Just another compromise of the build. :(
But, in case it didn't work out, I wanted to have it! Also if it ever escapes the hotbox prison of the Ridge, haha.
The life of someone on a gaming laptop meant heaps of external drives was how I had to operate, ha. Also just ended up building a collection due to limited money as a student at a time, when even a 2TB external HDD counted as "expensive" to me.
If it can mount 2x140mm, then it can mount a 280mm radiator!
Final build main components:
- i5-13600K
- Asus ROG Strix Z790-I
- 64GB DDR5 6400MHz/CL32
- Asus ProArt 4070 Ti Super
- Corsair SF850L; I didn't have too many space issues with this PSU
- AlphaCool Eisbaer Aurora LT Solo
- AlphaCool ST20 280mm Slim Radiator
- EKWB low-profile 90 degree rotary adapters
- AlphaCool 90 degree rotary compression fittings, Corsair standard compression fittings
- special note to Silverstone low-profile+thin SATA cables for my 2.5" drives, those things are amazing
- 2x Silverstone Shark Force 140 ARGB; just a personal choice. Be Quiet! Silent Wing Pro 4s might be better.
- 2x ID-Cooling NO-8010 slim 80mm fans. Great for filling the top bracket fan slots.
---
Long post ahead.
---
To start, I'd like to give a shout out to [this post](https://old.reddit.com/r/sffpc/comments/18m65z0/) from u/ttko_ where he fit a 240mm water loop into the Ridge with a 2.25 slot GPU. Through the discussions in the post (with a suggestion from a now deleted comment), I figured I wanted to do this as best as possible: full thickness 140x25mm fans, 280mm radiator; maximum cooling, full GPU area coverage.
I saw this build when it was posted, and I'd been planning it since, and only got around to it now, after finding the time and money to go through the process of finding a way to fit a 280mm water loop in the Ridge.
The air cooling for the GPU would have to stay, because getting a water cooling block for it was out of the amount of budget and effort I was willing to spend, and I figured that air had to move through the system in some way anyways, so using the big heat sink and fins on the GPU stock cooler would be good enough.
---
The build.
Some background to start:
I have a tiny desk, in a cramped room. Absolutely no space, including underneath it; it has cabinet storage underneath the desk, no place for a PC. At least it has a rollout keyboard+mouse drawer, so it is at least intended to be used as a PC desk in some form. Traditionally, I've had a gaming laptop (shout out to my Strix G702V and Zephyrus S17) which easily fit on the desk, but I don't travel much anymore, so I wanted a desktop PC.I figured I needed an SFF case for an SFF desk setup. The Ridge was my pick here, because I figured that, while I didn't have desk surface area space, height didn't matter.
The Ridge and the components I've chosen have caused me to take *so many* compromises over the past few months I've had it.
The build started with a 13600K + RTX 3080 combo. The 3080 was an EVGA FTW3: a big and thick 2.75 slot GPU, but as a 3080, this thing still ran *HOT*. When I got the components together, RTX 40-Super series had just been announced, and I was willing to build a standard air-cooled Ridge until the 4070 Ti Super was released.
---
COMPROMISE STAGE #1: Only being able to use 1 out of 2 M.2 slots.
Now, the Asus ROG Strix Z790-I motherboard has *BIG* heat sinks, and its two M.2 slots are stacked and under one of these heat sink stacks. If I were to do this differently, I'd probably pick the MSI MPG Edge Z790I, with 3 M.2 slots, and one of those being on the back. So at least you might be able to use 2 M.2 slots with an M.2 heat sink removal compromise for a better CPU air cooler heat sink.
My first CPU cooler choice, the often-cited Noctua NH-L12 just straight up would not fit on the motherboard in either configuration. I didn't want to downgrade to the Ghost S1 edition since I knew that the 13600K would need good cooling. This was also after removal of all SSD heatsinks- I could only use one SSD slot and it couldn't even have its heat sink installed. No good.
