Blackmagic Forum

So we are getting Imac Pro setup.
Question: What to use for 4k playback?
Do I really have to spend $1k on a big overkill Decklink box?

George Deierling wrote:So we are getting Imac Pro setup.
Question: What to use for 4k playback?
Do I really have to spend $1k on a big overkill Decklink box?

Yep, that's one of the many consequences of going Apple.

George Deierling wrote:So we are getting Imac Pro setup.
Question: What to use for 4k playback?
Do I really have to spend $1k on a big overkill Decklink box?

Nah, not realy. Cheapest route would be a owc thunderbay helios 3 , now on sale for only 200usd at owc and add any of the entry level cheap decklink 4k card you want. (Like mini monitor 4k)
These thunderbays are great. I run a 10gb card on my mac that way so multi purpose.

Which BM Card to use for the second monitor output?

Depends on your needs. BM is offering a whole range: https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/decklink

Newish Resolve user here, I've read most of this thread. My background is in film vfx (Nuke) but I have reason to do more ingest and color work in Resolve these days.

So if I want to monitor DCI 2k or DCI 4k in 12 bit RGB and I buy an $895 Decklink card, am I limited to monitoring in Rec709 gamut? I have a Dreamcolor that supports P3 and through the DisplayPort I can monitor in P3. In Resolve if for example I was working in ACES I would be likely to use one of the P3 ODT's. I wouldn't want P3 primaries to be inelegantly clipped to 709 by the Decklink just so I can monitor on a second screen. That would be super weird for high end grading software.

It should also be noted that the Dreamcolor stores my X-Rite hardware calibration directly so I'm bypassing any OS calibration anyway.

Michael Garrett wrote:Newish Resolve user here, I've read most of this thread. My background is in film vfx (Nuke) but I have reason to do more ingest and color work in Resolve these days.

So if I want to monitor DCI 2k or DCI 4k in 12 bit RGB and I buy an $895 Decklink card, am I limited to monitoring in Rec709 gamut? I have a Dreamcolor that supports P3 and through the DisplayPort I can monitor in P3. In Resolve if for example I was working in ACES I would be likely to use one of the P3 ODT's. I wouldn't want P3 primaries to be inelegantly clipped to 709 by the Decklink just so I can monitor on a second screen. That would be super weird for high end grading software.

It should also be noted that the Dreamcolor stores my X-Rite hardware calibration directly so I'm bypassing any OS calibration anyway.

No.
You can use the DeckLink or Ultrastudio range to output the color gamma and gamut u select.

There is something interesting here.
If you monitor over 422 then Resolve RGB data has to be converted to YUV and this has to go through some matrix and in most cases it's Rec.709 (it's not gamut just color matrix). On your monitor it has to go through reverse Rec.709 matrix and you get your starting RGB data (well 422 version of it).
Question is: does those 2 conversions are lossless enough in case modern, wide gamut, HDR etc signals?
I would rather expect that anything above Rec.709 should go through Rec.2020 matrix, but not many BM cards can do this. Also does Resolve actually use Rec.2020 (when converting data to pass to SDI card) in case projects outside Rec.709?
Good monitors or even TV can be specifically set to Rec.2020. What is happening in Resolve then? This is specially important for cases when someone wants to monitor UHD project with wide gamut, but uses just HD preview.

If you use 444 monitoring then whole "problem" is gone as data doesn't need any conversions on the chain. Problem is that 90% monitoring is done over YUV.

I was just about to cancel my subscription to Adobe CC.
Searched everywhere for a fullscreen preview on another monitor and than this punch in the gut ... Got so used to it from Premiere. Bought a 4k TV that hangs above my 2 regular monitors just so people could see what I'm working on while sitting behind me.

I'll see if I can live with it or if a DeckLink Mini Monitor 4K will be a necesity in the future.

I think I'll stop my subscription anyway just to force myself into it

Jernej Rozenberger wrote:I'll see if I can live with it or if a DeckLink Mini Monitor 4K will be a necesity in the future.

$150 for a Mini Monitor sounds cheaper than $600 a year for Adobe CC. That's assuming I do my math correctly.

Not trying to bring this thread back from the dead, but also remember you not only need a free TB3 port, you also want that port to sit on a dedicated controller and not have its bandwidth shared with another port on the same controller. So no eGPU, external screens, docks etc for laptop users. For me this is the real price to pay. Also 4k 30fps is max.

