MSI Nightblade MI2 GAMING PC

[cadaveca]

I didn't find any need to change the cooling. The CPU fan spins at low RPM most of the time, and will take a quick blast and throw out all the heat when it begins to get a bit toasty. They did design the unit with their GTX970 GAMING and its non-rear-exhausting heatsink in mind, so I wouldn't worry about it too much. The MSI TwinFrozr GPU cooler is practically inaudible on its own, and gets plenty of fresh air thanks to the vents in the side of the case, as would any GPU you use.

Its really hard for me to not give this unit rave reviews! I was quite skeptical about it at first, but once I had it built up and in use, I quickly forgot what I was worried about. True engineering excellence.

 

[Jay Werrett]

Ok i leave it alone, mine came all pre built but think mine the armor gtx 970 as its white not the black and red gaming card

Cant wait for my m.2 256gb so can get it up and running

 

[Jay Werrett]

Well what a con, looks i was sold a mi model with mi2 inner parts as there no mystic front leds just red grills even though it the skylake model of the mi2 in description

Will have contact msi tomorrow find out how box label / sn shows it a mi2 when clearly isnt

 

[cadaveca]

Yeah, that's odd. Might also want to check with the retailer.

 

[Jay Werrett]

Yes I shall do, just looked front box it shows the m1 model but yeah one I got has to be m2 cause of the usb 3.1 oval shaped port on the front side etc, but it shows 2 red grills not the lights so yes very odd

Hopefully find out more when ring up

 

[Jay Werrett]

Well got an update from msi and seems mine dont have front leds but red vents instead...

"Thanks for supporting MSI!
About the question , Nightblade MI2C doesn't install front LED light , only Nightblade MI2 have front LED light"

Im intrested if this method is to help heat from the hard drives vent better being close to the front panel

 

[cadaveca]

Well got an update from msi and seems mine dont have front leds but red vents instead...

"Thanks for supporting MSI!
About the question , Nightblade MI2C doesn't install front LED light , only Nightblade MI2 have front LED light"

Im intrested if this method is to help heat from the hard drives vent better being close to the front panel

well damn, I didn't even know there WAS an MI2C, ROFL.

 

[Jay Werrett]

I know nor me lol, I am currently question them as to where the front intake fan is with these systems as shown on there pictures, which in turn creates this cooling chamber from front to back and would cool even the 3.5" hard drives, the bios reports of cpu fan and system fan, so it was obviously meant to have one

 

[cadaveca]

Maybe. I did think the same when I first got mine. But temperatures are fine. I could see if you had got a couple of the WD Black drives how a fan might be needed (they are noisy and run kind of hot). I'm not sure if there is a header on the board though... pretty sure the pins were not in place on mine (near the bottom front edge of the board by the PSU).

 

[extreemator]

graprhics card is not of rear exaust (because they don't have anything else rather than their custom cooler) Hot air get's traped inside, especially when cpu is not loaded enough and the hot air is not moved out of the system (because cpu cooler is the only exasut cooelr in the system) seems like front cooler is not installewd too. gpu core drops frequency up to 200Mhz in summer, because they also set the treshold of 80C for GPU, what a lamers.

 

[Jay Werrett]

I agree yet MSI are not interested at all in my emails or forum msgs that there no fan on the intake so how can they call it a cooling chamber where nothing intakes fresh cold air from the front

I have even tested it with a temp front fan put in the space for one and the HDD temps on there own I see a 12'C difference!!! When running scan bench marks in loop on the 8TB drive

This is disgusting as when the GPU is at load which I have now tested with a msi 1070 card the temp in the case and effect it has on HDD temp is stupidly high if not to high.

If I stress out the GPU for 10min the CPU fan is at nearly full speed even though CPU sits around 10% load all course the heat inside the case is making the CPU radiator heat up silly high to.

MSI arnt interested in my case about it or about me paying for an aegis case with better cooling etc

Disgusting really as this mi2 really needs a founder edition card to exhaust the heat straight out the back not inside the case causing all other components to suffer excess heat build up

 

[Caring1]

Put your large W.D. Black drives in an external enclosure and install a front fan in the case, problem solved.
Not sure why you thought stuffing a small case full would allow it to remain cool while running.

 

[extreemator]

It's a naive design and burocracy mistake, not small case's

 

[Jay Werrett]

Put your large W.D. Black drives in an external enclosure and install a front fan in the case, problem solved.
Not sure why you thought stuffing a small case full would allow it to remain cool while running.

That's not the point really, I have installed a fan in the front and regardless the case size if you got fans on front and back it will do its job, bit like people saying you need a high power PSU for your latest graphics card when you don't.

The point is that MSI advertise this machine with the intent of a "cooling chamber" when clearly this is not when the fan is missing on the front and they desoldered the "sys fan" header which have meter tested and this still works so no idea why this was done.

