ValantarYes, and? There are clearly cold plates attached to both halves of the heatsinks. One fits onto your CPU, the other on the GPU (attached with a flexible riser cable). Nothing particularly special about this beyond the fact that both heatsinks are integrated into the case. Heck, even bog-standard boring ATX box cases use riser cables now for their (mostly stupid and poorly ventilated) vertical GPU mounts. This might be easier to grasp for those of us into dense SFF builds, but it really isn't an advanced concept

Hey stop being a condescending smarta$$. I KNOW what a frickin riser cable is. I’ve been around computers a long time. What I effing said was NOTHING was clear how this case would integrate and use thise heatsinks!!!!!!

Their descriptions are obscure, and their pics are dog doodoo.

rtwjunkieHey stop being a condescending smarta$$. I KNOW what a frickin riser cable is. I’ve been around computers a long time. What I effing said was NOTHING was clear how this case would integrate and use thise heatsinks!!!!!! :mad:

Their descriptions are obscure, and their pics are dog doodoo.

Sorry, I didn't mean to sound condescending, I just didn't see how this layout was that confusing. It's reasonably clear to me just by seeing the two cold plates that one must be for the CPU and the other for the GPU, given that they explicitly speak of cooling both. I agree that both their press copy and photos could be better though - they seem more interested in making it look slick than achieving any kind of clarity.

ValantarSorry, I didn't mean to sound condescending, I just didn't see how this layout was that confusing. It's reasonably clear to me just by seeing the two cold plates that one must be for the CPU and the other for the GPU, given that they explicitly speak of cooling both. I agree that both their press copy and photos could be better though - they seem more interested in making it look slick than achieving any kind of clarity.

OK, no problem. I apologize for getting out of sorts.

Now that you've explained it, It seems to me that unless the case is perfectly made, that there could be an issue with ensuring perfect, constant pressure on at least the CPU. Even knocking a case could flex the contact enough to loosen it, right?

rtwjunkieOK, no problem. I apologize for getting out of sorts.

Now that you've explained it, It seems to me that unless the case is perfectly made, that there could be an issue with ensuring perfect, constant pressure on at least the CPU. Even knocking a case could flex the contact enough to loosen it, right?

Yeah, there would need to be some sort of bracket doing the job of a motherboard tray to ensure consistent contact - if the board dangles off the CPU socket alone that sounds dangerous, even if the mounting hardware behind the socket is chunky. I mean, knocking the case could cause trouble with any big air cooler (so in a way there's an advantage here in the cooler being supported by the case), but those tend to have very beefy mounting too, and the board being strapped down to a structural part of the case gives a lot of rigidity even with a hunk of metal hanging off it, so reversing that layout seems less than ideal. Guess we'll see how they've solved this once review samples start going around.

ValantarYou're significantly overestimating the efficacy of finned panels. After all, for those to cool more than a few watts of heat, they would need heat pipes connected to the cold plate contacting them.

That's exactly how all the finned side panel cases in past and present production work. To suggest that they'd use air circulation to conduct heat is ridiculous and ignorant of all prior designs. Why even bring it up as a point of contention?

Chrispy_That's exactly how all the finned side panel cases in past and present production work. To suggest that they'd use air circulation to conduct heat is ridiculous and ignorant of all prior designs. Why even bring it up as a point of contention?

Because this case - which is what we're discussing, after all - is explicitly designed around a chimney effect with an inner heatsink that is a fundamentally different cooling layout than what a finned outer shell necessitates. If you're arguing that they should ditch the entire design and instead make a tall HDPlex clone, why not say as much directly? There are definitely reasons to believe that an internal flow chimney design passive cooling setup can be more effective at dissipating heat than an external cooling design with finned sides, such as the heatsink not needing to account for physical durability as a case (allowing for more and thinner fins, so more surface area) nor external aesthetics, plus the likely increased airflow from the chimney effect. Unless you have a suggestion as to how to combine directly connected finned side panels with an internal chimney cooler, what you're saying amounts to not a critique of their design but merely stating your preference for another style of passive cooling design. Which is of course fine, but then you shouldn't disguise it as a critique of a shortcoming of the design.

ValantarUnless you have a suggestion as to how to combine directly connected finned side panels with an internal chimney cooler

That's the easy part :)
They already have heatpipes from the coldplates to each of the fin stacks, repeat by adding additional heatpipes from the fin-stacks to the side panels. No need to go around motherboard edge or anything like that, and they'd be short, cheap heatpipes as the side panels are almost in contact with the fin stacks anyway.

They also seem to have three very large >1cm heatpipes running front to back, I presume that's how they justify imbalanced load (250W + 150W) from two otherwise identical fin stacks. What's to stop them from bending those around the edge of the finstack to make contact with the side panels? That may be an even cheaper and easier solution, though it's possible the case needs those to contact the front and back panels for additional structural support.