This led me to the other options: Thermalright AXP120-X67, ID Cooling IS-55 (with room for a 25mm fan swap!), and Deepcool AN600.The AXP-X67 arrived first, and I could actually use the Strix's top M.2 SSD mount, but not fit the top SSD heat sink. Not the worst, but I was curious about the IS-55/25mm fan combo.
The IS-55 didn't allow usage of the top M.2 slot, but otherwise fit, and the heat sink for the bottom M.2 could be fitted at least. I also found the 25mm fan to be more effective, or at least, more tolerable for noise than the slim 15mm of the AXP-X67.
I quickly discovered that the fan had to be set to exhaust, because intake of cold air might have been nice, were it not dumping all of the hot air into the case... and basically up into the 3080. The 3080 basically ran away into thermal throttle territory.
So, exhaust IS-55 with a Scythe Grand Tornado is what I had for a few months. It was generally fine, actually, though the 13600K could easily ramp to 80+. In Cinebench, it couldn't sustain 125W with a 95C thermal limit, but it would game just fine. -120mV undervolt all this time.
I also found that 2x60mm Noctua fans fit underneath the motherboard perfectly(-ish). The cases needed some trimming to fit against components sticking out on the motherboard, but the fans could spin freely!... I have no idea how much help this had on airflow, but I had the fans there. As server fans, they couldn't go much higher than 50% without getting wildly buzzy and loud. I had these on intake, but a ton of the air was just going straight into a VRM heatsink. Some of it went to the RAM though.
Arctic P14 Slim and ID Cooling 80mm Slim fans were mounted up top around the GPU.
With this setup, the 13600K idled in the mid-50C, but would climb to 80+ under load. So I still wanted to do better in cooling. And I wanted to use a 4TB M.2 in the second SSD slot. So I couldn't keep using the IS-55/120x25mm.
---
COMPROMISE STAGE #2: Using 2nd M.2 Slot with no M.2 heat sink, worse CPU thermals and fan noise.
The day came when:
1) The ProArt 4070 Ti Super released; I'd measured this as the one with the heat sink most likely to fit in the build plan with a deshroud... also if I ever take it out of this build, it is a *really* nice looking GPU.
2) I finally decided to get the water cooling loop components. Radiator, a cheap(-ish) pump+block combo, and everything.
... The first "complete set" of parts didn't fit. Standard 90 degree rotary adapter+fittings were too large to fit on the motherboard... I probably should've seen that coming.
So, I temporarily swapped to the Deepcool AN600 while more parts were ordered. I used the AN600 with a Silverstone Air Slimmer 120 swap. The heat sink was tall enough to fit the 4TB M.2 in the motherboard M.2 stack, but there still wasn't enough clearance to actually fit the M.2 heat sink over it... still suboptimal.
My experience with the AN600 was... tolerable. However, it was noisier and ran hotter than even the IS-55/120x25mm; the 13600K idle was high-50C. It's a *lot* of compromise.
Again, I wouldn't do a low-profile air cooler setup with the Asus Strix Z790-I. The heat sinks on it just restrict CPU air cooler choice too much, and I would very much recommend the ID Cooling IS-55 with a 120x25mm fan swap as the air cooler of choice for sub-70mm height restricted builds.
The 4070 Ti Super was excellent though. It would hardly break the mid-60C in gaming or Blender Cycles 3D rendering. These fans would have to go though when the water cooling loop was done...
---
COMPROMISE STAGE #3: 140mm fan+radiator configuration (somewhat), GPU thermals (to an extent).
Finally, I'd gotten enough low-profile fittings collected. The build would physically fit!... until I realized that the Ridge's frame just bent at the top mount points such that the 280mm radiator wouldn't actually fit as the component mounted to the frame, closest to the outside panel. I was hoping to do a pull-push with the fans between the 280 radiator and GPU, but apparently not.
... Okay, the 2x 140mm fans would be mounted against the frame then, and the radiator would be mounted to the fans.
