Ok this one will be longer. Need some advice with a cooling dilemma here. My CPU is an i7 7700K being cooled by a NZXT Kraken X62 AiO liquid cooler and the GPU is an Asus Strix 1080 Ti OC. Cooling configuration is AiO radiator (with its 2 140mm fans) at the front (doesn't fit the top), 2 fans (140mm) on top and 1 fan (120mm) on the rear.
Ambient temperature is 25ºC and the main use for the computer is high-end gaming.
Before I had my cooling all configured for extraction with no active intake. Top and rear fans were extracting as well as the AiO. With this I had my GPU max out at 73-75ºC with no throttling at all and a conservative fan curve but the CPU would easily reach 85ºC and above in heavy load with Prime95 or 75ºC with gaming. The AiO’s liquid temperature was reaching 52ºC which is a bit too much, I believe because it was working with warm air dissipated by the GPU and extracting it out of the case. Due to negative pressure cool air was entering the case from the large holes on the grid at the back, right by the GPU.
My issue with this configuration was no proper "active" airflow and the intake was done passively from the back without being filtered, so dust build-up is a concern.
I tried changing the front AiO for intake instead of extracting, this improved CPU cooling as now stands at 50ºC during gaming and 65ºC in Prime95 since it's using cool air from outside. Liquid temperature dropped 10ºC to 42ºC, much more adequate. However the GPU now goes all the way to 84ºC and starts throttling from 1950MHz to 1800MHz and stays fluctuating like that, sometimes even dropping to 1700MHz. This may be because it’s being fed warmer air from the AiO that is now doing intake.
The throttling doesn’t seem severe, but it’s there — would you consider this a problem? A way to fix the throttling would be to use a really fast setting on the GPU fans but that creates a lot of noise so it isn’t a solution in this case, since I’m taking in consideration acoustics as well.
So which of the two cases is best in this situation?
1. Do I keep a warmer CPU, with rising AiO liquid and all extraction cooling, with intake being passive and non-filtered, but a cool GPU.
2. Do I keep a cool CPU with optimized liquid cooling, proper airflow in the case and filtered intake, but a warm GPU with some thermal throttling.
Thanks in advance for your analysis and help. It's much appreciated.
Ambient temperature is 25ºC and the main use for the computer is high-end gaming.
Before I had my cooling all configured for extraction with no active intake. Top and rear fans were extracting as well as the AiO. With this I had my GPU max out at 73-75ºC with no throttling at all and a conservative fan curve but the CPU would easily reach 85ºC and above in heavy load with Prime95 or 75ºC with gaming. The AiO’s liquid temperature was reaching 52ºC which is a bit too much, I believe because it was working with warm air dissipated by the GPU and extracting it out of the case. Due to negative pressure cool air was entering the case from the large holes on the grid at the back, right by the GPU.
My issue with this configuration was no proper "active" airflow and the intake was done passively from the back without being filtered, so dust build-up is a concern.
I tried changing the front AiO for intake instead of extracting, this improved CPU cooling as now stands at 50ºC during gaming and 65ºC in Prime95 since it's using cool air from outside. Liquid temperature dropped 10ºC to 42ºC, much more adequate. However the GPU now goes all the way to 84ºC and starts throttling from 1950MHz to 1800MHz and stays fluctuating like that, sometimes even dropping to 1700MHz. This may be because it’s being fed warmer air from the AiO that is now doing intake.
The throttling doesn’t seem severe, but it’s there — would you consider this a problem? A way to fix the throttling would be to use a really fast setting on the GPU fans but that creates a lot of noise so it isn’t a solution in this case, since I’m taking in consideration acoustics as well.
So which of the two cases is best in this situation?
1. Do I keep a warmer CPU, with rising AiO liquid and all extraction cooling, with intake being passive and non-filtered, but a cool GPU.
2. Do I keep a cool CPU with optimized liquid cooling, proper airflow in the case and filtered intake, but a warm GPU with some thermal throttling.
Thanks in advance for your analysis and help. It's much appreciated.
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