Aircooling exhaust concerns in an Elite 130 mitx system

[Buren22]

Soon I will be moving my mid sized system into an mitx Cooler Master Elite 130. The specs will be:

Asus P8Z77-i Deluxe
I5-3570K
Sapphire 7950
8GB RAM
1TB HDD
120GB SSD

I would love to be able to use aircooling for this, as it seems simpler and safer (more accident proof) than a closed loop water cooling solution. I would have two 120mm fans installed at a 90 degree angle from each other at the front grill and front corner. I would need to remove the side 80mm fan, as the motherboard blocks it. PSU would be mounted facing upwards.

This setup would be devoid of any exhaust source. Will that be a problem, or will the hot air be vented safely out of the case without extra assistance? Alternatively, I could reverse the front fans and have one/both of them venting air from the case to the outside. I figure both fans would need to be operating in the same direction - due to their proximity and setup, they would just cancel each other out otherwise.

Any help would be great - this will be my first mini itx build, and I can always use water cooling if absolutely necessary.

 

[clutchc]

I did a build with that case and a A10-5800K. I didn't have a card that big in my system; just a HD 7870. The darn little case was an oven with just the stock fans that came with the case. I added another 120mm on the drive cage, but it didn't help much. I can't imagine a dual radiator cooling system in that case! And a single rad may not do the job. But here is an example of a single rad installation if you want to give it a try: http://www.overclockers.com/cooler-master-elite-130-mini-itx-case-review

 

[Buren22]

Thank you. I'm considering switching to the Corsair 250D - it sacrifices some portability, but would hopefully be large enough to use air cooling and not melt everything in there.

 

[David Dewis]

I did a build with that case and a A10-5800K. I didn't have a card that big in my system; just a HD 7870. The darn little case was an oven with just the stock fans that came with the case. I added another 120mm on the drive cage, but it didn't help much. I can't imagine a dual radiator cooling system in that case! And a single rad may not do the job. But here is an example of a single rad installation if you want to give it a try: http://www.overclockers.com/cooler-master-elite-130-mini-itx-case-review

I have a similar setup to you. Interested to know if you tried reversing front fan and what difference you got. I really want to put my R9 290 in this case, but last time I tried, it maxed temps too quickly. Can you think of ANY way to improve airflow or a better 80mm fan solution?

 

[clutchc]

I did a build with that case and a A10-5800K. I didn't have a card that big in my system; just a HD 7870. The darn little case was an oven with just the stock fans that came with the case. I added another 120mm on the drive cage, but it didn't help much. I can't imagine a dual radiator cooling system in that case! And a single rad may not do the job. But here is an example of a single rad installation if you want to give it a try: http://www.overclockers.com/cooler-master-elite-130-mini-itx-case-review

I have a similar setup to you. Interested to know if you tried reversing front fan and what difference you got. I really want to put my R9 290 in this case, but last time I tried, it maxed temps too quickly. Can you think of ANY way to improve airflow or a better 80mm fan solution?

No, never tried reversing fans. I tried with the PSU fan down, but that just detracted from the CPU cooling by fighting for the same air as the CPU's heat sync/fan. Wasn't it you that had a post awhile back that mentioned removing the drive cage and opening the area up for air flow?

 

[David Dewis]

I did a build with that case and a A10-5800K. I didn't have a card that big in my system; just a HD 7870. The darn little case was an oven with just the stock fans that came with the case. I added another 120mm on the drive cage, but it didn't help much. I can't imagine a dual radiator cooling system in that case! And a single rad may not do the job. But here is an example of a single rad installation if you want to give it a try: http://www.overclockers.com/cooler-master-elite-130-mini-itx-case-review

I have a similar setup to you. Interested to know if you tried reversing front fan and what difference you got. I really want to put my R9 290 in this case, but last time I tried, it maxed temps too quickly. Can you think of ANY way to improve airflow or a better 80mm fan solution?

No, never tried reversing fans. I tried with the PSU fan down, but that just detracted from the CPU cooling by fighting for the same air as the CPU's heat sync/fan. Wasn't it you that had a post awhile back that mentioned removing the drive cage and opening the area up for air flow?

Yeah, I removed anything that wasn't needed or didn't really help, such as the 80mm fan. I have an aio liquid cooler so I have my PSU extracting air. And I have front fan as exhaust. Just wondered if you had tried it. I've not put the R9 290 in it again since flipping the fans. Wonder whether I could somehow fit a fan to point directly at the 290 backplate.
I do have a bendable fan on a lead type thing. Perhaps I'll try pointing it at the 290. It's noisy though

 

[clutchc]

I wish I could experiment with you, but I sold that system piece by piece and moved on since then. But it sounds like you have a good solution in mind.

 

[David Dewis]

I wish I could experiment with you, but I sold that system piece by piece and moved on since then. But it sounds like you have a good solution in mind.

Yeah. It was only ever intended to be a secondary system for movies, but since it's plugged into a 100" projector, I felt the added power of the 290 would be useful over the 7870 I'm using at the moment. And recent tests I did showed that the 'bottleneck when comparing my 290 running with my fx8350 @4.7 to my HTPC a8 @4.2 really wasn't that big. Most games only 4 or 5 fps here or there. Problem is its loud as hell. It's non ref model. MSI gaming 4G twin frozr, but of corse, heat is dumped into case