[SOLVED] CPU cooler be horizontal or vertical ?

[wm3797]

Should the airflow be going from bottom to top, or front to back of the case ? And what specs do I look for when choosing a cpu cooler?

 

[USAFRet]

Here you said horizontal, then you suggested 2 noctua fans and 1 coolermaster that are placed perpendicular to the motherboard (vertical)

Do you indicate a fan type by its orientation to the ground, or its orientation to where it is attached to?

Horizontal, as in front to back. Blowing the air from right to left, to the back of the case.
Not vertical, as in bottom to top.

(at least that is what I think he is referring to.)

 

[geofelt]

Depends on your point of view.
Most cases are upright which makes an installed cooler horizontal.
That is good.

Gravity counts, so if a cooler is oriented with the top of the heat pipes(most distant from the cpu) hanging down, gravity will inhibit the free flowing of the coolant inside the pipes.
If you found reason to place a normal case on it's side you could get that orientation.

Some people call a cpu cooler a fan.
I think this is a language thing.
In my usage, a fan is the spinning part of the cooler.

A cooler's job is to get heat off of the processor and into the cooling fins.
The fin heat is transferred to the air and you want that heated air to exit the case efficiently.
This usually means front to back is best.

 

[LeiHeJun]

@geofelt
Ok, I thought something like AMD wraith prism is horizontal and noctua nh-d15 is vertical.

Now it's more clear.

Because in my answers I also wanted to take the cpu warm air out quickly and avoid getting psu air inside case.

 

[Karadjgne]

@geofelt
Ok, I thought something like AMD wraith prism is horizontal and noctua nh-d15 is vertical.

Now it's more clear.

Because in my answers I also wanted to take the cpu warm air out quickly and avoid getting psu air inside case.

You were somewhat correct. You have to look at the cooler itself. An AMD Wraith is a downdraft, area broadcast cooler. It really is unidirectional. So orientation has little bearing, you can face the AMD symbol in whichever direction you wish to. But from a motherboard perspective, it's a horizontal mount, uses the same plane.

A tower cooler is somewhat different, it's mounting is perpendicular, the fan is 90° from the motherboard. Whether that's horizontal to your perspective or vertical is a different matter. Horizontal is a fan airflow from side to side, Vertical is airflow from up/down or down/up.

Amd had a mounting issue due to bracket layout and design a while back, especially on the AM3 motherboards and the coolers at the time. Many coolers could only be installed vertically, there were no bracket accommodations to mount them horizontally.

So air was either blown onto the backplate of the gpu, or sucked from that area and pushed straight up. With enclosed top cases, this was far from ideal. With open fan vent cases on top, it worked quite well. If there was sufficient space in front of the fan above the gpu backplate.

Intel uses a square pattern, not the rectangular pattern of cooler mount holes, so a cooler can be mounted in any of the 4 directions. With the prevelance of the rear exhaust (a leftover from the old AT box cases) a horizontal mount with airflow from front to rear was perfect for a tower cooler, but still made little difference to an area downdraft cooler like the Wraith.

Orientation depends on perspective. Yours, the coolers, the motherboards, the cases.

There's often a lot lost in translation for ppl who do not speak English as a first language, it's often not in a literal sense, but an understanding of the assumption of perspective. If I say a tower is mounted vertically, the assumption is from my perspective, the cooler is facing up/down. I'm not saying the cooler is vertical from a motherboard perspective. A wraith is horizontal by default, but saying it's vertical means I'm talking about the plugs or the amd symbol on the ring. From my perspective.

 

[LeiHeJun]

@Karadjgne Ok, so if the roof of case is open (like those having radiator on top) and OP doesn't have gpu and also psu can be flipped to facilitate the airflow, the best is top to bottom vertical. Otherwise go horizontal front to back.

By psu hot air, I meant not bringing it back by another intake fan.

By vertical horizontal, I currently mean airflow (unlike my previous posts)

 

[Karadjgne]

Well, with an open top case and a liquid radiator, fans on top is the best solution. There's absolutely no need for a rear exhaust. It's beneficial to block that port off entirely. This creates a 'chimney' affect, air comes in the front and flows up, just as warmed air will do. With fans on top, that just helps natural thermal tendencies. Whether the rad is top or front makes no discernable difference to airflow, but can make a slight difference to cpu temps and/or gpu temps, depending on fan orientation.

With a tower, rear exhaust is essential, top-rear is also beneficial, but the top-front should be blocked or the cpu fan will draw air from that port and not the case. This might seem backwards as cpu temps will be slightly higher (case air is warmer than outside air) but the effect is more case air is moved towards the rear/top rear exhausts, which helps ram, chipset, Northbridge, VRM cooling. That's more important (especially in OC conditions) than the 3-4°C cpu gains.

There's a lot more to airflow in general than most ppl think about. A badly engaged airflow pattern does more harm than good and things like filling every hole with a fan are often mistaken for better temp management. Usually it's the opposite as the airflow takes on a circulatory pattern, not a flow pattern and rising case temps really start affecting cpu/gpu temps, VRM cooling abilities etc.

 

[SamirD]

So it varies, there is no right or wrong orientation? I can not put it where the airflow is horizontal because the RAM is in its way. I used all 4 slots

There is not real right or wrong orientation, but keep in mind all the other posts in this thread about horizontal and vertical as well as case flow. If you've got good flow and everything is cool (literally), you're good.

 

[Karadjgne]

Good flow being the important part. Don't install the tower/fan backwards lol.