Ultimate NCASE M1 Cooling Setup

**Cooling Solutions for the End Case M1**

As I've been experimenting with different cooling solutions for my End Case M1 build, I've found that using fans as rear intake rather than exhaust makes a significant difference. The main reason for this is due to the way I currently have my GTX 1080i configured for cooling using the bare Exelero three heatsink and then two 120 millimeter static pressure fans underneath running in exhaust. This setup allows me to keep the 1080i under 60 degrees Celsius at full load, with the VRM and memory temps also in check.

**Testing the Cooling Solutions**

To test my cooling solutions, I used a Blender render and took a 30-second average of the temperatures for all six GPUs after the 12-minute mark. Keep in mind that this is with the 8700K running at 5 GHz, one point three six volts inside the case, with all panels closed right away. The results show a rather large delta of over 20 degrees Celsius between the top result and the bottom result.

**The Impact of Fan Configuration**

I also tested different fan configurations to see their impact on cooling performance. When running fans as exhaust, I noticed that the GPU temperatures were higher than when running them as intake. In fact, swapping the cooler to the u9s gave me a massive improvement over the d9L configuration with the dual and fa9 fans. The configuration with the dual and fa9 fans gives us a fairly respectable temperature of 77 degrees Celsius.

**The Importance of Balanced Air Pressure**

Something that's worth noting is that I have set the fan curve to 100% fan speed after the CPU hits 50 degrees, so all fans were running at their max RPM. When both the GPU and CPU fans are running as exhaust, they end up fighting each other in an overly negative pressure system. However, when the CPU fans are flipped to run as intake, the air pressure inside the case becomes a lot more balanced. Air is getting taken in from the rear and then exhausted straight at the bottom.

**The Benefits of Running Fans as Intake**

Running the fans as intake gives me about a four-and-a-half-degree improvement over running them as exhaust. This is because when both the GPU and CPU fans are running as exhaust, they create an overly negative pressure system that can actually increase temperatures instead of reducing them. By flipping the CPU fans to run as intake, I'm able to take advantage of a more balanced air pressure system that allows for better cooling.

**Choosing the Right Fans**

So, which fans should I use? Well, I think I'll stick with the gray and have been on Redux fans, as although they do run about 4 or 5 degrees warmer than the NF e9 fans, they look better to me. The two NFA ninepins that I've got here are actually different shades, which was off-putting enough for me to keep them more neutral and slightly warmer and slower spinning.

**Conclusion**

In conclusion, using fans as rear intake rather than exhaust makes a significant difference in cooling performance. The Noctua NF-A9i PWM fans have proven to be an excellent choice for my End Case M1 build, providing excellent cooling without sacrificing aesthetics. I'm really happy with the cooling potential of the NF-A9i, and I think it's one of the best (if not the best) cooling solutions for this case.

