Question Improving cooling in a cramped case?

[Drimmy]

I'm currently using a Corsair 4000D airflow which is nice, but unfortunately I have an AIO that's gigantic relative to it. I have a Liquid Freezer II 280 A-RGB and it will only fit on the front, tubes up, due to my Aorus Z690 motherboard. The back hub/heatsink on the motherboard prevents it from lining up on top and the AIO radiator touches my ram anyway which messes with it, so it only fits front. The AIO fans are mounted inside, pulling air inward and I realize it's probably pulling hot air directly into my GPU. It's specifically making my 3080ti FTW 3 get a bit too hot at 80-82 c on heavy load with a fan curve that kicks in early and high. I also have the GPU undervolted to 1950 @ 925 mV. The upside is my CPU is always at very cool temperatures, but I'd like to reduce GPU temps by at last a couple of degrees and ideally be able to decrease my fan speeds if possible.

I have one 140mm fan exhaust on top, and unfortunately I can only fit 1 fan top because the AIO tubes block the rest of the space as they really can't bend any more. I have the default Corsair case fan on rear exhaust but I read they're not that great. Will adding a quality 120mm rear fan reduce my GPU temps at all? I'm open to suggestions about optimizing cooling in general.

 

[lordmogul]

Making an air duct might be a solution.

• You could buy or 3d print something, but good old cardboard would make for an ugly, but functional test setup. You could try separating the airflow from the AiO from the graphics card.
• Is your GPU mounted vertically? If it just sits "normally" in the slots, you might try putting a fan below the GPU blowing air in.
• If it would come with a solid metal or mesh side panel I would just pull air from there with a fan on the side below the GPU (which might require drilling a corresponding hole)

The question is how much work are you willing to do, and how much are you willing to sacrifice visuals for temperature.

 

[warriorlax1234]

How is your static pressure? Have you placed a piece of paper in the front to see if the air is causing the paper to "stick" to the front? This is a horrible solution but one I've used in the past. You could buy a PCI fan card and install that in the bottom slot or close to your gpu. It would at least help the gpu keep cool. If sound suppression is important to you, the add in card might not be the best solution. Other than that, I really have no other suggestions other than upgrading the case to something full ATX or would fit your AIO better and allow more room for your AIO.

I have a tower that has 3 intake fans in the front, 2 exhaust up top, and 1 in the back. I'm using a tower cooler and my temps are perfect.

Example of a PCI fan card

 

[Phaaze88]

80-82 f

I take it you meant Celsius, not Fahrenheit.

AIO fans are mounted inside, pulling air inward and I realize it's probably pulling hot air directly into my GPU. It's specifically making my 3080ti FTW 3 get a bit too hot at 80-82 f on heavy load with a fan curve that kicks in early and high.

This is SO exaggerated, especially if gaming is involved. The difference in gpu temperatures may be 0, or a couple degrees(C) at most...
Cpus do not pull much power at all in games, thus don't dunk on gpu thermals much at all.
Flip it the scenario around to the gpu dumping heat into the cpu cooler, and it's much more significant, to 5C or more on core temperatures.

Liquid Freezer II 280 A-RGB
The AIO fans are mounted inside, pulling air inward...

Some fans do better as push on a radiator instead of pull. I think I recall @kerberos_20 mentioning that with the Liquid Freezer IIs...
It's not like you're using the 4000X; push fans might be a little less effective in that model due to the glass.

Just to be sure, the LF IIs fans are in position to bring air inside the PC, right? Some have actually gotten that wrong, in part due to the fans being preinstalled onto the radiator.

 

[Drimmy]

Making an air duct might be a solution.

• You could buy or 3d print something, but good old cardboard would make for an ugly, but functional test setup. You could try separating the airflow from the AiO from the graphics card.
• Is your GPU mounted vertically? If it just sits "normally" in the slots, you might try putting a fan below the GPU blowing air in.
• If it would come with a solid metal or mesh side panel I would just pull air from there with a fan on the side below the GPU (which might require drilling a corresponding hole)

The question is how much work are you willing to do, and how much are you willing to sacrifice visuals for temperature.

My GPU is mounted normally. I hadn't considered an air duct, so I'll research it more and probably try some PCI mounted fans under it in the mean time.

How is your static pressure? Have you placed a piece of paper in the front to see if the air is causing the paper to "stick" to the front? This is a horrible solution but one I've used in the past. You could buy a PCI fan card and install that in the bottom slot or close to your gpu. It would at least help the gpu keep cool. If sound suppression is important to you, the add in card might not be the best solution. Other than that, I really have no other suggestions other than upgrading the case to something full ATX or would fit your AIO better and allow more room for your AIO.

It looks like my static pressure is good since it was holding a paper on the front. I'm definitely alright with trying a PCI fan card so I'll probably order one soon and test it.

I take it you meant Celsius, not Fahrenheit.



This is SO exaggerated, especially if gaming is involved. The difference in gpu temperatures may be 0, or a couple degrees(C) at most...
Cpus do not pull much power at all in games, thus don't dunk on gpu thermals much at all.
Flip it the scenario around to the gpu dumping heat into the cpu cooler, and it's much more significant, to 5C or more on core temperatures.



Some fans do better as push on a radiator instead of pull. I think I recall @kerberos_20 mentioning that with the Liquid Freezer IIs...
It's not like you're using the 4000X; push fans might be a little less effective in that model due to the glass.

Just to be sure, the LF IIs fans are in position to bring air inside the PC, right? Some have actually gotten that wrong, in part due to the fans being preinstalled onto the radiator.

Oops, you're right, I meant Celsius. I doubled checked to make sure they're acting as the intake side so it's okay there. It's good to know that AIO air intake isn't as big a deal in that case. I hadn't even thought about it but I probably need to set the AIO fans to a constant minimum speed so they're also acting like case fans and not only cooling the radiator when it needs.

 

[Phaaze88]

I hadn't even thought about it but I probably need to set the AIO fans to a constant minimum speed so they're also acting like case fans and not only cooling the radiator when it needs.

Yes! They're not just cpu cooler fans, but also case fans.

 

[warriorlax1234]

Oh yea... crank those fans up. Get as much airflow using as many fans as you can.