leading to a higher power density (Watts/cm^2)..which in turn leads to a higher temperature using the same cooler you would use for a larger die with a higher TDP (i5-3570 133mm^2).

* ok, really there are two die under the hood, the compute die (above) and the I/O die. Most of the heat is from the former. In terms of real world power draw, Anandtech found the 5600X maxed out at 76W for the package.

potsy
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Re: Cooler for Antec Fusion - Ninja Mini replacement?

Post by potsy » Thu Jul 22, 2021 4:38 am

Ha! That is a good story. My story is I just want to replace the cpu & mobo and keep the rest because it all fits nicely in my rack. And I'm that guy - you'll say there's no airflow and you'd be right and then I make it worse by keeping it in this box at the bottom of my rack. But it's worked ok so far! Thanks both of you, that's good advice about AMD being built differently. Also I've found the noctua NH-D9L cooler which looks like it would fit the Fusion case nicely https://noctua.at/en/nh-d9l. Anyway, there's always a lot of thinking to do. Couple of pics on google drive...
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1M805LG ... sp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1pATITq ... sp=sharing

Japanese Capacitor
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Re: Cooler for Antec Fusion - Ninja Mini replacement?

Post by Japanese Capacitor » Thu Jul 22, 2021 5:13 am

Now I read this topic once again and I don't know where from I took "your" thought about son gaming on it, so possible strong GPU upgrade... Do you even have son? :D If it's only CPU work and not overclocking Antec case should do fine thermally ;) My CPU recommendation is still the same.

NH-D9L will be noticeably weaker and louder than be quiet! options I gave. Another thing is this 90 mm fan - sound of tiny fans are specific in this worse direction. Generally I doubt there exist better <115mm coolers than ones I recommended you, but I can always be wrong due to missing something :]
EDIT: I can't find an info about maximum cooler height for your case, but you could measure how much space there is between highest points of your Ninja and panel - maybe it's possible to put here something even better.

potsy
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Re: Cooler for Antec Fusion - Ninja Mini replacement?

Post by potsy » Fri Jul 23, 2021 7:32 pm

First post I said I'm going to build with one of my kids who chose the mobo & cpu. But doesn't really game. The ninja is 115mm tall (4.5inch) and it is only a few mm from the top of the case. There isn't any more room (without cutting a hole in the case which I'm not shy about and have already done to fit my video card heatsink).

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Re: Cooler for Antec Fusion - Ninja Mini replacement?

Post by Japanese Capacitor » Fri Jul 23, 2021 11:19 pm

potsy wrote:
Fri Jul 23, 2021 7:32 pm
First post I said I'm going to build with one of my kids who chose the mobo & cpu. But doesn't really game.
Fine, you were just kind enough to not tell me anything, when I was talking that much about gaming for no reason ;) My bad, but everything is clear now :]
potsy wrote:
Fri Jul 23, 2021 7:32 pm
The ninja is 115mm tall (4.5inch) and it is only a few mm from the top of the case.
So my recommendations are still the same. The closest higher from low-profile ones I gave are ~135mm tiny towers with 90mm fan, which will be just worse.
potsy wrote:
Fri Jul 23, 2021 7:32 pm
without cutting a hole in the case which I'm not shy about and have already done to fit my video card heatsink).
I'm not the fan of approach with modding the case to fit components or case determining their choices and to my taste these are just basic reasons to change it. Is it even quiet with this hole and HDDs, which are probably your only drives (and btw music production works better on faster one as a main operation drive)? Rather no sound-deadening material on the walls is also no go to me. Recommended bq! coolers aren't the coolers, which could be considered as good options for silence enthusiast due to they are just tiny, so exactly opposite to what is the best - they are just the best, which fit your case. I don't want to convince you to change the case and there's no recommendation of something these dimentions, but just know my opinion as silence enthusiast, who is probably more up to date than you with nowadays quiet computers - yours will be far from even being considered as such.

potsy
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Re: Cooler for Antec Fusion - Ninja Mini replacement?

Post by potsy » Sat Jul 24, 2021 7:46 pm

Many thanks! What you say seems absolutely right. I'm going to get a Shadow Rock TF2 or Dark Rock TF cooler. I like the ninja style tower because with a side fan you can use the case fan as your cooler fan, so one less fan. But if they're not a full rpm I'm sure it will be fine.

I will also take your guidance about the CPU & mobo. 11700 on B560 board looks right. I'll check in when it's all done - which won't be for a while because I'm slow at everything. It'll be weeks at least before parts arrive and then more to put it together. But there's no rush.

Also the young one actually does game a bit - but not too power hungry it's all chess!

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Re: Cooler for Antec Fusion - Ninja Mini replacement?

