Streacom's FC10 and Nano150: Building a Fanless Ivy Bridge HTPC
by Ganesh T S on December 22, 2012 3:30 AM EST- Posted in
- HTPC
- Fanless
- Ivy Bridge
Thermal Performance
Evaluation of the thermal performance of passive systems is absolutely essential because it is quite common for improperly designed thermal solutions to not prevent processors from reaching their maximum permissible junction temperature. Once this temperature is reached, thermal throttling is activated. The processor first reacts by lowering its operating frequency. If the cooling solution is bad, it might even result in the processor shutting itself down.
The Streacom OEM solution used in the Aleutia Relia wasn't very effective (though Streacom refused to comment on those results). However, their previous chassis / cooling solutions had always been effective in operation, and we weren't unduly worried about the FC10 with respect to this aspect. That said, we did carry out the same experiments performed with the Aleutia Relia, but restricted ourselves to room temperature (72 F = 22 C) tests only.
Our loading test consists of running Prime 95 in maximum power consumption mode along with Furmark in Stability Test mode. Instead of running the test for 20 minutes, we subjected the unit to 12 hours of stress continuously.
Power consumed at the wall was recorded for the first 90 minutes or so (and we found that it settled down to around 72 W beyond that). Unlike the Relia where thermal throttling was activated and resulted in power consumption at the wall going down after some time, we find that there is no thermal throttling at play in this system. The load and CPU frequencies were presented in the Relia review, but we won't present them here since the load stayed at 100% and the frequency of the cores was always at 3.3 GHz throughout the course of the stress test.
The CPU core temperatures are presented in the graphs above. Interestingly, the second core was always a couple of degrees cooler than the first core. The maximum junction temperature of the Core i3-3225 is 105 C, and the FC10 cooling mechanism was able to keep it at a safe temperature.
Another interesting aspect is how fast the unit is able to get back to the idle temperature after removal of the processor load. The graph below shows that the unit gets back to the idling temperature within 90 minutes.
We conclude this section with a thermal profile of the case and the heat sink when the unit is being subjected to full load using Prime 95 and Furmark. All the temperatures are in Farenheit.
The temperature on the lower CPU mount noted above was actually on top of the FC10 upper CPU mount (Intel-type). All these values were recorded with the unit being kept in a still room with plenty of open space around it.
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wsaenotsock - Saturday, December 22, 2012 - link
As much as I appreciate the whole full-silent chassis by Streacom here, and others such as Zalman- who made a high end one a few years back... I don't understand why there aren't more cases that are designed like this while also incorporating low-volume air cooling with a large sized, high quality fan, slightly undervolted. Widely tested & recommended fans (such as on the SPCR website) are barely detectable and add enough airflow to keep the temperatures manageable, so that you can actually use performance components, not just end up cornered into low wattage HTPC stuff, and still not worry about reducing lifespan of parts with heat.I want to see more cases that are intelligently designed instead of just fully passive or the opposite extreme with 5 - 8 120mm fan cutouts.
snuuggles - Saturday, December 22, 2012 - link
Took the words out of my mouth. I wonder if it's that HT stuff simply "should" be under a certain heat envelope so they play nice with all the other components they are stacked up with traditionally?I mean, there's a reason most stereo stuff doesn't come with a fan of any kind.
PS did you see the new type of "bellows" fan being developd
Menty - Saturday, December 22, 2012 - link
Absolutely. Fully passive cases just make too many compromises when one or two very very slow fans will make everything just that much happier.LauRoman - Saturday, December 22, 2012 - link
Problem is, very slow fans get dust clogged and louder as time goes on. On a machine that will barely be touched by fingers, let alone opened-up that's not a very good thing.Olaf van der Spek - Saturday, December 22, 2012 - link
Isn't that why dust filters were invented?EnzoFX - Saturday, December 22, 2012 - link
Still requires maintenance.Hrel - Sunday, December 23, 2012 - link
you sound like a horrible person. You can't be bothered to clean your PC once/year? Slob.Samus - Monday, December 24, 2012 - link
yep. coolest thing about passive cooling is you can open it up 3 years later and it still looks brand new inside without a spec of dust!mike8675309 - Thursday, December 27, 2012 - link
Someone hasn't opened up his T.V., or stereo, or cable box lately.kmmatney - Tuesday, January 22, 2013 - link
I bought my Kenwood receiver (still used with my TV) in 1989, and cleaned it out for the first time about 2 years ago. So yeah, you have to clean it out, but only every 20 years or so. That said, I'd prefer a slow moving fan in an HTPC case.