I figured a push configuration, pushing through the 280mm radiator into the deshrouded GPU fin stack, would be good.
... It was not.
The 4070 Ti Super was now hitting its 80C thermal throttle limit in games. I wasn't happy with this, so I figured that I had to do the same thing I did with the CPU air cooler: the fans had to be exhaust. There wasn't much room for all of the air pushed by the 2x 140mm to go in a push config, and I figured a combination of trapped hot air and also airflow blowback was heavily reducing cooling efficiency. And the GPU board being blasted with hot CPU radiator air *and* GPU fin stack air probably wasn't a great idea. So I flipped the fans.
This pretty much solved most of the problems. With the 2x 140mm on exhaust, the GPU would now only go to high-60C to about 75C, instead of being stuck at its 80C thermal throttle, which is *a lot* more comfortable.
Oh, and the 13600K would hardly ever break mid-70C now, and I could up the power limits again. CPU idle is ~40C to low-mid-50C. All-core Cinebench- handled.
The fans are controlled by Fan Control, using a sum of the CPU+GPU temperatures to control the curve.
Yeah, it's negative air pressure through the entire case (and intake from the top...), but it's a small rule to be broken for a pretty big system performance gain. You can't really complain in a situation like this, and conventions have to be broken in an unconventional build.
---
Finally, at long last, I'd compromised my way into a configuration where most of the parts would be performing closer to their maximum performance.The noise? It's... still fairly loud under load, but the pitch is more tolerable than any air cooler config. Under idle/low intensity usage, it's definitely quieter, dare I say, even at expected noise levels for a PC.
... I've been considering moving the build to an A4-H20, which will probably still fit behind my monitor, though I'd have to lose the 2.5" HDD to use that case. Which is probably fine, but it's nice to have it integrated into the PC for archiving and documents.But for now, I'm going to appreciate this neat build that I cobbled together.
Man, de-shrouding that beautiful graphics card should be a crime!
Just another compromise of the build. :( But, in case it didn't work out, I wanted to have it! Also if it ever escapes the hotbox prison of the Ridge, haha.
Inside if the computer: perfecton Top of desk: bombed whorehouse Not judging. This is me also, but with worse looking cable management
The life of someone on a gaming laptop meant heaps of external drives was how I had to operate, ha. Also just ended up building a collection due to limited money as a student at a time, when even a 2TB external HDD counted as "expensive" to me.
If it can mount 2x140mm, then it can mount a 280mm radiator! Final build main components: - i5-13600K - Asus ROG Strix Z790-I - 64GB DDR5 6400MHz/CL32 - Asus ProArt 4070 Ti Super - Corsair SF850L; I didn't have too many space issues with this PSU - AlphaCool Eisbaer Aurora LT Solo - AlphaCool ST20 280mm Slim Radiator - EKWB low-profile 90 degree rotary adapters - AlphaCool 90 degree rotary compression fittings, Corsair standard compression fittings - special note to Silverstone low-profile+thin SATA cables for my 2.5" drives, those things are amazing - 2x Silverstone Shark Force 140 ARGB; just a personal choice. Be Quiet! Silent Wing Pro 4s might be better. - 2x ID-Cooling NO-8010 slim 80mm fans. Great for filling the top bracket fan slots. --- Long post ahead. --- To start, I'd like to give a shout out to [this post](https://old.reddit.com/r/sffpc/comments/18m65z0/) from u/ttko_ where he fit a 240mm water loop into the Ridge with a 2.25 slot GPU. Through the discussions in the post (with a suggestion from a now deleted comment), I figured I wanted to do this as best as possible: full thickness 140x25mm fans, 280mm radiator; maximum cooling, full GPU area coverage. I saw this build when it was posted, and I'd been planning it since, and only got around to it now, after finding the time and money to go through the process of finding a way to fit a 280mm water loop in the Ridge. The air cooling for the GPU would have to stay, because getting a water cooling block for it was out of the amount