MonsterLabo The Beast - Quiet PC Edition

Building on the success of ‘The First’, MonsterLabo have designed and manufactured the ultimate fanless chassis. Say hello to the aptly named ‘The Beast’.

The Beast is the culmination of a long process of reflection carried out at MonsterLabo over the past 2 years. Deeply rooted in MonsterLabo DNA, The Beast meets their #1 commitment: build PC cases that can accommodate a high performance components, be smart and totally fanless.

As with The First, The Beast has also been designed around its cooling solution. But MonsterLabo went to the next level: the case itself becomes a part of the solution, the front and back panels directly connect to the heatsinks, meaning the heat is spread over its 6 mm aluminium panels.

MonsterLabo’s ultimate goal is just to offer the best fanless and most sustainable PC case ever.

THE HEART

At the heart of the The Beast are two massive heatsinks, one for the CPU, while the other is for a graphics card. In fanless mode each heatsink can dissipate 150W and 250W respectively. The Beast also accommodates active cooling allowing for four very quiet 140mm fans to be attached. Each heatsink utilises two fans in a push-pull configuration with the warm air being expelled through the top of the chassis. This increases the TDP to 250W (CPU) and 320W (GPU). While adding fans to the system will generate some noise, Monsterlabo highly recommend the Noctua NF-A14 PWM fans and their tests state that these fans can achieve the active TDP figures when they are running at just 500RPM, meaning any additional noise will not be perceivable.

STORAGE OPTIONS

On the floor of The Beast is a mounting bracket that has four plates that vertically mount the storage drives. Each plate can accommodate either one 3.5” drive or two 2.5” drives. This allows for a maximum of four 3.5” or eight 2.5” drives to be installed or a mixture of both. Our recommendation is to install only 2.5” SSD drives as they are very fast and make zero noise.

COMPATIBILITY

CPU

It is worth mentioning before we delve into suitable CPUs and motherboards for The Beast that most processors from Intel and AMD feature turbo modes. You may come across a CPU that states it has a TDP of “95W” or even “105W”. Generally the stated TDP is for the processors base speed. For example, the AMD Ryzen 7 5800X has a rated TDP of 105W and its base speed is 3.8GHz, but turbo mode can push the processor up to 4.7GHz. This means when the processors is running faster than its base speed of 3.8GHz it is consuming more than 105W. It is not uncommon to find a CPU with a TDP rating of around 100W output heat in excess of 150W when turbo mode is activated.

That all being said, it is worth mentioning that turbo mode is only ever really used when a certain criteria is met. Firstly, turbo mode is only used when doing extensive CPU workloads and generally this is only for a short periods of time. Secondly, there has to be adequate cooling for the processor to exceed the base speed. If the temperature of the CPU is high (let’s say above 80C) then turbo mode will not hit its maximum stated turbo speed, it will perform as fast as it is comfortable doing so, while maintaining an acceptable temperature.

As already mentioned the CPU heatsink in fanless mode can accommodate CPUs with a TDP of 150W. This means the vast array of desktop processors from Intel and AMD will be able to be cooled without the need of any fans. Therefore the following Intel and AMD processors would be ideal, although the previous information regarding turbo modes needs to be considered especially if the TDP of the CPU exceeds 95W at base speeds.

The Beast is also compatible with Intel Core-X LGA2066 and AMD Threadripper TR4 CPUs. These are Intel’s and AMD’s high performance processors for serious enthusiasts. The TDP of the Intel CPUs are 165W, while the AMD Threadripper is a mouthwatering 280W! We therefore highly recommend installing the required fans if opting for one of these monsters. Please note that with the AMD Threadripper being 280W, the fans will need to run at 1500RPM to maintain cooling performance.

Motherboard

MonsterLabo have not come across any issues from a compatibility point of view with any motherboard at this time. They have provided a list of all ATX, micro-ATX and mini-ITX motherboards known to be compatible with the Beast.

GPU

On the same page as the compatible motherboard list, is an extensive list of compatible graphics cards. There are a couple of things to consider when choosing a suitable graphics card. First and foremost is that the graphics card’s PCB cannot exceed 290mm in length. It is possible that a graphics card will be larger than 290mm with the manufacturer’s cooling solution installed, but when this has been removed the PCB of the actual card may well be less than 290mm. We highly recommend choosing a suitable card from the compatibility list from MonsterLabo’s website. Also shown on the compatibility list a whether or not each graphics card requires VRM cooling. This is extremely important because overheating of the graphics card’s VRMs will produce instability when in use.

Another thing to consider is the TDP of the graphics card. In fanless mode the TDP should not exceed 250W, in active mode this is increased to 320W. This provides a large range of potential graphics cards to choose from.

PLEASE NOTE: It is impossible for MonsterLabo and therefore Quiet PC to have solutions for all graphics cards. You may find that even though your graphics card is stated as compatible with the Beast, that a spreader is not available. For example, graphics cards like the RTX 2080 Ti are shown as requiring Spreader 001 but unfortunately these are not available. If you need help identifying the correct solution for your intended graphics card please contact us and we will help confirm this and let you know if we have a solution on hand or if it would need to be supplied from MonsterLabo. For a list of brackets we currently have available at Quiet PC, see the ‘VERY IMPORTANT’ information below.

PSU

The Beast is compatible with standard ATX and SFX power supplies. With this being a system based around noise output we highly recommend opting for a fanless power supply. At present the highest wattage power supply we stock is the SilverStone NightJar 700W. To see a full list of our totally fanless PSUs please click here.

Obviously you need to choose a PSU that is able to power your system. If you opt for a AMD Threadripper CPU and an RTX 3080 graphics card then a 700W power supply will not be enough. Therefore you may have to opt for a fanned power supply. If this is the case then we recommend choosing a semi-fanless PSU. The semi-fanless PSUs have a internal temperature gauge, meaning the fan will only rotate at a specific temperature. Therefore, in idle and low power usage modes the PSU will remain fanless. Here is a full list of semi-fanless PSUs we currently offer.

WHAT’S IN THE BOX?

The Beast contains the following by default;

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• The Beast chassis
• 1x PCIe 4.0 riser card
• Mounting screws for the CPU, GPU, chassis fans and general assembly
• Extensions cables; 1x LAN, 1x HDMI, 2x DisplayPort, 4x USB 3.1 gen2, 1x USB Type-C
• 1x MonsterLabo super easy Rubik’s Cube!

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COMPLETE SYSTEM

The Beast is by no means a normal PC chassis. The build process can be very complex, therefore we have complete systems for customers who would prefer Quiet PC to build it for them. There are two versions available, an Intel and an AMD version.

The benefit of a Quiet PC built Beast is warranty, we will provide at least two years warranty (extendable to three years) on the complete system. This will give you piece of mind that the system you receive will work from the day you receive it. It is worth noting that if you plan to build a system in The Beast that you may invalidate warranties of some of the components (especially the graphics card) because you will need to remove factory fitted cooling solutions. If you opt to purchase a complete system from Quiet PC, we will honour all warranties for at least two years.