Post by Japanese Capacitor » Sun Jul 25, 2021 12:29 am

Yeah, using tower cooler as a case fan is some advantage, but rather not any cooler can be mounted horizontally and vertically. Vertical mount is so unusual in nowadays horizontal airflow cases, that I just have never paid attention to this aspect. Also most of the coolers don't give an option to mount fans all around it, but ofc with good DIY sky is the limit :D

I don't see reasons to go with 5600X instead of 11700. For single core performance (music production usually) they are the same, for multicore one Intel wins (e.g. rendering or Foobar2000, if you use it). Intel also has an integrated graphics, which lack may revenge terribly, if your card dies in times like we have for one year (muuuuch increased prices due to mining craze) - stupid need of buying some GPU just to be able to use computer. There's also cheaper 11700F, which doesn't have integrated graphics, but these are not clever savings, if you don't have some GPU spare. 11700( and F) have also cooler included - shittiest possible, but you can always give it a chance before throwing money at mentioned ones. With mobo, just buy decent one, not from the worst-cheapest as this Asus B450. Pay attention to just not bad VRM section and temperatures; external panel connectors, which may come in handy; NVMe heatsink included; bigger than needed now amount and variation of internal connectors and maybe audio section build quality and audio codec (if you would like to try integrated audio card). Cheap board's price rises stupidly with upgrading it with lacking features and you can't upgrade everything, so still have cheap board.

Now kids seem to be all about chess, especially these online ones. Suprises me, but definitely positive and better than breaking your neck with some stupid le parkour :]

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Re: Cooler for Antec Fusion - Ninja Mini replacement?

Post by CA_Steve » Sun Jul 25, 2021 6:40 am

It's time to retire the 5750 and save 70-80W of heat :) The integrated gpu in the 11700 is faster. I couldn't find a direct comparison, but here's the 4-5 year old mobile Intel UHD 620 vs your 5750 on Passmark. It's only 10% slower. The UHD Graphics 750 on the 11700 has faster clocks, more execution/shading units, supports DX 12, Quicksync for faster transcoding, etc, 4k support, uses a few watts, and on and on...

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Re: Cooler for Antec Fusion - Ninja Mini replacement?

Post by Japanese Capacitor » Sun Jul 25, 2021 10:41 am

O, I didn't think that way, but it looks like another point for Intel and unexpected GPU upgrade :] My only doubt is, how it would be with few monitors, if he uses such as it's common among music producers.

I used comparison tool with potsy's GPU and 11700's integrated one: https://www.videocardbenchmark.net/comp ... 0/50vs4378

Looks nice, but I have to admit that have never used this Passmark before, completely not into benchmarks and everything around it, so don't know how it works: what exactly is this G3D Mark Rating, how they measure it etc. Scores seem legit due to I just compared few other cards.

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Re: Cooler for Antec Fusion - Ninja Mini replacement?

Post by CA_Steve » Sun Jul 25, 2021 10:58 am

There's a video here that goes through the benchmarks and what they test. It's a very quick way to get a basic indicator of one CPU or GPU vs another when parts are spanning multiple decades :).

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Re: Cooler for Antec Fusion - Ninja Mini replacement?

Post by Japanese Capacitor » Sun Jul 25, 2021 11:30 am

To be honest I got to this link when I was playing with these comparisons, but wasn't interested enough to go thru it :) If potsy will move thread of 11700 further and be in need of some help with understanding Passmark, things may change :]

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Re: Cooler for Antec Fusion - Ninja Mini replacement?

Post by khaakon » Tue Jul 27, 2021 7:28 am

I also have a Antec Fusion case with a Schythe Mini Ninja - and I too love the design of both the case and the cooler. I would really enjoy to refurbish it someday (soon) as a HTPC with new MB and stuff. I agree with OP's thought to get air flowing better through the case with a sideblowing tower cooler, too bad 115mm isn't really enough for coolers w/ 120mm fans.

If you do like Noctua particularly, there's always the https://noctua.at/en/nh-l12s. Downblowing (or up...) lowprofile with 12mm slim 120mm fan included. Can also be fitted with a 25mm normal fan on top for a total height of 95mm. But I'll bet the beQuiet coolers will be better value. Also, with any lowprofile cooler solution, make sure you don't run into RAM clearance issues - depends on MB and CPU cooler both.

Integrated graphics could be very good idea. *Personally, I would recommend mini-ITX MB, for the possibility to easier transfer your system to a new home in the future...

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Re: Cooler for Antec Fusion - Ninja Mini replacement?

Post by Japanese Capacitor » Tue Jul 27, 2021 9:12 am

NH-L12S is slightly weaker and much louder than bq! ones I recommended, but it's from different size category, so shouldn't be compared. I wanted to stay as far as possible from such due to generally the bigger the cooler, the less job for fan and here is also aspect of bq! offerings having bigger fans, which take this tendency further. The other thing is the price of tiny Noctua - Shadow Rock LP or Raijintek Pallas offer the same cooling/noise, so L12S makes sense just for people wanting to pay extra for Noctua: superior quality, long warranty and great aftersale service, but also beige and brown fitting nicely e.g. Louis Vuitton themed builds :>

EDIT: @potsy if you happened to come back to this place before buying cooler and still wonder: bq! announced Dark Rock TF successor: https://www.techpowerup.com/284958/be-q ... low-design

@khaakon I confused L12S with L12 and S is a little better, but I would still avoid this category of coolers if only possible.

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