The thing CPU fan is then meant to try do the exhaust work with a card in the way and no way for fresh air be blown over it, even without the HDDs in the inside is still very high when gaming.

Wonder how many people don't even know there is no fan when the picture on the website clearly shows a fan, or buy this and wonder why there machine slows or throttles cause of it getting way to hot.

There new cases all seem fix this issue or have moved the PSU external as they know this was getting hot to cause being so close to the GPU without a front intake fan

 

[extreemator]

The front fan shouldn't be intake fan strictly. It will be better of as an exaust fan (though the gaps on the front panel don't seem to let a lot of air through they are small) , the gpu pumps air inside, all it needs is get the air away, no point of putting it through that small cpu radiator.

 

[Jay Werrett]

Thank you extreemator

Will give this a try with swapping the fan around the other way and do some tests today using it as another exhaust for heat inside.

Since fitting the fan in the front as an intake temp is alot better in general so hopefully people with same mi2 /mi2c will look into putting a fan in for reduced temps overall on the components

Or even better complain to msi as to why they advertise a cooling chamber with front fan when they never installed one yet did for some strange reason in the older mi model

 

[RichF]

I don't see any reason to include in-depth data about power use and noise levels when such things aren't dictated by the stock configuration... it's all about what hardware you decide to put in it.

Red herring.

IF thermals were an issue, I'd have reported it.

Also a red herring.

People like to see basic things reported as measured data, like thermals and noise, so they can come to their own conclusions and see evidence to support the reviewers' conclusions.

I’ve read plenty of articles and reviews where the conclusions reviews have are different from the data they present. One recent example is the way a review praised EVGA over its BIOS to raise fan speed and noise levels (almost double the noise according to his measurements). If he hadn’t shown what the data was I would have assumed that there wasn’t a significant issue. For some people a 9 decibel increase is significant.

I also had in my mind "regular" users, who for the most part don't care about system noise.

Another red herring.

Regular normal people don’t read tech sites’ hardware reviews. They play their consoles and beer pong.

I have talked to countless students at school and other "normal" people, and the things that they care about aren't the same as what "enthusiasts" care about.

And yet here you are writing for an enthusiast audience.

Are normal people are going to want to see your detailed audio performance chart? Stereo crosstalk? IMD at 10 kHz? I don’t even know what that means and I’m a super geek. It's not total harmonic distortion so it's something else even more arcane.

I'm not one to mince words too much, but it seems some people think otherwise often. I'm quite blunt, and that doesn't always go over well.

There is a difference between concision and brusqueness. If you're getting negative feedback concerning how you communicate it's likely the latter rather than the former.

Actually, I mentioned that the PSU fan in that case was a problem, both in the review and the conclusion, IIRC. I used a VGA with a blower fan myself, and that system still sits today as it did when I tested it, in use by my youngest daughter. Still kicking it pretty decently, too. Like, that's what's different about me and most other reviewers... I'm not selling the stuff I get ASAP to make money. I actually use it, and for extended periods

Having your daughter use a loud system proves that you're a better reviewer?

For noise, because I do not have a sound level meter handy, I can only report subjectively. A good sound meter costs thousands, and I have been formally trained to use one, but as a hobbyist, it isn't something I can afford.

A good enough sound meter is inexpensive. One is less than $20 and tells us more than a subjective impression. Techpowerup should be able to afford to loan a $20-50 sound meter to its reviewers.

https://www.amazon.com/Mini-Digital...rs-20&linkId=373e010257361ad14093d1c744b78efa

https://www.amazon.com/Extech-40773...rs-20&linkId=90a7cbdafbcd1d45fa9eb02033cce46a

 

[RichF]

I forgot to mention that the reason I read your review was to find out what your noise measurements were since the first review I read complained about a constant high-pitched sound from the PSU.

 

[thebluebumblebee]

A good enough sound meter is inexpensive.

This is TPU. A "good enough" meter is not good enough. If a test is going to be done here, it's going to be done with a level a professionalism and with the right tools. At least that's what I expect. The fan noise tests for the GPU's use a ~$4,000 Bruel & Kjaer 2236 sound-level meter. Check out the equipment that's used to test PSU's.

 

[cadaveca]

I forgot to mention that the reason I read your review was to find out what your noise measurements were since the first review I read complained about a constant high-pitched sound from the PSU.

I did not notice any PSU noise.

As to your other post, I think you mistake a system without XMP support nor voltage controls as being for an "enthusiast". As such, the criteria that enthusiasts use to determine system quality cannot be applied. No real enthusiast should consider a system that only runs stock. The Nightblade MI2 takes high-end hardware support, and stuffs it into a tiny package, and as such, at high loads, can generate a fair bit of fan noise, but given what seems to be the target audience, this is not an issue. My Playstation3 is louder.