**Future Plans**

As always, I'd love to hear your thoughts on this build and what you think about small builds in general. Maybe if you'd like to see more of them in the future, leave a comment below. And don't forget to subscribe to my channel for upcoming content from Computex in Taiwan, where I'll be showcasing some amazing new hardware and cooling solutions that are sure to impress.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhey guys what's going on so I've had my own case and one for well over a year now housing my personal editing and gaming system and during that time I've experimented quite a bit with different calling configurations in such a small case it does take a lot of experimenting trial and error and also a lot of feedback and suggestions from the small form-factor PC community speaking of which a few of you guys have been asking me to try this cooler here saying it's the best CPU cooler for the NK sm1 now there's one question that I get a lot on this channel and that's in regards to this case so here's a quick rundown of the build to get some of you guys up to speed before we talk about cooling the case is the N case M one which you can find a link to in the description below and I've also done a couple of mods to this including a new fit design a tempered glass side panel which hinges from the bottom and also a cover for the power supply cables the case is on the more expensive and when compared to a typical mid tower case today but the sheer amount of configuration options and the level of compatibility is totally worth it in my opinion the reason it's more expensive is that compared to cases from Corsair and xt fractal design and all of the larger case companies is that the NK sm one is manufactured in lower volumes and it also doesn't reuse parts from any other case some of these larger case manufacturers for example will reuse parts between cases like the frame or the motherboard tray or maybe even just reuse the entire case and then just add in a tempered glass side panel and some RGB so the end case is expensive but in my opinion it is worth that amount when considering the build quality and compatibility full-length GPUs are no problem at all CPU coolers up to 130 millimeters tall are good to go and you can still fit a couple of two and a half inch drives in the front even with a pretty dense configuration like mine by the way if you're looking for a cheaper alternative to the N case m1 check out the qbx from cougar which has a very similar parts compatibility it's not too much larger to most people and the great thing is that only $50 u.s. so I've done a few iterations in this case with the first build fusion one housing a 7700 K and a gtx 1070 the cpu cooler i was using back then was the cry or eek m9i and for about 20 dollars this thing is really hard to beat in terms of compatibility performance and value and then with the second iteration of the build fusion 2 i decided to upgrade the caller to the NOC to a d9l with an extra fin and this was enough to run the diluted 8700 k with the mild overclock of around 4.8 gigahertz with no issues but running up to 5 gigahertz that wasn't going to happen at the required 1.3 6 volts I also did have to make some modifications to the BIOS as well to allow it to run at 5 gigahertz without throttling the clock speed for no reason at all and this was raising the overcurrent protection to 170 percent and also lifting the short and long power durations to their max values of course there I left vrm temperature protection on for obvious reasons but thankfully this wasn't never an issue now in gaming there's no point at all trying to stretch the 8700 K up to 5 gigahertz and really if that's all you're doing just leave the processor at stock clock speeds and at the very most enable multi-core enhancement in the BIOS to get all cores running at 4.7 but beyond that you're not really gonna see much boost in framerate as you guys can probably guess though I do a ton of video editing with my programs of choice being Adobe Premiere Pro and After Effects this is where bumping up the clock speed does save me quite a bit of time when rendering effects processing video stabilization 3d motion tracking and then finally encoding the video using h.264 doing this with my current cooler though the Noctua d9l it's not enough to tame the 8700 K at 5 gigahertz and so I really wanted to push this 8700 K to its limits but without upgrading through a larger case so I wanted to take some of your suggestions and check out the u9s from Noctua it'll set you back around $80 u.s. from Amazon if you grab it along with an extra fan like I have here and compared to the d9l that I was using previously the Unitas is 15 millimeters tall and also has an extra heat pipe the d9l does tho have that dual tower design which may allow for better heat dissipation speaking of which I will be testing both the stock 92 millimeter a nine fins the compact with the callers and also the hands down and better-looking Redux nf-- b9 fans to see what the difference is in terms of performance the redux fans max out 400 rpm lower than their tenth brother at 1600 rpm but I'm hoping that for the sake of the looks that there's not too much difference in performance between them I will also be showing some quick testing I did afterwards on why I choose to run the CPU cooler fans as rear intake rather than rear exhaust as I do get quite a few questions on that as well the main reason is due to the way I currently have my GTX 1080i configured for cooling using the bare Exelero three heatsink and then two 120 millimeter static pressure fans underneath running in exhaust this way I'm able to keep the 1080i