Would this set up work well? (airflow)

[ItsmeagainhK]

Thanks for the advise. Would certainly try that out.
Would you suggest mounting the fans in a push or pull set up for the rad in that case?

Push or pull when I personally tested the temps would defer by a slight 1 degree which could be attributed to the ambient temperatures. Honestly, I’ll just fix it pull air in. Case/rad/fans pulling in air.

The reason I pull air in is firstly, I can see the fans working if they ever happen to stop working. Secondly, it is easier to clean the fans when I blow air using the air can. I blow the air from inside the case out so the fans get the cleaning first before the radiators. If I fix the fans in such a way that it blows air, it is much much difficult to clean the fans. If you have rgb fans attracted to the radiators, it also make sense to configure it in a pull manner. Either way, it is better to clean the radiator and fans by totally unmounting them.

There are videos by ltt and jayztwocents on it which shows the pros and cons of using push or pull. Personally, I would stick to pulling

 

[ItsmeagainhK]

I front mounted the AIO. Best placement IMHO

Yes, but ah the expense of warmer / not as cool gpu and during load, warm air enters through the radiator. Of course.. if that’s not a concern then it does not matter.

Having said that, which TS’s over 300mm card, I don’t think it is possible to front mount the radiator.

 

[zleipnir]

Actually fans in the front or the back doesn't make much difference one.

TS can try lighting incense and see the smoke flow when u power up the fans.

Oh my, you sacrifice the cpu cooler capabilities for the additional 2 RAM slot by position the fan at the back facing exhaust fan?

 

[skrekro]

I front mounted the AIO. Best placement IMHO

Best placement is top or specifically pump must always be lower than reservoir. It's to provide NPSH and also that air won't be pulled into the pump. If it happens, it will wear out the pump faster and your cooling won't be as effective due to bad flow.

 

[DevilishZ]

Calling all airflow expert.

Recently did a overhaul on my rig(case is a Meshify C) and switched to a 5800x+Darkrock4 cooler with a MSI RTX 3070 trio X.

This is the current set up with just 1 intake and 1 exhaust fan. Please refer to the picture below. As the current temps are less than ideal (particularly CPU temps, am currently considering switching out the Darkrock for a Corsair H100i instead.)

This is the set up I'm thinking of running, would like to see if there are any suggestion that I can improve on.

I will be positioning the 240mm rad as a top mount, with the 2 fan that comes with the cooler as exhaust, pushing the air from the case through the rad.

The current front intake fan from fractal will be relocated to the bottom as a intake fan again.

Lastly, I will be adding 2 additional 120mm fans to the front of the case as intake. The specs of the fans are below.

Fan speed: 500-1600 ± 10% RPM
Rated voltage: 7V DC
Rated current: 0.16 ± 10%A
Rated power: 1.92W
Air volume: 53.6CFM
Wind pressure: 1.81mmH20
Noise: 13.8~30.2dB(A)


Many thanks for reading and advice in advance.

Get a new case,

Your GPU doesn't really have fresh air, and the front intakes are being blocked by the size of your GPU.

Lancool 2 Mesh might be ideal, but you need to check the clearance before committing.

Agreed with the rest, the dark rock is decent, unless your going 360 AIO, doesn't really add much benefits.

For Lancool 2 mesh, assuming you are going same air CPU Cooler

I would put 2x or 3x fan on the front, depends which model you get , performance vs rgb

2x fans on the bottom to feed fresh air to gpu via mesh design

1x fan on the back as exhaust.

For top , I would leave it empty, cause putting exhaust may just result in the fresh air from the front going out the case.

Putting intake, not sure how much value there is, cause the front already got good intake.

 

[DevilishZ]

Ignore this , realized the ram limitation.

Get a new case,

Your GPU doesn't really have fresh air, and the front intakes are being blocked by the size of your GPU.

Lancool 2 Mesh might be ideal, but you need to check the clearance before committing.

Agreed with the rest, the dark rock is decent, unless your going 360 AIO, doesn't really add much benefits.

For Lancool 2 mesh, assuming you are going same air CPU Cooler

I would put 2x or 3x fan on the front, depends which model you get , performance vs rgb

2x fans on the bottom to feed fresh air to gpu via mesh design

1x fan on the back as exhaust.

For top , I would leave it empty, cause putting exhaust may just result in the fresh air from the front going out the case.

Putting intake, not sure how much value there is, cause the front already got good intake.

Also

1 more thing is that your current Dark rock is configured as "Pull" i believe. cant see the side so cannot confirm.

