Phanteks Evolv Shift XT Noctua Mods V2.0

Last crawled date: 1 year, 4 months ago

Updated model to V2.0. IMPORTANT - See Special Notes Below Regarding The Build

Thermal management is a well known issue for SFF builds. To mitigate the possibility of thermal throttling I opted for a custom EK water cooled loop. The problem was that this case layout is badly optimized for airflow and only supports 120mm fans on top the 240mm radiator.

Theory Behind The Problem: The restrictive ventilation is unable to vent hot air reasonable time. Stagnant or slow moving air in the top of the case transfers most heat to AL case panels which act as heatsinks, thus causing a thermal feedback loop. This happens because AL panel has insufficient area to allow for passive heat convection to work effectively.

Design Overview: The modification involves adding a rear exhaust area and a fan cowling to support high static pressure Noctua NF-14 fans with a 25x240mm radiator. All parts are optimized for 3D printing and require no modification to the case.

The Secret Sauce: To mitigate the heatsink effect caused by AL panels and stagnant air pockets, foam seals are added between the fan cowling and AL panel housing. High static pressure fans force air to be exhausted to the top and rear areas. Water is more effective at conducting heat than air, thus fan speeds need to be tuned in conjunction to the pump curves. A 30x240mm radiator should easily support heat loads above 1000W (RTX 4090 + AMD EPYC) if properly tuned.

Results: The system can maintain around 50-60deg stable temperature under full synthetic load with a R9-7900X and RTX 4080 FE which generate about 700W of heat output. GREAT SUCCESS!

Clearances are added to allow for installation of a 30x240mm radiator for those seeking a few extra watts of dissipation capacity.

Perhaps I will do some empirical validation of test pump curves etc. in the future - lets see!

Special Note:
The layout requires custom brackets and a new PCI extension cable to ensure GPU clearances - these components will be added soon.

Shout out to creators for their inspirations and reference models used in this build:
- Build Reference: GGF Events - https://youtu.be/Aoc1pBWdrRo
- RTX4090 Model: https://grabcad.com/library/nvidia-rtx-4090-fe-stp-1
- Motherboard: https://grabcad.com/library/asus-rog-strix-x570-i-mini-itx-gaming-mainbord-1
- SFX PSU: Uhttps://grabcad.com/library/gene

Update Log
2023.01.07: Updated the case design, added component layout and plumbing components.