under 60 degree C at full load and the vrm and memory temps are also in check so without further ado let's look at the results he were putting the a B 700k through a render seen in blender and I took a 30 second average of the temperatures for all six cause after the 12 minute mark keep in mind also that this is with the 8700 K running at 5 gigahertz at one point three six volts inside the case with all panels closed right away we can see a rather large delta of over 20 degrees C between the top result and the bottom result and did all realness the difference is larger than that seeing as the bottom result couldn't actually finish the full 12 minutes with the overclock in place this result is in fact the d9l with to redux b9 fans which if you remember is my current calling configuration switching the fans to the tanned and faster spending NF a 9 fan improves the result by a few degrees and here we were able to at least finish the full blender on with our throttling but barely next up swapping the cooler to the u9s gives us a massive improvement over the d9l here the configuration with the dual and fa9 fans gives us a fairly respectful temperature of 77 degrees C and when comparing the difference between the 10th and fa9 fans to the gray NF beamline fans we're looking at about a 4 degree difference for the Unitas and over a 5 degree difference for the d9 L also something to note here is that I have set the fan curve to 100% fan speed after the CPU hits 50 degrees so all fans were running at their max rpm and here's the difference between running fans as intake or exhaust with running the fans as rear intake giving us about a four and a half degree improvement over exhaust and this is because when both the GPU and CPU fans are running as exhaust they end up fighting each other in an overly negative pressure system but when the CPU fans are flipped two runners intake the air pressure inside the case is a lot more balanced where air is getting taken in from the rear and then exhausted straight at the bottom so with these results in mind I will be switching to the nock to a u9s for cooling my 8700 k as i'll now be able to run 5 gigahertz with no problem in terms of calling as for which fans i'll be using well I think I'll stick with the gray and have been on redux fans as although they do run about 4 or 5 degrees warmer than the NF e 9 I think many of you will agree that they look better also the two NFA ninepins that I've got here are in fact different shades if they weren't off-putting enough with one looking slightly Pinker than the other this alone was enough for me to keep them more neutral and slightly warmer and slower spinning and fb9 fans in the system and so guys this is probably the last change I'll make to my main PC inside the end case m1 and when I get back from Computex in a couple of weeks I will be starting a new build series on the channel featuring a custom loop and really can't wait to show you guys what I have planned for that one to close off though I am really happy with the cooling potential of the ndsm one despite its very small form factor and as the title suggests I think this may be one of the best if not the best cooling solutions for this case the nocturia 9s alongside the Arctic accelerator 3 for the GPU is seriously a dream solution for anyone building inside the end case m1 in my opinion and I feel like a lot of people see a small build like this and just automatically assume that everything is running at 80 degrees plus because of how small it is when in reality it's probably running a little bit cooler than some of the larger HDX builds that I've seen out there as always guys I'd love to hear your thoughts down below on this calling for the end case m1 and what you think about these small builds in general and maybe if you'd like to see more of them in the future as always if you haven't subscribed already definitely do that especially for this next week coming up as there's going to be a ton of content coming from Computex in Taiwan thank you all so much for watching and I will see you all in the next onehey guys what's going on so I've had my own case and one for well over a year now housing my personal editing and gaming system and during that time I've experimented quite a bit with different calling configurations in such a small case it does take a lot of experimenting trial and error and also a lot of feedback and suggestions from the small form-factor PC community speaking of which a few of you guys have been asking me to try this cooler here saying it's the best CPU cooler for the NK sm1 now there's one question that I get a lot on this channel and that's in regards to this case so here's a quick rundown of the build to get some of you guys up to speed before we talk about cooling the case is the N case M one which you can find a link to in the description below and I've also done a couple of mods to this including a new fit design a tempered glass side panel which hinges from the bottom and also a cover for the power supply cables the case is on the more expensive and when compared to a typical mid tower case today but the sheer amount of configuration options and the level of compatibility is totally worth it in my opinion the reason it's more expensive is that compared to cases from Corsair and xt fractal design and all of the larger case companies is that the NK sm one is manufactured in lower volumes and it also doesn't reuse parts from any other case some of these larger case manufacturers for example will reuse parts between cases like the frame or the motherboard tray or maybe even just reuse the entire case and then just add in a tempered glass side panel and some RGB so