Question How to improve cooling

[Arno__Dorian]

Hi guys, I have a Redragon Sideswipe casing RD GC 601 and i noticed that with the glass side panel off, the gpu temperature dropped by 10-12 C and stayed at that while under heavy load. How should i improve cooling with the side panel on ? i dont want to change the case. I have a Zotac RTX 2080 AMP and core i7 liquid cooled ( Corsair H45 ). Any help will be much appreciated. Thank you . GPU temperature rises to a max of 83 C while gaming. Its not big of a deal but still i want to lower it .

 

[LordVile]

Hi guys, I have a Redragon Sideswipe casing RD GC 601 and i noticed that with the glass side panel off, the gpu temperature dropped by 10-12 C and stayed at that while under heavy load. How should i improve cooling with the side panel on ? i dont want to change the case. I have a Zotac RTX 2080 AMP and core i7 liquid cooled ( Corsair H45 ). Any help will be much appreciated. Thank you . GPU temperature rises to a max of 83 C while gaming. Its not big of a deal but still i want to lower it .

Where is your AIO rad mounted? How many fans do you have, what kind are they? Where are the fans and how many intakes vs exhausts?

 

[PC Tailor]

What are your current ambient temperatures?
What are your CPU core temps under load?
What is the rest of your system spec including PSU make and model?

 

[rubix_1011]

i noticed that with the glass side panel off, the gpu temperature dropped by 10-12 C and stayed at that while under heavy load

This tells me that your case airflow is poor. Does the case have cooling fans installed in all available mounts?

 

[Arno__Dorian]

Where is your AIO rad mounted? How many fans do you have, what kind are they? Where are the fans and how many intakes vs exhausts?

the liquid cooler radiator is behind the front topmost fan. I have 4 120mm case fans which came with the case. 3 fans on the front and 1 on the rear. I don't know the quality of these fans as there was no description of them. I don't know much about the intakes vs exhausts but I think the exhausts are on the left and right sides of the front panel where the fans are installed.

 

[Arno__Dorian]

This tells me that your case airflow is poor. Does the case have cooling fans installed in all available mounts?

the fans are not installed in all available mounts. 3 120mm fans can be installed above the power supply but I am not sure if they will help. One person even said that all they would do is create extra noise.

 

[Arno__Dorian]

What are your current ambient temperatures?
What are your CPU core temps under load?
What is the rest of your system spec including PSU make and model?

Ambient temperature is about room temperature but most of the time the air conditioner is powered on so the temperature is quite lower. However, I noticed that this didn't affect the GPU temperature by much. My CPU temperature under load is 65 C I think or maybe a little more. My system specs are
1- Redragon Sideswipe RD GC 601 Casing
2- Gigabyte B360 Aorus motherboard
3- Intel Core i7-8700 (non-k) processor
4- 2 x 16 GB G Skill Aegis SDRAM 2666 MHz
5- Seagate Barracuda 2 TB Hard Drive
6- ADATA Ultimate SU650 240 GB Solid State Drive
7- FSP Hydro 650W 8O Plus Gold Certified PSU
8- Zotac RTX 2080 AMP

 

[rubix_1011]

I Googled for that case, looks like the front fans might even be sealed and not providing much (if any) external air into the case.

This is going to be a lesson in how cooling and airflow works.

One person even said that all they would do is create extra noise.

I don't even know how to respond to this - it is the kind of poor information that we are constantly trying to correct. Fans will add noise, yes. This can be mitigated with fan curves or fans that are more silent than others. Not all fans are created equal. However, omitting the fans will be worse for cooling than having fans that make some noise.

You cannot have a perfectly 'silent' case and have 'a good cooling' case unless you have some large fans that spin slowly and the case itself has very good airflow properties. Having fans inside of a closed box means you just have yourself a box that moves hot air around inside...getting hotter and hotter.

Air has to constantly be exchanged with cool, ambient air in order for a case to be functional as part of the cooling process. A sealed box cannot cool and a case that lacks fans to exchange/move air allows for poor thermal exchange.