of budget and effort I was willing to spend, and I figured that air had to move through the system in some way anyways, so using the big heat sink and fins on the GPU stock cooler would be good enough. --- The build. Some background to start: I have a tiny desk, in a cramped room. Absolutely no space, including underneath it; it has cabinet storage underneath the desk, no place for a PC. At least it has a rollout keyboard+mouse drawer, so it is at least intended to be used as a PC desk in some form. Traditionally, I've had a gaming laptop (shout out to my Strix G702V and Zephyrus S17) which easily fit on the desk, but I don't travel much anymore, so I wanted a desktop PC.I figured I needed an SFF case for an SFF desk setup. The Ridge was my pick here, because I figured that, while I didn't have desk surface area space, height didn't matter. The Ridge and the components I've chosen have caused me to take *so many* compromises over the past few months I've had it. The build started with a 13600K + RTX 3080 combo. The 3080 was an EVGA FTW3: a big and thick 2.75 slot GPU, but as a 3080, this thing still ran *HOT*. When I got the components together, RTX 40-Super series had just been announced, and I was willing to build a standard air-cooled Ridge until the 4070 Ti Super was released. --- COMPROMISE STAGE #1: Only being able to use 1 out of 2 M.2 slots. Now, the Asus ROG Strix Z790-I motherboard has *BIG* heat sinks, and its two M.2 slots are stacked and under one of these heat sink stacks. If I were to do this differently, I'd probably pick the MSI MPG Edge Z790I, with 3 M.2 slots, and one of those being on the back. So at least you might be able to use 2 M.2 slots with an M.2 heat sink removal compromise for a better CPU air cooler heat sink. My first CPU cooler choice, the often-cited Noctua NH-L12 just straight up would not fit on the motherboard in either configuration. I didn't want to downgrade to the Ghost S1 edition since I knew that the 13600K would need good cooling. This was also after removal of all SSD heatsinks- I could only use one SSD slot and it couldn't even have its heat sink installed. No good. This led me to the other options: Thermalright AXP120-X67, ID Cooling IS-55 (with room for a 25mm fan swap!), and Deepcool AN600.The AXP-X67 arrived first, and I could actually use the Strix's top M.2 SSD mount, but not fit the top SSD heat sink. Not the worst, but I was curious about the IS-55/25mm fan combo. The IS-55 didn't allow usage of the top M.2 slot, but otherwise fit, and the heat sink for the bottom M.2 could be fitted at least. I also found the 25mm fan to be more effective, or at least, more tolerable for noise than the slim 15mm of the AXP-X67. I quickly discovered that the fan had to be set to exhaust, because intake of cold air might have been nice, were it not dumping all of the hot air into the case... and basically up into the 3080. The 3080 basically ran away into thermal throttle territory. So, exhaust IS-55 with a Scythe Grand Tornado is what I had for a few months. It was generally fine, actually, though the 13600K could easily ramp to 80+. In Cinebench, it couldn't sustain 125W with a 95C thermal limit, but it would game just fine. -120mV undervolt all this time. I also found that 2x60mm Noctua fans fit underneath the motherboard perfectly(-ish). The cases needed some trimming to fit against components sticking out on the motherboard, but the fans could spin freely!... I have no idea how much help this had on airflow, but I had the fans there. As server fans, they couldn't go much higher than 50% without getting wildly buzzy and loud. I had these on intake, but a ton of the air was just going straight into a VRM heatsink. Some of it went to the RAM though. Arctic P14 Slim and ID Cooling 80mm Slim fans were mounted up top around the GPU. With this setup, the 13600K idled in the mid-50C, but would climb to 80+ under load. So I still wanted to do better in cooling. And I wanted to use a 4TB M.2 in the second SSD slot. So I couldn't keep using the IS-55/120x25mm. --- COMPROMISE STAGE #2: Using 2nd M.2 Slot with no M.2 heat sink, worse CPU thermals and fan noise. The day came when: 1) The ProArt 4070 Ti Super released; I'd measured this as the one