the end case is expensive but in my opinion it is worth that amount when considering the build quality and compatibility full-length GPUs are no problem at all CPU coolers up to 130 millimeters tall are good to go and you can still fit a couple of two and a half inch drives in the front even with a pretty dense configuration like mine by the way if you're looking for a cheaper alternative to the N case m1 check out the qbx from cougar which has a very similar parts compatibility it's not too much larger to most people and the great thing is that only $50 u.s. so I've done a few iterations in this case with the first build fusion one housing a 7700 K and a gtx 1070 the cpu cooler i was using back then was the cry or eek m9i and for about 20 dollars this thing is really hard to beat in terms of compatibility performance and value and then with the second iteration of the build fusion 2 i decided to upgrade the caller to the NOC to a d9l with an extra fin and this was enough to run the diluted 8700 k with the mild overclock of around 4.8 gigahertz with no issues but running up to 5 gigahertz that wasn't going to happen at the required 1.3 6 volts I also did have to make some modifications to the BIOS as well to allow it to run at 5 gigahertz without throttling the clock speed for no reason at all and this was raising the overcurrent protection to 170 percent and also lifting the short and long power durations to their max values of course there I left vrm temperature protection on for obvious reasons but thankfully this wasn't never an issue now in gaming there's no point at all trying to stretch the 8700 K up to 5 gigahertz and really if that's all you're doing just leave the processor at stock clock speeds and at the very most enable multi-core enhancement in the BIOS to get all cores running at 4.7 but beyond that you're not really gonna see much boost in framerate as you guys can probably guess though I do a ton of video editing with my programs of choice being Adobe Premiere Pro and After Effects this is where bumping up the clock speed does save me quite a bit of time when rendering effects processing video stabilization 3d motion tracking and then finally encoding the video using h.264 doing this with my current cooler though the Noctua d9l it's not enough to tame the 8700 K at 5 gigahertz and so I really wanted to push this 8700 K to its limits but without upgrading through a larger case so I wanted to take some of your suggestions and check out the u9s from Noctua it'll set you back around $80 u.s. from Amazon if you grab it along with an extra fan like I have here and compared to the d9l that I was using previously the Unitas is 15 millimeters tall and also has an extra heat pipe the d9l does tho have that dual tower design which may allow for better heat dissipation speaking of which I will be testing both the stock 92 millimeter a nine fins the compact with the callers and also the hands down and better-looking Redux nf-- b9 fans to see what the difference is in terms of performance the redux fans max out 400 rpm lower than their tenth brother at 1600 rpm but I'm hoping that for the sake of the looks that there's not too much difference in performance between them I will also be showing some quick testing I did afterwards on why I choose to run the CPU cooler fans as rear intake rather than rear exhaust as I do get quite a few questions on that as well the main reason is due to the way I currently have my GTX 1080i configured for cooling using the bare Exelero three heatsink and then two 120 millimeter static pressure fans underneath running in exhaust this way I'm able to keep the 1080i under 60 degree C at full load and the vrm and memory temps are also in check so without further ado let's look at the results he were putting the a B 700k through a render seen in blender and I took a 30 second average of the temperatures for all six cause after the 12 minute mark keep in mind also that this is with the 8700 K running at 5 gigahertz at one point three six volts inside the case with all panels closed right away we can see a rather large delta of over 20 degrees C between the top result and the bottom result and did all realness the difference is larger than that seeing as the bottom result couldn't actually finish the full 12 minutes with the overclock in place this result is in fact the d9l with to redux b9 fans which if you remember is my current calling configuration switching the fans to the tanned and faster spending NF a 9 fan improves the result by a few degrees and here we were able to at least finish the full blender on with our throttling but barely next up swapping the cooler to the u9s gives us a massive improvement over the d9l here the configuration with the dual and fa9 fans gives us a fairly respectful temperature of 77 degrees C and when comparing the difference between the 10th and fa9 fans to the gray NF beamline fans we're looking at about a 4 degree difference for the Unitas and over a 5 degree difference for the d9 L also something to note here is that I have set the fan curve to 100% fan speed after the CPU hits 50 degrees so all fans were running at their max rpm and here's the difference between running fans as intake or exhaust with running the fans as rear intake giving us about a four and a half degree improvement over exhaust and this is because when both the GPU and CPU fans are running as exhaust they end up fighting each other in an overly negative pressure system but when the CPU fans are flipped two runners intake the air pressure inside the case is a lot more balanced where air is getting taken in from the rear and then exhausted straight at the bottom so with these results