 

[PC Tailor]

Ambient temperature is about room temperature

By ambient I meant what is your room temperature ?

 

[Arno__Dorian]

I Googled for that case, looks like the front fans might even be sealed and not providing much (if any) external air into the case.

This is going to be a lesson in how cooling and airflow works.



I don't even know how to respond to this - it is the kind of poor information that we are constantly trying to correct. Fans will add noise, yes. This can be mitigated with fan curves or fans that are more silent than others. Not all fans are created equal. However, omitting the fans will be worse for cooling than having fans that make some noise.

You cannot have a perfectly 'silent' case and have 'a good cooling' case unless you have some large fans that spin slowly and the case itself has very good airflow properties. Having fans inside of a closed box means you just have yourself a box that moves hot air around inside...getting hotter and hotter.

Air has to constantly be exchanged with cool, ambient air in order for a case to be functional as part of the cooling process. A sealed box cannot cool and a case that lacks fans to exchange/move air allows for poor thermal exchange.

Thanks for the lesson bro. I ll keep these things in mind. Now what solutions do you propose to resolve this problem ? Should i install those three extra fans above the PSU ?

 

[Arno__Dorian]

By ambient I meant what is your room temperature ?

No idea 😛 i would say around 25 C. Less with the air conditioner working .

 

[LordVile]

the liquid cooler radiator is behind the front topmost fan. I have 4 120mm case fans which came with the case. 3 fans on the front and 1 on the rear. I don't know the quality of these fans as there was no description of them. I don't know much about the intakes vs exhausts but I think the exhausts are on the left and right sides of the front panel where the fans are installed.

Right I would personally put the rad on the exhaust and buy better fans for the front.

 

[rubix_1011]

Thanks for the lesson bro. I ll keep these things in mind. Now what solutions do you propose to resolve this problem ? Should i install those three extra fans above the PSU ?

Yes, it would be my recommendation unless you want to continue on the path of warmer-than-needed hardware.

 

[geofelt]

A very nice looking case.

Your processor can not be overclocked and really does not need liquid cooling.
The heat from the h45 radiator is going to heat up the motherboard and graphics card.
I would relocate the H45 radiator to the rear as exhaust and install another front 120mm intake.

If you need still more, replace the three front intakes with faster fans. Noctua makes some really good ones that are quiet. All of the fresh intake airflow will exit the case somewhere in the rear or top, taking component heat with it.

I might also replace the H45 with a simple tower type cooler such as a noctua NH-U12s
It will do the job and be quieter.

 

[Arno__Dorian]

A very nice looking case.

Your processor can not be overclocked and really does not need liquid cooling.
The heat from the h45 radiator is going to heat up the motherboard and graphics card.
I would relocate the H45 radiator to the rear as exhaust and install another front 120mm intake.

If you need still more, replace the three front intakes with faster fans. Noctua makes some really good ones that are quiet. All of the fresh intake airflow will exit the case somewhere in the rear or top, taking component heat with it.

I might also replace the H45 with a simple tower type cooler such as a noctua NH-U12s
It will do the job and be quieter.

you mean i should replace the fan at the rear with the h45 radiator ?

 

[geofelt]

Yes.
That allows you to install a third 120mm fan as intake which will get more air to your graphics card and motherboard.

The 8700 will not be cooled quite as well because it will be using warmer air.
But, the 8700 will not be overclocked and really does not need top cooling.

The benefit is that your graphics card will get better cooling with three front intakes.

 

[Arno__Dorian]

Yes.
That allows you to install a third 120mm fan as intake which will get more air to your graphics card and motherboard.

The 8700 will not be cooled quite as well because it will be using warmer air.
But, the 8700 will not be overclocked and really does not need top cooling.