You should be putting it as a Push.

Was watching a video previously and they mentioned that air coolers should only be configured as Push if only a single fan, not Pull due to the gaps on the sides in the design.

TLDR based on the image
Put your fan on the right side configured to push air towards the back of the case.

 

[Godeau]

TLDR based on the image
Put your fan on the right side configured to push air towards the back of the case.

Might have trouble clearing the height of the 4 populated ram slots if fan is configured to push from right to left

 

[lunzi88]

I'll get a larger case too, the gpu is blocking 2 of the front intake fan spots...

It is one option, but the last option I wanna consider.

The best but ugly way is to mount your intake fans on top of the radiator to push cool air in. I bet you get better temps

Thank you for the suggestion, have decided most likely will do that as well.

I front mounted the AIO. Best placement IMHO

Can't fit, card too long.

Get a new case,

Your GPU doesn't really have fresh air, and the front intakes are being blocked by the size of your GPU.

Thank you for the suggestion, new case is an option but ideally I would like to retain if possible.

 

[midlusionz]

Actually if you get a bigger case it will probably solve all your problems you have at the moment

 

[Mach3.2]

For a start just try to mount 2 intake fans up front, if there's space for 2 intake fans, then maybe consider upgrading the stock fans to something better so you can draw more fresh air into your case.

Vertical mount GPU looks swee, but it's pushing all the heat into your tower cooler and conviniently it's also blocking off 2 intake fan spots because your case is too small. I'd forgo aesthetics if possible, mounting your GPU conventionally will probably help by not expelling heat into your tower cooler, and allow for additional intake fans to be mounted up front to help with the lack of cool air in your case.

I know how troublesome changing case is so if I'm you that won't even be an option

 

[lunzi88]

For a start just try to mount 2 intake fans up front, if there's space for 2 intake fans, then maybe consider upgrading the stock fans to something better so you can draw more fresh air into your case.

Vertical mount GPU looks swee, but it's pushing all the heat into your tower cooler and conviniently it's also blocking off 2 intake fan spots because your case is too small. I'd forgo aesthetics if possible, mounting your GPU conventionally will probably help by not expelling heat into your tower cooler, and allow for additional intake fans to be mounted up front to help with the lack of cool air in your case.

I know how troublesome changing case is so if I'm you that won't even be an option

IKR, the plan is to put 2 to 3 120mm*15mm fans for front intake.
Understand 15mm fans usually have lower static pressure thats why was considering up to 3 there.

 

[Yongkit]

For a start just try to mount 2 intake fans up front, if there's space for 2 intake fans, then maybe consider upgrading the stock fans to something better so you can draw more fresh air into your case.

Vertical mount GPU looks swee, but it's pushing all the heat into your tower cooler and conviniently it's also blocking off 2 intake fan spots because your case is too small. I'd forgo aesthetics if possible, mounting your GPU conventionally will probably help by not expelling heat into your tower cooler, and allow for additional intake fans to be mounted up front to help with the lack of cool air in your case.

I know how troublesome changing case is so if I'm you that won't even be an option

Sometime I am wondering when the GPU vertical mount and hot air keep blowing to the tempered glass will it weakened the tempered glass over time time make it easier to break?

I mean situation like if your surroundings was aircon cool then inside was hot like sauna, and the glass panel keep absorbed heat.

I used glass panel before and really not comfortable when touched the glass.

 

[DevilishZ]

Sometime I am wondering when the GPU vertical mount and hot air keep blowing to the tempered glass will it weakened the tempered glass over time time make it easier to break?

I mean situation like if your surroundings was aircon cool then inside was hot like sauna, and the glass panel keep absorbed heat.

I used glass panel before and really not comfortable when touched the glass.

Hmm

If I am not wrong, the graphic cards work differently?

The air gets sucked into the Fins and exhaust to the side of the gfx.

So technically, those with normal installation have the hot air blowing at the glass I think. not the vertical ones.

As for weakening , I don't think its hot enough to make a difference. I could be wrong. cause at most 80 degree? shouldn't be enough to weaken a glass.

 

[skrekro]

Hmm

If I am not wrong, the graphic cards work differently?

The air gets sucked into the Fins and exhaust to the side of the gfx.

So technically, those with normal installation have the hot air blowing at the glass I think. not the vertical ones.

As for weakening , I don't think its hot enough to make a difference. I could be wrong. cause at most 80 degree? shouldn't be enough to weaken a glass.