in mind I will be switching to the nock to a u9s for cooling my 8700 k as i'll now be able to run 5 gigahertz with no problem in terms of calling as for which fans i'll be using well I think I'll stick with the gray and have been on redux fans as although they do run about 4 or 5 degrees warmer than the NF e 9 I think many of you will agree that they look better also the two NFA ninepins that I've got here are in fact different shades if they weren't off-putting enough with one looking slightly Pinker than the other this alone was enough for me to keep them more neutral and slightly warmer and slower spinning and fb9 fans in the system and so guys this is probably the last change I'll make to my main PC inside the end case m1 and when I get back from Computex in a couple of weeks I will be starting a new build series on the channel featuring a custom loop and really can't wait to show you guys what I have planned for that one to close off though I am really happy with the cooling potential of the ndsm one despite its very small form factor and as the title suggests I think this may be one of the best if not the best cooling solutions for this case the nocturia 9s alongside the Arctic accelerator 3 for the GPU is seriously a dream solution for anyone building inside the end case m1 in my opinion and I feel like a lot of people see a small build like this and just automatically assume that everything is running at 80 degrees plus because of how small it is when in reality it's probably running a little bit cooler than some of the larger HDX builds that I've seen out there as always guys I'd love to hear your thoughts down below on this calling for the end case m1 and what you think about these small builds in general and maybe if you'd like to see more of them in the future as always if you haven't subscribed already definitely do that especially for this next week coming up as there's going to be a ton of content coming from Computex in Taiwan thank you all so much for watching and I will see you all in the next onehey guys what's going on so I've had my own case and one for well over a year now housing my personal editing and gaming system and during that time I've experimented quite a bit with different calling configurations in such a small case it does take a lot of experimenting trial and error and also a lot of feedback and suggestions from the small form-factor PC community speaking of which a few of you guys have been asking me to try this cooler here saying it's the best CPU cooler for the NK sm1 now there's one question that I get a lot on this channel and that's in regards to this case so here's a quick rundown of the build to get some of you guys up to speed before we talk about cooling the case is the N case M one which you can find a link to in the description below and I've also done a couple of mods to this including a new fit design a tempered glass side panel which hinges from the bottom and also a cover for the power supply cables the case is on the more expensive and when compared to a typical mid tower case today but the sheer amount of configuration options and the level of compatibility is totally worth it in my opinion the reason it's more expensive is that compared to cases from Corsair and xt fractal design and all of the larger case companies is that the NK sm one is manufactured in lower volumes and it also doesn't reuse parts from any other case some of these larger case manufacturers for example will reuse parts between cases like the frame or the motherboard tray or maybe even just reuse the entire case and then just add in a tempered glass side panel and some RGB so the end case is expensive but in my opinion it is worth that amount when considering the build quality and compatibility full-length GPUs are no problem at all CPU coolers up to 130 millimeters tall are good to go and you can still fit a couple of two and a half inch drives in the front even with a pretty dense configuration like mine by the way if you're looking for a cheaper alternative to the N case m1 check out the qbx from cougar which has a very similar parts compatibility it's not too much larger to most people and the great thing is that only $50 u.s. so I've done a few iterations in this case with the first build fusion one housing a 7700 K and a gtx 1070 the cpu cooler i was using back then was the cry or eek m9i and for about 20 dollars this thing is really hard to beat in terms of compatibility performance and value and then with the second iteration of the build fusion 2 i decided to upgrade the caller to the NOC to a d9l with an extra fin and this was enough to run the diluted 8700 k with the mild overclock of around 4.8 gigahertz with no issues but running up to 5 gigahertz that wasn't going to happen at the required 1.3 6 volts I also did have to make some modifications to the BIOS as well to allow it to run at 5 gigahertz without throttling the clock speed for no reason at all and this was raising the overcurrent protection to 170 percent and also lifting the short and long power durations to their max values of course there I left vrm temperature protection on for obvious reasons but thankfully this wasn't never an issue now in gaming there's no point at all trying to stretch the 8700 K up to 5 gigahertz and really if that's all you're doing just leave the processor at stock clock speeds and at the very most enable multi-core enhancement in the BIOS to get all cores running at 4.7 but beyond that you're not really gonna see much boost in framerate as you guys can probably guess though I do a ton of video editing with my programs of choice being Adobe Premiere Pro and After Effects this is where bumping