Marc Wielage wrote:

Jernej Rozenberger wrote:I'll see if I can live with it or if a DeckLink Mini Monitor 4K will be a necesity in the future.

$150 for a Mini Monitor sounds cheaper than $600 a year for Adobe CC. That's assuming I do my math correctly.

Yearly cost of Premiere is 240$ not 600$.
150$ is not a high cost for accurate monitoring either, assuming you are fine with UHD 30p max and possible compatibility issues with Decklink HDMI output.

Are you sure you need an iMac Pro setup? I got pretty good results with my non-Pro and an eGPU.

@ Peter Jackson: the iMac Pro has two independent TB3 ports.

The Pro is the machine you want if you need heavy CPU processing, like for R3D footage. But I doubt it makes much sense. Even as a die-hard Mac fan, I'd go for a Hackintosh or a PC in that case.

IMHO, the sweet spot at Apple right now is the iMac with the Radeon 580 and an eGPU.

Well it looks like BM have drawn a line in the sand and they will not cross it. Resolve 16 is showing no apparent support for a fullscreen viewer on a second display.

This is a big mistake in my book but I'm sure others here will be rejoicing.

I think that was made clear by Peter in another post. I can live with it considering the incredible development of the program. In the future I hope to see some more flexibility in rearranging windows especially in dual screen mode.

Marc Salvatore wrote:I think that was made clear by Peter in another post.

That post (which closed this thread) has since been deleted, and the thread reopened. BMD is definitely listening. There was a similar radio silence on the wish for a standalone Fusion update, which has now been fulfilled in Fusion 16.

I think what's happening is two things; Resolve 16 focuses on other features, and BMD does not usually give away more than one big thing per update. Resolve 14 was Fairlight, Resolve 15 was Fusion, and it seems in this version it's the Cut tab. It's likely that a future version will unify the interface more between the tabs, and allow things like free floating viewers and scopes across all tabs, but if they do that, it will receive proper attention as a feature. I've been around since Resolve 9 now, and with each NAB our patience is rewarded.

I got tired of this thread (I originally posted) and hadn't seen Peter's deleted post. Curious to know what he said.

Frankly I find it difficult to understand the reason behind 'blocking' a floating viewer (or the like) when traditional television is dying (within five years IMO) and everything will be viewed via the internet/mobile (online - even your tv). The traditional broadcast technical specs are kind of irrelevant in this context. Basically if it looks good on a profiled display (i1Pro, etc.) then it's good.

carsonjones wrote:This is a big mistake in my book but I'm sure others here will be rejoicing.

Agreed!

To add just a few cents of mine. What many people and BMD should realize is that Davinci Resolve is no longer just a color grading software. Beginning with version 12 Resolve started to become a video NLE amd now ended up to be full featured video editing and post production suite. And the aggressive need for a full screen preview is asked not for Color page, but for editing page, be it now a cut page. If BMD wants it that way, they can have it disabled for color page, but not for their video NLE page. People working on colors will do it the Resolve "right" way because it's their job. There are many video editors who just cut, and to force them to output via decklink cards is not nice, especially when coloring will be done by someone else. If BMD jumped into video editing and vfx sections and claim to be the best, the lack of full screen output to a second monitor is a huge bug or bad user interface design. Simple as that. And that actually prevents me personally from investing in studio version, cause I still get a crippled NLE. Although the program itself is fantastic and so tempting to go for a studio version. But I need that second monitor full screen preview when cutting footage. And being locked to special outputting stuff just ruins the flexibility for extremely wonderful peace of software.

I think the decision is purely a dollar-related one. BMD wants to earn some coin from selling the hardware which enables full-screen on a separate monitor.

Given that they're adding YouTube and Vimeo upload options within DR16, it's clear that they are happy to make concessions to the lower end of the market, so long as it doesn't impinge on existing revenue streams.

16 has a full screen viewer now, problem of course is it covers up everything and can't be moved.

That said, the decklink card is cheap. I just wish the card would send the off command to my monitor when no application is using it. Price for DR which is either free or $299 plus a basic decklink card is still less than anything else decent.

My monitor's aren't perfect, but I am not into that caliber of production. I'll test the stuff on my Sony and Toshiba consumer sets and run with it if it looks ok. If you are grading for high paying clients, then you have the money for high end gear.

I've gotten used to it this way, DR is on two monitors, other OS apps on a third monitor, and finally my decklink monitor.