The benefit is that your graphics card will get better cooling with three front intakes.

so I will replace the exhaust with radiator and also replace the three front intakes. Do you recommend Corsair HD120 fan pack ? I don't have noctua in my region 😛 and uhh i think the biggest problem with my case if airflow. the side vents in the front are almost blocked off by the fans. Do you think doing all this will resolve the problem ?

 

[geofelt]

My reading says the HD120 can go up to 1750 RPM.
Likely, that is a boost over your current fans.

The tradeoff is increased airflow at higher rpm but, at higher noise levels.

 

[Arno__Dorian]

My reading says the HD120 can go up to 1750 RPM.
Likely, that is a boost over your current fans.

The tradeoff is increased airflow at higher rpm but, at higher noise levels.

Hmmm... what do you reckon is the dba and rpm of the pre installed case fans ?

 

[geofelt]

Hmmm... what do you reckon is the dba and rpm of the pre installed case fans ?

I do not know.
But, you can reduce the rpm of a fast fan, but you can't increase the rpm of a slow fan.

Changing out fans is easy. Try what comes with the case first.

 

[Arno__Dorian]

I do not know.
But, you can reduce the rpm of a fast fan, but you can't increase the rpm of a slow fan.

Changing out fans is easy. Try what comes with the case first.

Wouldnt it be better if i placed three new intake fans at the bottom and replaced the rear fan with the cooler radiator ? That way i will have 6 intake fans .

 

[Karadjgne]

Replace the 3 front fans with better. If possible, mount them from the inside, not from the outside as this'll create room in front of the fan allowing for greater low pressure area, more draw. Use the 3 stock fans on the psu shroud, but turn the rpm on them down, they just need to move air minimally, not a gale force inside. Put the H45 and it's fan as exhaust in the back, it's rpm should always be high.

And in disagreement to what geofelt claimed, an aio is a better option in this case as it removes cpu heat from the equation, an aircooler would just add heat to the case.

 

[Arno__Dorian]

Replace the 3 front fans with better. If possible, mount them from the inside, not from the outside as this'll create room in front of the fan allowing for greater low pressure area, more draw. Use the 3 stock fans on the psu shroud, but turn the rpm on them down, they just need to move air minimally, not a gale force inside. Put the H45 and it's fan as exhaust in the back, it's rpm should always be high.

thanks for the advice. This is just what i was planning to do

 

[geofelt]

The post objective was to reduce the GPU temperatures.
Since removing the side window achieved that objective, more cooling air was clearly a solution.

Moving the H45 to the rear will help in two ways.

1. The exhaust entering the case from the h45 is hot, the heat coming from the cpu cooling.
That is not so good for cooling the graphics card.

2. Replacing with another 120mm intake is going to get more air into the case available for gpu cooling. 3 fans move more air than 2.

Is this sufficient to reach the objective? I think so, at least it is a low cost start.

If even more intake is desired, faster intake fans are always an option.
You can buy crazy fan speed intakes, but they will be noisy.


A non overclocked processor does not usually need aggressive cooling so I think a h45 at the rear is ok for cooling the processor.

If the OP can fit a filter on the front intake fans, the case will stay cleaner. That is a good thing.

The downside of adding other intakes is that unfiltered air will enter.

 

[Karadjgne]

1. Not really. The rad fans are cooling coolant temp, not cpu temp. Even at 65°C cpu, the coolant will only be @2-3°C above case ambient temps, not hot, barely Luke warm at best. It only 'feels' warmer because it's an actual exhaust when you put you hand behind it, but in order to do so requires removal of the side panel, negating case ambient temps, making it a difference of rad vrs outside ambient which is usually @ 6-12°C ± cooler than case ambient. Be lucky if gpu at idle sees a 2°C raise in temp and won't affect load gpu temps at all.

2. Totally agree as to possibility.

3. The H45 is somewhat better than the H60 in performance, so it's pretty equitable to a Cryorig H7 vrs the H60/CM Hyper212 evo.

4. Filters are a wonderful thing if you don't want to spend time every other week cleaning the entire pc.