On 9/5/2020 at 5:06 PM, w6kd said:

The NH-D15S version comes with a single fan and uses an offset heat sink to avoid crowding out the taller memory DIMMs, which is a good idea these days, as most performance memory comes with taller heat sinks on the DIMMs.  You may well find that the second fan is needed. 

 

To add, the second fan, for which the clips are provided, will only reduce temp by a mere 2 degrees. The velocity of the air through the heat sink remains the same, its just static pressure that increases slightly. 

49 minutes ago, Ixoye said:

Make sure the Z-490 motherboard you are planning to buy is PCIe 4.0 compatible, my MSI Carbone Wifi is and I can recommend it, I also use Corsair Vengeance LPX 3200 MHz memory and MSFS runs smooth as butter for me.

 

PCIe 4.0 is not essential.

No need to make sure the board is PCIe 4.0. The difference in performance currently is minuscule and it will be quite a few years before PCIe 4.0 is made more use of. We will have upgraded our systems by then. 

On 9/5/2020 at 5:06 PM, w6kd said:

 and uses an offset heat sink to avoid crowding out the taller memory DIMMs, which is a good idea these days, as most performance memory comes with taller heat sinks on the DIMMs.  

 

No. The off-set heat sink is desighned to take the heat sink further away from the uppermost PCIe slot. To provide further space from the graphics card.

Its the gaps cut in the heat sink that provide RAM clearence.

2 hours ago, martin-w said:

No. The off-set heat sink is desighned to take the heat sink further away from the uppermost PCIe slot. To provide further space from the graphics card.

Its the gaps cut in the heat sink that provide RAM clearence.

Yeah, OK, I see that cutaway on closer examination.  But the primary advantage of the S-suffix cooler on a full-sized ATX mobo is still that it clears the higher DIMM modules.  The dual-fan D15 (non-S) has no issues with crowding the #1 PCIe slot on my ATX Maximus Hero XI...there's a good 17mm of clearance from the sides of the cooling fin stack to the GPU, even with a backplate installed on it.  I think the PCIe crowding issue is more a factor on the mini-sized uATX boards.

9 hours ago, martin-w said:

PCIe 4.0 is not essential.

No need to make sure the board is PCIe 4.0. The difference in performance currently is minuscule and it will be quite a few years before PCIe 4.0 is made more use of. We will have upgraded our systems by then. 

Agreed.  Not only is it unnecessary, it's superfluous until PCIe components start to overrun the available PCIe 3.0 bandwidth, which still looks a good ways off.

17 hours ago, w6kd said:

Yeah, OK, I see that cutaway on closer examination.  But the primary advantage of the S-suffix cooler on a full-sized ATX mobo is still that it clears the higher DIMM modules. 

 

Its the high RAM compatibility version yes, but only due to the single fan. The cut outs in the heat sink plus the single fan provide clearance for RAM up to 65 mm tall. 

But as I say, the function of the asymmetrical design is to clear the top PCIe slot. D15/14 is very close to the graphics card otherwise.

The basic D15 in single fan mode is compatible with RAM up to 64 mm in height. So barely any difference. 32 mm with two fans. 

 

On 9/7/2020 at 6:49 PM, w6kd said:

Agreed.  Not only is it unnecessary, it's superfluous until PCIe components start to overrun the available PCIe 3.0 bandwidth, which still looks a good ways off.

That's also my understanding Bob.Which is just as well, 'cos I'm sat here looking at all my components that arrived today, which includes a 2Tb SATA SSD  I also followed your advice and went for the more expensive Ballistix 32Gb 3600Mhz, C16 RAM.

Edited September 9, 20205 yr by Rockliffe

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