RCModelReviews wrote:I think the decision is purely a dollar-related one. BMD wants to earn some coin from selling the hardware which enables full-screen on a separate monitor.

I highly doubt that, because it would be far more profitable, to just make it a paid extra for Resolve studio. It would basically be a one time development cost and everything after that is pure profit!

If I had to guess (I'm a developer), it's probably more about dealing with a spaghetti mess of old legacy code. A lot of company will put off refactoring/replacing old legacy code until they absolutely have to.

wireless112 wrote:That said, the decklink card is cheap. I just wish the card would send the off command to my monitor when no application is using it.

Things like that are my main gripe with Decklink output. Wasting a PCI-e slot on an output already present on my GPU, SDI/HDMI only and no DisplayPort, HDMI in YCbCr mode instead of RGB mode, random glitches that require a reseat of the Decklink card, it's just all so clunky for no real gain. I'll be happy to pay $195 for a fullscreen GPU output licence so I can ditch the hardware.

Gary Hango wrote:Only need one simple option. “Select target display for shift/cnt/alt-F function”.

Exactly!!!!

Andrew Kolakowski wrote:Yearly cost of Premiere is 240$ not 600$.
150$ is not a high cost for accurate monitoring either, assuming you are fine with UHD 30p max and possible compatibility issues with Decklink HDMI output.

Funny, I'm paying $600 a year, as is every other Adobe user I know:



And I know exactly zero people in LA who use only Premiere and don't touch any other program. They push you pretty strongly into getting everything for $600 vs. just getting one program for $250. Why, it's as if it's a racket...

We are talking about Premiere which is 240$.
I don't need other apps and pay 240 not 600. If someone wants to pay 600 and use AE once a year their choice. I rather rent it per month then.
That's absolutely normal practice which every company uses- boundless are always way cheaper.

New Resolve has nice features for me, but lack of ProRes export is a big problem. Very disappointed by this fact.
If Adobe has it and Edius 9.4 will then Resolve needs it as well, specially when BM does work with Apple a lot. It's now biggest missing feature in exporter.

Micha Clazing wrote:Things like that are my main gripe with Decklink output. Wasting a PCI-e slot on an output already present on my GPU, SDI/HDMI only and no DisplayPort, HDMI in YCbCr mode instead of RGB mode, random glitches that require a reseat of the Decklink card, it's just all so clunky for no real gain. I'll be happy to pay $195 for a fullscreen GPU output licence so I can ditch the hardware.

Yup I totally agree here. My workstation is set up as generalist machine for retouching, CGI, video editing, etc. While I will be updating within the next year it is still very much a capable workstation.

Specs are as follows...

i7 5960x 8 core (4.4 Ghz)
3x EVGA GTX 1080's (10bit colour)
64 GB memory
SSD's for storage

Given that BM have a larger customer base who no longer necessarily care about broadcast specs (Youtube, Facebook, Instagram, etc.) why not allow customers to do what they've been able to do in the Adobe suite for years??

I don't know... can't help but shake my head and question their steadfastness. It doesn't reflect what's happening with a good segment of their customer base. Being able to set which display Ctrl + P pops up would do it. Simple and yet it's dead in the water.

As long as it's Studio only, I'd be fine with this.

carsonjones wrote:...I don't know... can't help but shake my head and question their steadfastness. It doesn't reflect what's happening with a good segment of their customer base. Being able to set which display Ctrl + P pops up would do it. Simple and yet it's dead in the water.

Which is why we edit in Lightworks and finish in Resolve. Lightworks has always had the ability to hit F12 for a Full Screen Display on a second monitor and yes, you are able to pre-select which monitor you want for that full screen display and this is good because we have four monitors connected. Lightworks has always had smooth class leading analogue Jog/Shuttle too from even the cheapest of aftermarket USB Devices BUT, we also have a 12G Decklink SDI 4K Pro installed and yes, it needs a dedicated PCI slot and yes, it needs eight dedicated CPU lanes BUT have any of you ever compared the picture result from your GPU HDMI output to a 12G Decklink SDI output?

We have and the difference on a big, properly calibrated 10bit display is noticeable. In our Resolve studio, we're able to switch between HDMI inputs on our REC.709 calibrated 55" 4K Client TV:

#1) is 10bit GPU direct output
#2) is the 12G Decklink SDI output converted to HDMI with a 12G BMD SDI converter right at the TV where we see 10bit 4:4:4 at upto 30P on the 55" display and 10bit 4:2:2 at up to 60P.

