Question Ducted downdraft cooler for i9-9900K vs massive tower cooler?

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Scoox

Scoox

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Feb 2, 2012
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I'm in the process of choosing parts for a i9-9900k mini-ITX build to replace my current 9-year-old i7-920 desktop PC. Looking at Noctua's line-up, most coolers that are marked as "compatible" with my CPU and mobo seem ginormous. I'm no expert but I'm thinking, if these coolers take air from inside the case, which is bound to be hot to begin with, wouldn't a more modest downdraft cooler do as good a job if it could take fresh cool air directly from the outside of the case using duct? How well is this likely to work? Cheers
 
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No. Those coolers are intended to be used with cases that have enough case airflow, by way of usually two intake and two exhaust fans, so that the internal temperature is within a few degrees of the outside ambient temperature or in some cases nearly AT ambient if the exchance is rapid enough.

You will never, ever, get anywhere near that kind of cooling with a downdraft cooler no matter what the model is, unless your duct was coming from your freezer or some other kind of refrigeration was employed. They simply do not have the surface area to exchange enough heat nor do the fans on them have enough CFM and static pressure to facilitate that exchange at a rate that would not be overcome by the TDP of the processor.

If you want to run a higher core CPU like the 9900k, you need a much larger case and a good amount of cooling unless you are willing to drop the clocks and disable the boost features, in which case you could do so, or even use a passive cooler, but it would STILL have to be fairly massive, as seen here:

[H]ard|Forum

HardOCP Community Forum for PC Hardware Enthusiasts
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That being said, you probably COULD get by with a VERY good, top tiered downdraft cooler, but you're going to pay a premium for one capable enough to not encounter thermal issues AND it's going to be loud, because it's much smaller fan is going to have to run very fast in order to get the job done.

I would never consider using that CPU on a small form factor build unless you go with a case model that supports at least a 240mm AIO cooler, and preferably a 280mm model. For air cooling, you are going to want a tower cooler that is at least as capable as something like the Noctua NH-U14S or bigger. Again, you could run a smaller cooler if noise levels don't bother you, but if you don't want to go insane from the CPU cooler fan I'd highly recommend not using any heatsink fan model that doesn't employ at least one 140mm fan.
 
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Darkbreeze said:
No. Those coolers are intended to be used with cases that have enough case airflow, by way of usually two intake and two exhaust fans, so that the internal temperature is within a few degrees of the outside ambient temperature or in some cases nearly AT ambient if the exchance is rapid enough.

You will never, ever, get anywhere near that kind of cooling with a downdraft cooler no matter what the model is, unless your duct was coming from your freezer or some other kind of refrigeration was employed. They simply do not have the surface area to exchange enough heat nor do the fans on them have enough CFM and static pressure to facilitate that exchange at a rate that would not be overcome by the TDP of the processor.

If you want to run a higher core CPU like the 9900k, you need a much larger case and a good amount of cooling unless you are willing to drop the clocks and disable the boost features, in which case you could do so, or even use a passive cooler, but it would STILL have to be fairly massive, as seen here:

[H]ard|Forum

HardOCP Community Forum for PC Hardware Enthusiasts
www.hardocp.com


That being said, you probably COULD get by with a VERY good, top tiered downdraft cooler, but you're going to pay a premium for one capable enough to not encounter thermal issues AND it's going to be loud, because it's much smaller fan is going to have to run very fast in order to get the job done.

I would never consider using that CPU on a small form factor build unless you go with a case model that supports at least a 240mm AIO cooler, and preferably a 280mm model. For air cooling, you are going to want a tower cooler that is at least as capable as something like the Noctua NH-U14S or bigger. Again, you could run a smaller cooler if noise levels don't bother you, but if you don't want to go insane from the CPU cooler fan I'd highly recommend not using any heatsink fan model that doesn't employ at least one 140mm fan.
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Thanks for the detailed reply. My original idea was to rack-mount the PC but that would require a huge 6U case that would be mostly empty since my motherboard is an ASRock Z390 Gaming-ITX/ac without discrete graphics (using this for audio production), which seems wasteful. I mean, Clevo makes laptops that support the i7-8700K CPU and those are much tighter, but they use ducts to guide air dirctly to and away from the hot spots.

Another idea that crossed my mind was to use water cooling. Then I could use a 2U case and fit the radiator externally, which would then have access to unlimited fresh air. Assuming CPU heat is taken care of by water cooling, what's the word on passive motherboard cooling? I wouldn't mind an open-top rack-mount case as I could install grilles front and back directly above the case and it all would be out of sight.
 
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