up the clock speed does save me quite a bit of time when rendering effects processing video stabilization 3d motion tracking and then finally encoding the video using h.264 doing this with my current cooler though the Noctua d9l it's not enough to tame the 8700 K at 5 gigahertz and so I really wanted to push this 8700 K to its limits but without upgrading through a larger case so I wanted to take some of your suggestions and check out the u9s from Noctua it'll set you back around $80 u.s. from Amazon if you grab it along with an extra fan like I have here and compared to the d9l that I was using previously the Unitas is 15 millimeters tall and also has an extra heat pipe the d9l does tho have that dual tower design which may allow for better heat dissipation speaking of which I will be testing both the stock 92 millimeter a nine fins the compact with the callers and also the hands down and better-looking Redux nf-- b9 fans to see what the difference is in terms of performance the redux fans max out 400 rpm lower than their tenth brother at 1600 rpm but I'm hoping that for the sake of the looks that there's not too much difference in performance between them I will also be showing some quick testing I did afterwards on why I choose to run the CPU cooler fans as rear intake rather than rear exhaust as I do get quite a few questions on that as well the main reason is due to the way I currently have my GTX 1080i configured for cooling using the bare Exelero three heatsink and then two 120 millimeter static pressure fans underneath running in exhaust this way I'm able to keep the 1080i under 60 degree C at full load and the vrm and memory temps are also in check so without further ado let's look at the results he were putting the a B 700k through a render seen in blender and I took a 30 second average of the temperatures for all six cause after the 12 minute mark keep in mind also that this is with the 8700 K running at 5 gigahertz at one point three six volts inside the case with all panels closed right away we can see a rather large delta of over 20 degrees C between the top result and the bottom result and did all realness the difference is larger than that seeing as the bottom result couldn't actually finish the full 12 minutes with the overclock in place this result is in fact the d9l with to redux b9 fans which if you remember is my current calling configuration switching the fans to the tanned and faster spending NF a 9 fan improves the result by a few degrees and here we were able to at least finish the full blender on with our throttling but barely next up swapping the cooler to the u9s gives us a massive improvement over the d9l here the configuration with the dual and fa9 fans gives us a fairly respectful temperature of 77 degrees C and when comparing the difference between the 10th and fa9 fans to the gray NF beamline fans we're looking at about a 4 degree difference for the Unitas and over a 5 degree difference for the d9 L also something to note here is that I have set the fan curve to 100% fan speed after the CPU hits 50 degrees so all fans were running at their max rpm and here's the difference between running fans as intake or exhaust with running the fans as rear intake giving us about a four and a half degree improvement over exhaust and this is because when both the GPU and CPU fans are running as exhaust they end up fighting each other in an overly negative pressure system but when the CPU fans are flipped two runners intake the air pressure inside the case is a lot more balanced where air is getting taken in from the rear and then exhausted straight at the bottom so with these results in mind I will be switching to the nock to a u9s for cooling my 8700 k as i'll now be able to run 5 gigahertz with no problem in terms of calling as for which fans i'll be using well I think I'll stick with the gray and have been on redux fans as although they do run about 4 or 5 degrees warmer than the NF e 9 I think many of you will agree that they look better also the two NFA ninepins that I've got here are in fact different shades if they weren't off-putting enough with one looking slightly Pinker than the other this alone was enough for me to keep them more neutral and slightly warmer and slower spinning and fb9 fans in the system and so guys this is probably the last change I'll make to my main PC inside the end case m1 and when I get back from Computex in a couple of weeks I will be starting a new build series on the channel featuring a custom loop and really can't wait to show you guys what I have planned for that one to close off though I am really happy with the cooling potential of the ndsm one despite its very small form factor and as the title suggests I think this may be one of the best if not the best cooling solutions for this case the nocturia 9s alongside the Arctic accelerator 3 for the GPU is seriously a dream solution for anyone building inside the end case m1 in my opinion and I feel like a lot of people see a small build like this and just automatically assume that everything is running at 80 degrees plus because of how small it is when in reality it's probably running a little bit cooler than some of the larger HDX builds that I've seen out there as always guys I'd love to hear your thoughts down below on this calling for the end case m1 and what you think about these small builds in general and maybe if you'd like to see more of them in the future as always if you haven't subscribed already definitely do that especially for this next week coming up as there's going to be a ton of content coming from Computex in Taiwan thank you all so much for watching and I will see you all in the next one\n"