Question I'm doing a build using a 400mm radiator, need some help.

[Wrinklybard4]

I'm attempting to make a gaming/music machine. This puts me in the odd position of needing to optimize for both silence and power.

I figure that the best way to do this is with a 400mmx200mm radiator and four 200mm fans. I found a case that would fit the radiator (Thermal take core 71), and the best fans for the job (Coolermaster megaflow 200, 19dba and 110ish cfm).

this leaves me with the 400mm by 200mm radiator. There are two available choices, one that's 45mm deep and one that's 85mm deep. If I go with the 45mm I can do a push-pull configuration without having to remove the case's drive bays.

I see two advantages to the 45. The first is that since I want as little movement as possible for noise reasons I don't want any HDDs. Because of this, the extra drive bays could be needed so I don't spend a fortune on high-capacity SSDs. The second advantage I can think of is that since its thinner I might be able to run the four fans at much slower speeds, because of how sound works, running 4 fans at half speed is just as loud as running one fan at full speed, while still producing twice as much airflow (assuming the dba goes down proportionally with the rpm, which I think it does for this fan).

The main advantage of the 85 is higher cooling capacity, but with the 45 deep already having more surface area than a 45mm deep 540 radiator, that seems unnecessary. I also don't have a good idea on how much it would actually help, since people seem to say that a linear increase in radiator depth does not equal a linear increase in cooling capacity.

I'd be cooling an i9-10900k using a motherboard block, and an rtx3070.

Any thoughts? Concerns?

 

[Lutfij]

Welcome to the forums, newcomer!

No offence but the fans you've landed upon are more than 6 years old(I think they're a decade old) and they came with the HAF 912 cases back in the day. You should be looking at Noctua's, Phobya's, EKWB's, or Noiseblocker fans or fans that have a high static pressure, not just high CFM.

I think you should read through the watercooling sticky(linked in my sig) to understand your watercooling needs. Yes over-radding is a good idea but if you can streamline it, then there's no need for a massive, cumbersome watercooling setup.

 

[Wrinklybard4]

No offence but the fans you've landed upon are more than 6 years old(I think they're a decade old)

well... yeah...

No offense taken, I came here for advice, and that's what I got.
with that said, part of the (unsaid) reason I picked those fans is that I have 3 of them. they've been running successfully in my pc for years now, and are pretty much silent (my dad's an audio guy and i borrowed the right equipment to test it, so the noise level is more than just opinion). Assuming the CFM is equal to what's advertised, then they're great fans imho.

With that said, your point about the cfm vs static pressure is 100% correct and valid, however, as far as I can tell the 200mm static fans run about 10dba higher. Hence my attempt to just brute force my way through this with an obscene amount of surface area and multiple high airflow fans.

in regards to cumbersome-ness, this would allow me to simplify my setup due to there only being one radiator, and wouldn't require any modification to the case. though the 85mm radiator might look a bit odd...

also, the radiators are 12 TPI and copper, so they shouldn't be awful for the fans since they're on the lower end of the fin density spectrum...
using the equation in your water cooling sticky the radiator should have 832.7268 watts of thermal displacement (though this isn't taking into account the rpm difference nor the static pressure difference)

I'm in no way trying to disregard your suggestions, just trying to explain my reasoning.

P.S. I did read through the sticky, it was very useful.