[SOLVED] Confusing and conflicting information for fan orientation on AIO radiators

[kboogle]

I'm mounting a Corsair iCUE H100i PRO XT AIO Cooler.

I will be placing the radiator at the top of the case.

I'm confused which way the fans should be oriented.

Traditional wisdom for typical airflow is you have air coming in through the front, out the back and out the top. So following that, I should mount the fans such that they blow through the radiator fins and out of the case.

However, in various youtube videos, in the manual itself, and even on corsair's forums I see people saying that you should mount it such that the air blows into the case, and that just makes no sense to me. Why would I want hot air heated by the radiator fans blowing back into the case?

Can someone please help me understand? I drew two pictures. Which one is correct?

 

[USAFRet]

The second one, B, is correct.

 

[geofelt]

It is catch 22.
Theory is that A cools the cpu best because it is using fresh outside air.

But, B is often better because the motherboard and graphics card get cooler air to work with.

Option C would have you mount the radiator in front where it gets fresh air, but the motherboard and graphics get warmed air.

What cpu and gpu will you be using?
Will you be heavily overclocking either?

Have you looked at the air option?

 

[kboogle]

What cpu and gpu will you be using?
Will you be heavily overclocking either?

Have you looked at the air option?

It's an i9-11900k. Runs hot so that's why I went for liquid cooled rather than air.
The GPU for now is just an RTX 570. Can't get a GPU these days, so this one will be used until can get an upgrade.

I don't intend to overclock.

 

[Phaaze88]

Big air and 240mm AIOs are more or less the same tier of cooling.

Since you're not overclocking, you're probably seeing issues with motherboard over-overvoltage. The double overs was intentional.
Motherboards use more voltage than needed by default, but on a number of Z490/590 boards, the auto voltage is stepped up even more.
Bios updates may contain improved voltage curves. In the mean time, I suggest making use of negative Vcore offsets, like -0.050v, or maybe even -0.100v if the overvoltage is really bad.

 

[geofelt]

FWIW, I also use a I9-11990KF with a noctua NH-D15s cooler.
Running a simple CPU-Z stress test, my max cpu temperatures are around 72c.
The chip is so stupidly fast, there is no need for overclocking.
Just let the turbo mechanism do it's thing.

 

[kboogle]

Thanks all, I'll put it in with the fans blowing out of the case