Chrispy_That's the easy part :)
They already have heatpipes from the coldplates to each of the fin stacks, repeat by adding additional heatpipes from the fin-stacks to the side panels. No need to go around motherboard edge or anything like that, and they'd be short, cheap heatpipes as the side panels are almost in contact with the fin stacks anyway.

They also seem to have three very large >1cm heatpipes running front to back, I presume that's how they justify imbalanced load (250W + 150W) from two otherwise identical fin stacks. What's to stop them from bending those around the edge of the finstack to make contact with the side panels? That may be an even cheaper and easier solution, though it's possible the case needs those to contact the front and back panels for additional structural support.

I think those are just mounting/support posts, likely in copper-anodized aluminium, or I guess copper if they want to add a lot of weight and cost with little real benefit. If heatpipes that big exist, they would cost a fortune, and adding mounting screws to their ends sounds like a very risky endeavor.

As to the "easy part": as I tried to say in my first post addressing you, it's not easy at all. Going from the fin stack to the short front/back panels would be relatively easy, but those are easily half the surface area of the actual side panels (ignoring the necessary cutouts in the rear panel). Adding fins to the front would also be a rather ... bold aesthetic choice, definitely not one that fits MonsterLabo's choice of style (at least as demonstrated in their current two products). That of course ignores the inefficiency of thermal transfer from heat source -> heatpipe -> cooler fins -> heatpipe -> side panels, and the likely loss in air velocity inside of the chimney as some thermal energy is transferred outside. I don't doubt that this would increase the overall cooling capacity somewhat, I just don't think it would be worth it at all. That addition would likely be well past the point of diminishing returns for cooling, while significantly increasing cost and manufacturing complexity.

If you want to use the large side panels, given that these must be removable to enable component mounting, you're still left with the issue of how to attach heatpipes to a removable panel in a manner that is conducive to efficient thermal transfer. HDPlex and their peers solve this by having relatively flat cases with top panel access. That obviously isn't feasible here. Making one of the panels finned would likely be doable, but that would make assembly for the end user extremely complex as they would then need to remove the massive inner heatsink to mount the components (either CPU or GPU) between it and the finned panel, or you'd need to redesign the inner cooling system entirely. Access from the front/back panels or top would make connecting cables and connectors impossible, and leave no method for fastening components except for mounting screws on the outside of the panels.

What is likely stopping them from bending around the edge of the fin stack to make contact with the side panels is that this contact would be really, really poor. Heatpipes are very flexible, and mounting a removable panel like this without external screws would mean just pushing the side panel up against the pipes and hoping for the best. This ... wouldn't work. You don't get any kind of effective thermal transfer by just pushing a metal plate against a heatpipe. This would either necessitate smearing the side panel with tons of thermal paste (making disassembly a disgusting mess) or using thermal pads (which aren't very good, even the expensive ones). And contact pressure would still be really bad, further lowering thermal transfer. Unless the heatpipes are bent perfectly there would also be significant risk of only a small portion of the pipe actually touching the panel at all. This is of course ignoring the issue of aligning the loose end of a self-supporting heatpipe with a mounting point on a removable panel that you only have access to the opposite side of (I'm assuming the inside of the panel would have some sort of grooves for the pipes to sit in, like on the HDPlex cases).

So: what you are arguing for might improve cooling, whether marginally or noticeably, but it would also massively increase manufacturing and assembly complexity, and the increase in cooling capacity would never be that big. It would make this case a nightmare to build in - and that's starting from a case that already requires you to disassemble your GPU, so it's not like the barrier to entry here is low to begin with.

As for the unbalanced load ratings, I'm putting that down to the simple fact that GPUs are much easier to cool than CPUs, both due to their lower thermal density and their lack of an IHS. Cooling 250W more or less evenly spread across a 3-400mm2 bare die is a lot easier than if the same heat output came from 8-10 tiny hot spots (Intel's current 14nm cores are ~10mm2 each) on a 206mm² CPU die beneath a heatspreader.

ValantarThat of course ignores the inefficiency of thermal transfer from heat source -> heatpipe -> cooler fins -> heatpipe -> side panels, and the likely loss in air velocity inside of the chimney as some thermal energy is transferred outside. I don't doubt that this would increase the overall cooling capacity somewhat, I just don't think it would be worth it at all. That addition would likely be well past the point of diminishing returns for cooling, while significantly increasing cost and manufacturing complexity.

My friend, I appreciate your posts here, but the walls of text are alienating when this is all you really needed to say!

I doubt that MonsterLabo would be getting more than 10w of cooling with a heatpipe from the fins to a side panel. Heat pipes lose their efficiency after 8” or so (on earth/under atmospheric pressure), and if they’re not actually making firm, level contact with the heat source, they are pretty much useless (for PC components).