IMO, a Decklink device still remains the true purchase price of Resolve.

I have 1 situation where a card is quite impractical. I just ran out of PCI places in my full tower PC Desktop. So should I throw out one of my titan cards, or maybe the raid card, or the thunderbolt cards etc? Ideally I would actually like to keep them. And I do not mind paying extra for the feature if it needs a licence.

Andreas

AndreasOberg wrote:I have 1 situation where a card is quite impractical. I just ran out of PCI places in my full tower PC Desktop. So should I throw out one of my titan cards, or maybe the raid card, or the thunderbolt cards etc? Ideally I would actually like to keep them. And I do not mind paying extra for the feature if it needs a licence.

Andreas

You have a thunderbolt minimonitor version. Used that for 3 years on a hack/mac that had o slots left.
Costs less then a night out in the pub.

Marc Wielage wrote:

Jernej Rozenberger wrote:I'll see if I can live with it or if a DeckLink Mini Monitor 4K will be a necesity in the future.

$150 for a Mini Monitor sounds cheaper than $600 a year for Adobe CC. That's assuming I do my math correctly.

Yeah, Mark - $150 really isn't that much. I've been following this thread with sort of amusement, as - at the time over 2 years ago, when I was starting my Resolve affair - I also went through all those efforts to force Resolve use the secondary Windows monitor as a proper 10 bit reference viewer, connected to my (then Quadro) nVidia card. And like most of us, I quickly understood a BMD video output card is a must - especially when I started my early HDR experiments (which became a routine workflow by now) - period.

But my "amusement" abruptly stopped today when - after I launched Resolve this morning - I saw my $1,000 Decklink 4K Extreme 12G with HDMI went bad The issue is that - at random time and places all over the screen - thin (1-pixel wide) vertical rows of varying length appear. They consist of white-illuminated pixels; since those white pixels go on and off, they look like sparks – but not isolated ones, only forming the above-described “vertical rows”. Arghh....

I had to go with (then) the highest Decklink model because I do a lot in UHD/4K @50p, so the $150 Mini Monitor wasn't up to the job (25/30p max). Frankly, my Decklink card is still THE single, most expensive component of my workstation (even though I build a new one in the meantime, with high-end components as per my signature). Now - as I cannot use one of my Titan Xp GPUs to drive full-screen preview - I'm out of business with Resolve until BMD hopefully acknowledges and RMA-replaces my Decklink on Warranty (otherwise I couldn't afford a new one atm )...

Piotr

Piotr Wozniacki wrote:I had to go with (then) the highest Decklink model because I do a lot in UHD/4K @50p, so the $150 Mini Monitor wasn't up to the job (25/30p max). Frankly, my Decklink card is still THE single, most expensive component of my workstation (even though I build a new one in the meantime, with high-end components as per my signature). Now - as I cannot use one of my Titan Xp GPUs to drive full-screen preview - I'm out of business with Resolve until BMD hopefully acknowledges and RMA-replaces my Decklink on Warranty (otherwise I couldn't afford a new one atm

The only workaround I can suggest for you is to just use the Mini Monitor temporarily and monitor completely in 25fps. You can always work in one resolution and frame rate and then monitor in a different resolution & frame rate.

We have both a 4K UltraStudio and a 4K UltraStudio Extreme (future expansion), but I always have a Mini Monitor sitting in a drawer just on the (very remote) possibility that something fails. Heck, I held on to the Mini Panel just in case the Advanced Panels fail. Backups are good to have.

BMD's business model is whatever they decide it's going to be. If you know the long history of the company, you know it all started with affordable video cards, so it goes to reason that the software supports BMD hardware and compels the user to buy it if you need a feature like a full time Viewer. I'm not defending it -- it's not my company -- but I understand the need to do it from a color management point of view. Anybody who only wants to edit is always free to edit on one of the dozen-or-so editing programs out there that doesn't require a proprietary video card. (Funny enough, I was just telling a sound pal of mine about the days of Pro Tools where you had the choice of two -- and only two -- expensive video cards to a 2-display Pro Tools system. And that was maddening.)

Marc Wielage wrote:The only workaround I can suggest for you is to just use the Mini Monitor temporarily and monitor completely in 25fps. You can always work in one resolution and frame rate and then monitor in a different resolution & frame rate.

