Cube to the MAX!

[ersterhernd]

Prime95 V.279 for OSX (Blend Torture Test)

Temperatures went as high as 81C, but stablilzed in the mid to high 70C range after 30 minutes of stress testing. The 92mm Noctua PWM intake fan was throttling up and down continuously after about 20 minutes of running the torture test. I could have left it run longer, but the temps were floating consistently 73-80 as each test progressed, so I shut it down.

For comparison, I ran the Blend Torture Test on the i3 Cube for about the same time period of 30+ minutes. Average temps on the i3 Cube were approx 10C lower than the i7 machine, with only stock fan speeds required.


i7 Cube - Prime95 Blend Test

i3 Cube - Prime95 Blend Test

Ersterhernd

 

[neilhart]

ersterhernd - this is a good read. I really enjoy seeing your work and learning your rational. I can see that the low power i7's are the way to go now.

And I wonder why your imports take so long. The motherboard that I purchased on Amazon from a German reseller shipped UPS lowest international shipping level, and it arrived in about 8 days from order placement. I am located in California.

neil

 

[ersterhernd]

ersterhernd - this is a good read. I really enjoy seeing your work and learning your rational. I can see that the low power i7's are the way to go now.

And I wonder why your imports take so long. The motherboard that I purchased on Amazon from a German reseller shipped UPS lowest international shipping level, and it arrived in about 8 days from order placement. I am located in California.

neil

Thanks for the comments Neil. I reciprocate your thoughts as I also enjoy reading your posts and ideas. Your unique combination of innovation and imagination is stellar.

Agreed that the i7 is now a viable CPU solution in the Cube build. I was interested in the 3770T version that sleppek used, but without official support from Intel listed for this motherboard, I chose the higher powered 3770S version instead. Under load, the i7 is definitely hotter, but in normal use is nearly identical to the i3, sitting in the low 30s as I type here.

Shipping to/from Canada is a joke. The excessive cost and timeline of delivery make planning a crucial element in builds such as these. I can get parts shipped to an address just across the border from here in a fraction of the time at a very minimal cost, but the inconvenience of having to wait in the long border lineups these days just doesn't justify the difference. Even though I'm only 6 miles from the border, it still rarely makes sense.

Glad you enjoyed reading this thread. I certainly enjoyed posting it.


Cheers!

Ersterhernd

 

[ersterhernd]

CineBench 11.5 Results -

Obviously not showing the strength of dedicated GPU builds, but somewhat faster than the i3 Cube.



For i7 Cube

For i3 Cube

Ersterhernd

 

[kiwisincebirth]

Aesthetically the project turned out almost exactly as I had hoped for. I paid extra attention in this build to ensure the cuts were clean and there was no rough edges in the final product. As I mentioned a couple of posts up from here, I had to file away one side of the white vent grill on the inside to fit the CPU Cooler, because the two pieces collided when I tried the final assembly back into the shell. From the outside, however, there is no way to detect that this was ever done.

Photos of the Finished i7 Cube

I must congratulate you on the quality of the build. I especially like the clean cutouts of the bottom IO panel, as pictured. I am not in a position to do a cube mod at the moment, but when I do, will aim for something as professional as this.

 

[ersterhernd]

Thx Kiwi, I'm hopeful that the detailed photos of the cutout steps will provide assistance to others, maybe yourself included. I'm also reasonably certain that i7 Cubes will soon become the norm around this forum. Perhaps they already are...


Cheers!

 

[ersterhernd]

Updated to 10.8.3 tonight. I had one issue with the upgrade, the same as I had at the time of the initial 10.8.2 install. I couldn't boot the system other than in Safe Mode. It hung well into the boot process, and never budged past that. After much trial and error, I rolled back the AppleACPIPlatform.kext to an older version dated August 2012. This immediately booted the system into OSX without delay.

The 10.8.3 update required the rollback, too. My first two DQ77KB-i3 Cubes didn't need any such kext mod, maybe this one is related to the i7 processor... who knows.

Ersterhernd

 

[ersterhernd]

Nice! How are the temps? Do you need the top vent?

MacTester

Hi MacTester. I did a trial run with the vent fan disconnected from power. I didn't physically remove it, as the wiring is tucked away with zip ties and would be a lot of work to re-do. This made the top fan a slight barrier to the airflow, not a help.

Temps were not decisively higher or lower in stress tests. I would say to answer your question that the 60mm fan isn't really required with a larger intake fan as is installed in this cube. That said, when running at minimal throttled RPM there is little if any noise penalty, so for the little expense it adds it doesn't hurt either.

Temperatures in Canada are still cool. The house is rarely over 20-22C inside this time of year. It'll likely be a different ballgame when ambient temps heat up in the summer months. I'll retry this exercise then and see if the vent fan adds any benefit.

For now, its staying in and staying turned on throttled to its minimum 1600rpm.


Cheers!

 

[ersterhernd]

Hadn't heard of this one before, but heres the result.

Ersterhernd

 

[MacTester57]

Ersterhernd,

Thanks for the information. In the pic of your last post is visible, that you use the Macmini6,1 definition. I think, it could be better (and probably cooler) to use the 6,2 (i7) definition.

The "weak point" of your cooling solution probably is the gelid cooler. The perfect cooler for an i7 Cube would be a heatpipe-cooler with "L" shape and lots of lamellas, which are sitting in the airstream of the case fan. What do you think?

This is a heatpipe-cooler from an old Pentium 4 Shuttle barebone:


MacTester