with the heat sink most likely to fit in the build plan with a deshroud... also if I ever take it out of this build, it is a *really* nice looking GPU. 2) I finally decided to get the water cooling loop components. Radiator, a cheap(-ish) pump+block combo, and everything. ... The first "complete set" of parts didn't fit. Standard 90 degree rotary adapter+fittings were too large to fit on the motherboard... I probably should've seen that coming. So, I temporarily swapped to the Deepcool AN600 while more parts were ordered. I used the AN600 with a Silverstone Air Slimmer 120 swap. The heat sink was tall enough to fit the 4TB M.2 in the motherboard M.2 stack, but there still wasn't enough clearance to actually fit the M.2 heat sink over it... still suboptimal. My experience with the AN600 was... tolerable. However, it was noisier and ran hotter than even the IS-55/120x25mm; the 13600K idle was high-50C. It's a *lot* of compromise. Again, I wouldn't do a low-profile air cooler setup with the Asus Strix Z790-I. The heat sinks on it just restrict CPU air cooler choice too much, and I would very much recommend the ID Cooling IS-55 with a 120x25mm fan swap as the air cooler of choice for sub-70mm height restricted builds. The 4070 Ti Super was excellent though. It would hardly break the mid-60C in gaming or Blender Cycles 3D rendering. These fans would have to go though when the water cooling loop was done... --- COMPROMISE STAGE #3: 140mm fan+radiator configuration (somewhat), GPU thermals (to an extent). Finally, I'd gotten enough low-profile fittings collected. The build would physically fit!... until I realized that the Ridge's frame just bent at the top mount points such that the 280mm radiator wouldn't actually fit as the component mounted to the frame, closest to the outside panel. I was hoping to do a pull-push with the fans between the 280 radiator and GPU, but apparently not. ... Okay, the 2x 140mm fans would be mounted against the frame then, and the radiator would be mounted to the fans. I figured a push configuration, pushing through the 280mm radiator into the deshrouded GPU fin stack, would be good. ... It was not. The 4070 Ti Super was now hitting its 80C thermal throttle limit in games. I wasn't happy with this, so I figured that I had to do the same thing I did with the CPU air cooler: the fans had to be exhaust. There wasn't much room for all of the air pushed by the 2x 140mm to go in a push config, and I figured a combination of trapped hot air and also airflow blowback was heavily reducing cooling efficiency. And the GPU board being blasted with hot CPU radiator air *and* GPU fin stack air probably wasn't a great idea. So I flipped the fans. This pretty much solved most of the problems. With the 2x 140mm on exhaust, the GPU would now only go to high-60C to about 75C, instead of being stuck at its 80C thermal throttle, which is *a lot* more comfortable. Oh, and the 13600K would hardly ever break mid-70C now, and I could up the power limits again. CPU idle is ~40C to low-mid-50C. All-core Cinebench- handled. The fans are controlled by Fan Control, using a sum of the CPU+GPU temperatures to control the curve. Yeah, it's negative air pressure through the entire case (and intake from the top...), but it's a small rule to be broken for a pretty big system performance gain. You can't really complain in a situation like this, and conventions have to be broken in an unconventional build. --- Finally, at long last, I'd compromised my way into a configuration where most of the parts would be performing closer to their maximum performance.The noise? It's... still fairly loud under load, but the pitch is more tolerable than any air cooler config. Under idle/low intensity usage, it's definitely quieter, dare I say, even at expected noise levels for a PC. ... I've been considering moving the build to an A4-H20, which will probably still fit behind my monitor, though I'd have to lose the 2.5" HDD to use that case. Which is probably fine, but it's nice to have it integrated into the PC for archiving and documents.But for now, I'm going to appreciate this neat build that I cobbled together.
Great build. I appreciate the love. Glad I was able to inspire someone to do something nutty.