Yes, I will consider this if BMD refuses free repair/replacement of my 12G Extreme. But it's already a second hardware failure of my Decklink card (the first time it was replaced without problems), in just 2.5 years of my working with Resolve. Not very encouraging...

Piotr

PS. Mark - could you please suggest a Resolve project settings for 50p input (my media) and output (my product), monitored at 25p? My Decklink is now out of the PC, so I cannot test myself. Thanks!

Piotr Wozniacki wrote:

Marc Wielage wrote:The only workaround I can suggest for you is to just use the Mini Monitor temporarily and monitor completely in 25fps. You can always work in one resolution and frame rate and then monitor in a different resolution & frame rate.

Yes, I will consider this if BMD refuses free repair/replacement of my 12G Extreme. But it's already a second hardware failure of my Decklink card (the first time it was replaced without problems), in just 2.5 years of my working with Resolve. Not very encouraging...

Piotr

PS. Mark - could you please suggest a Resolve project settings for 50p input (my media) and output (my product), monitored at 25p? My Decklink is now out of the PC, so I cannot test myself. Thanks!

If all else fails Poitr, see if you can pick up the recently superseded 12G Decklink SDI 4K Pro. Sure it's SDI In/Out but ours has performed faultlessly, all day for several years. They were always a very low cost 12G solution and the fact this card offered on-board 4K > HD down-scaling from SDI #2, allowed us to retain our calibrated HD Grading monitor whilst running a 4K SDI link to our big 4K client TV.

Craig Marshall wrote:If all else fails Poitr, see if you can pick up the recently superseded 12G Decklink SDI 4K Pro. Sure it's SDI In/Out but ours has performed faultlessly, all day for several years. They were always a very low cost 12G solution and the fact this card offered on-board 4K > HD down-scaling from SDI #2, allowed us to retain our calibrated HD Grading monitor whilst running a 4K SDI link to our big 4K client TV.

Craig, do you mean this DeckLink 8K Pro for $645? I don't think I need 8K, and cannot find any other model with "Pro" in its name here https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/produc ... ink/models ....

Thanks,

Piotr

No, that's the current high end one which superseded the Decklink SDI 4K Pro. Many BMD Dealers might still have it in stock. (FSI still have them listed at $595)

Piotr Wozniacki wrote:

Marc Wielage wrote:The only workaround I can suggest for you is to just use the Mini Monitor temporarily and monitor completely in 25fps. You can always work in one resolution and frame rate and then monitor in a different resolution & frame rate.

Yes, I will consider this if BMD refuses free repair/replacement of my 12G Extreme. But it's already a second hardware failure of my Decklink card (the first time it was replaced without problems), in just 2.5 years of my working with Resolve. Not very encouraging...

Piotr

PS. Mark - could you please suggest a Resolve project settings for 50p input (my media) and output (my product), monitored at 25p? My Decklink is now out of the PC, so I cannot test myself. Thanks!

There use to be a joke in Soho that when you buy BM hardware you always buy 2 straight away
Maybe problem is with your machine been to hot inside.

You keep project at 50p and set monitoring format to 25p.

Andrew Kolakowski wrote:There use to be a joke in Soho that when you buy BM hardware you always buy 2 straight away
Maybe problem is with your machine been to hot inside.

You keep project at 50p and set monitoring format to 25p.

Yeah - 2 hardware failures in 2 years, very poor QC Plus, I've a bad luck lately, definitely. As to the temperature - who knows, maybe. But this computer I've been using for like 5 months only! But yes; the card itself was extremely hot when I was removing it today morning...

Piotr

PS. Andrew - could you please help me put together all shortcomings of using the Mini Monitor the way you indicated (25p monitoring of 50p projects)? As I said - cannot experiment now... Would like to weigh all pros and cons if BMD's answer will be anything less than another replacement. And there must be some disadvantages of the scenario we're considering - otherwise, who would be buying the full blown 4K Extreme 12G (apart from the functionalities I never use, anyway)?

Not saying its the case with you but bad cooling = early component failure. So may be a factor if multiple failures.
Same with any GPU, which all tend to get hot/throttle/go dead early when not properly cooled so also with BM gpu cards. And you already have 2 titans generating heat there so check it.

Piotr Wozniacki wrote:

Andrew Kolakowski wrote:
PS. Andrew - could you please help me put together all shortcomings of using the Mini Monitor the way you indicated (25p monitoring of 50p projects)? As I said - cannot experiment now... Would like to weigh all pros and cons if BMD's answer will be anything less than another replacement. And there must be some disadvantages of the scenario we're considering - otherwise, who would be buying the full blown 4K Extreme 12G (apart from the functionalities I never use, anyway)?