AIO cards take air from top (so near glass panel in this case) and blow outwards into fins and whatever components in the card usually escaping from the longwise side of the card. Blower cards intake from top and blow towards the IO of the card.

 

[Yongkit]

Hmm

If I am not wrong, the graphic cards work differently?

The air gets sucked into the Fins and exhaust to the side of the gfx.

So technically, those with normal installation have the hot air blowing at the glass I think. not the vertical ones.

As for weakening , I don't think its hot enough to make a difference. I could be wrong. cause at most 80 degree? shouldn't be enough to weaken a glass.

I am trying to figure out the airflow in this case, based on the current setup i am thinking maybe the hot air from cpu cooler will easily absorbed into gpu fan, therefore increase the temperature of the overall system, unlike horizontal placement the hot air was minimized/blocked by backplate? i might be wrong as maybe someone can correct me?

CPU AIO as proposed by TS might be more suitable setup in this case?

 

[Mach3.2]

I am trying to figure out the airflow in this case, based on the current setup i am thinking maybe the hot air from cpu cooler will easily absorbed into gpu fan, therefore increase the temperature of the overall system, unlike horizontal placement the hot air was minimized/blocked by backplate? i might be wrong as maybe someone can correct me?

CPU AIO as proposed by TS might be more suitable setup in this case?

With the current setup in the original post, the front intake fan is basically pushing air directly to the tower cooler, then the tower cooler fan mounted in pull config pulls the cool/warm air mix through the tower cooler, then the rear exhaust pulls the warm air out. His GPU is starved of cool fresh air in this instance.

If the GPU is mounted horizontally, the GPU would push air through the heat sink fins, and the warm air would be expelled from the side of the GPU into the side panel. It's really hard to manage airflow when the GPU throws air around like this, so imo the best someone can do is to get powerful fans to push more air through the case, so the heat doesn't recirculate within the case for too long.

Getting an AIO might also help with managing the airflow within the case, but OP's problem is really the case being too small for his build.

This post is just my educated guess. I could be wrong.

 

[lunzi88]

Many thanks to all who chime in to offer suggestions.
Basically, decided to just go with a AIO with a top mount rad. Couple of hiccups happened which explains the late post.

While removing the Dark Rock4, the 5800x basically came together with it, without me loosening the cpu retention clip lucky it came out cleanly, no bent pins etc.

Which lead to me suspect that my high temps might have been due to the tim being wonky? (I was using a 5-6year old MX-3 that I had lying around. It looked fine during application but it is possible that it was a combination of wonky paste as well as the lack of clearance.

Speaking of clearance, the rad with the 25mm fan did prove too thick thanks to my tall ram sticks. so in the end, I ended up mounting the 2 15mm fans I had plan to use as the front intake as the rad fans instead.

So now I basically ended up with 1 rear exhaust, 1 front intake, as well as 2 Noctua NF-A12x15 pushing cool air through the rads and into the case instead.

Temps are much better now, idling around 34-36 as compared to 50-54 previously, all in all still quite happy with how it works and looks now.

Most likely will still get another 120*15mm fan to act as a secondary front intake just to give the GPU some extra cool air to work with as well.

Sidenote, if anyone is interested in buying a almost brand new dark rock 4... My inbox is always open

 

[Yongkit]

Many thanks to all who chime in to offer suggestions.
Basically, decided to just go with a AIO with a top mount rad. Couple of hiccups happened which explains the late post.

While removing the Dark Rock4, the 5800x basically came together with it, without me loosening the cpu retention clip lucky it came out cleanly, no bent pins etc.

Which lead to me suspect that my high temps might have been due to the tim being wonky? (I was using a 5-6year old MX-3 that I had lying around. It looked fine during application but it is possible that it was a combination of wonky paste as well as the lack of clearance.

Speaking of clearance, the rad with the 25mm fan did prove too thick thanks to my tall ram sticks. so in the end, I ended up mounting the 2 15mm fans I had plan to use as the front intake as the rad fans instead.

So now I basically ended up with 1 rear exhaust, 1 front intake, as well as 2 Noctua NF-A12x15 pushing cool air through the rads and into the case instead.

Temps are much better now, idling around 34-36 as compared to 50-54 previously, all in all still quite happy with how it works and looks now.

Most likely will still get another 120*15mm fan to act as a secondary front intake just to give the GPU some extra cool air to work with as well.

Sidenote, if anyone is interested in buying a almost brand new dark rock 4... My inbox is always open

Congratulation on your new AIO, it looks great

 

[midlusionz]

Glad you have found a solution and achieve what you wanted and yes your rig looks awesome!