Because you have too much money ?
You either accept 25p preview out of 50p project or not. Rest for the sake of pure monitoring is the same.
Extreme has a scaler, so this is always going to make card cost higher. It also has analog circuits, etc.

I would even consider removing original fan and adding some good custom one. BM's power supplies, radiators, fans etc. are very low quality.

Thanks, Andrew - I guess I will put the card back into my machine for 10 minutes, just to try how it feels monitoring a 50p stuff at 25p, never tried it before.

Piotr

Should be fine- sometimes may feel bit jerky.

Yep - cadence is poor. Didn't take me long though, did it? Plus I know what the problem is: the fan is dying. Do you happen to know how to replace it (since you mentioned it)?

Piotr

You could McGuyver a small noctua on it , which is tipicaly done with Raid cards like in below (not mine) example , or 10G ether or any other card with these ******* and loud little crappy fans like your BM card



I have no fans at all on my raid and 10G cards (as small useless fans actualy block airflow) but massive large controlled cooling fans in the side panel blowing high pressure air on top. Servers are in separate room so sound is not my problem.
Have also a small temperature probe connected to the raid card that drives one of the fans as is the most critical.

sacherjj wrote:The only way to correctly color footage is to get it out of the OS path. So a Intensity Card will drive a monitor full display from Resolve. I use both inputs of the monitor and make it an extended GUI monitor when not using it for output preview.

That's not true.

1) Especially in full screen mode, the video card can send image data directly to the display. "Direct driver mode" is available for AMD and Nvidia GPUs and is how things like HMDs work without showing up as monitors.

2) The Intensity card is not special. It isn't somehow operating outside of the OS.

BMD may choose to force users to buy hardware, but that's a business decision, not a technical limitation of some "OS path".

If you have the PCIe slots, and you're working on a standard program format, yes, the Decklink makes a ton of sense.

But if you're doing work on non-standard formats, either in resolution, framerate, or protocol, or you have a lack of slots/lanes, it's won't work.

Piotr Wozniacki wrote:Yep - cadence is poor. Didn't take me long though, did it? Plus I know what the problem is: the fan is dying. Do you happen to know how to replace it (since you mentioned it)?

Piotr

You loose warranty when you replace fan, but you already out of warranty if I'm correct.

There is no standard way. You need to mcguyver it Noctua has 40x40x10, so maybe it will fit. If not look for some other one, but don't buy cheap one.

Glenn Venghaus wrote:You could McGuyver a small noctua on it , which is tipicaly done with Raid cards like in below (not mine) example , or 10G ether or any other card with these ******* and loud little crappy fans like your BM card



I have no fans at all on my raid and 10G cards (as small useless fans actualy block airflow) but massive large controlled cooling fans in the side panel blowing high pressure air on top. Servers are in separate room so sound is not my problem.
Have also a small temperature probe connected to the raid card that drives one of the fans as is the most critical.

Hi Glenn,

Just one question as it cannot be seen in the picture: is the Noctua fan (which is larger) attached directly to the black heatsink, or does is somehow replace the factory fan (can't see enough room for it in the heatsink)?

Thanks,

Piotr

You can do whatever works and doesn't melt under heat.
I had small GPU fan running on super glue for years
Actually I still have this PC which is now 15 yers old

You can buy 30mm (is this inside Extreme card?) and cut it out and mount replacing original one. Or buy bigger one and mount on top of radiator/original round whole for fan.

This look s decent:

https://uk.farnell.com/sunon/mc30101v2- ... dp/1924851

Piotr Wozniacki wrote:Hi Glenn,

Just one question as it cannot be seen in the picture: is the Noctua fan (which is larger) attached directly to the black heatsink, or does is somehow replace the factory fan (can't see enough room for it in the heatsink)?

Thanks,

Piotr

You typicaly remove the original fan. The Noctua is bigger obviously but you mount that on top of the heatsink. Typicaly you take 2 screws that fin in the holes and you screw them in between 2 ribs of the fans.
Sometime depening they dont exactly line up with the ribs , but then you slighly turn the fan as seen below in another more extreme example. Dont go for the optics, its the cooling that counts .


or like this

I would not use glue as hard to remove if you need to replace the fan. But it can work as well obvisouly. Anything goes when you are McGuyvering