Question Mounting AIO radiator in/on my case?

[inund8]

So I have an old Antec 302 case, which I love dearly, but I have decided its time to step up my cooling game on. I've got my eye on a coolermaster aio, but I have no idea where I'm meant to mount the rad. My case has holes for water cooling piping, but that doesn't quite work as well for aio's does it?

 

[Karadjgne]

No. That's an old full custom loop design where large radiators were mounted externally to the case. AIO's do not come apart to use those.

The best you can do for liquid cooling is a 240mm AIO mounted where the 2x front fans mount. I'd also use a 120mm fan at rear exhaust and a 120/140mm at top exhaust. There's no real point to 120mm aios except maybe the H80i series as budget aircoolers get almost identical performance for half the cost.

CPU Cooler: EVGA - CLC 240 74.82 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler ($99.89 @ OutletPC)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master - MasterLiquid ML240L RGB 66.7 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler ($69.89 @ OutletPC)
CPU Cooler: Corsair - H100i PRO 75 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler ($89.99 @ Newegg)

 

[tennis2]

Your only place to mount a 240mm rad in an Antec 302 is in the front since that's the only place that has 2x120mm fan mounts.

The problem with rads is that there massively restrictive to airflow. With the 240mm rad as intake and the rear 120mm exhaust, I'd recommend putting a 120mm intake on the side panel.

What CPU & GPU?

 

[inund8]

Your only place to mount a 240mm rad in an Antec 302 is in the front since that's the only place that has 2x120mm fan mounts.

The problem with rads is that there massively restrictive to airflow. With the 240mm rad as intake and the rear 120mm exhaust, I'd recommend putting a 120mm intake on the side panel.

What CPU & GPU?

Currently, its a PNY 1060 6GB and a i5 2500k, but I have a mobo with an i5 4670k ready to take its place. I got the 4670 used, and the owner gave to me with no fan, so that's why I'm looking at a new cooler. Maybe I should get a similarly priced air cooler? Like the coolermaster V8?
I don't currently have any fans in the front, but I'm also not sure how to get into the front, I'm using the blow hole for intake, and the side for exhaust.
ETA: part of the reason I wanted to go with an AIO, is because I'm looking at building a swag low profile HTPC for my living room, eventually. Even if this aio turns out to be poor value for the price, I'll still get to use its potential.

 

[inund8]

No. That's an old full custom loop design where large radiators were mounted externally to the case. AIO's do not come apart to use those.

The best you can do for liquid cooling is a 240mm AIO mounted where the 2x front fans mount. I'd also use a 120mm fan at rear exhaust and a 120/140mm at top exhaust. There's no real point to 120mm aios except maybe the H80i series as budget aircoolers get almost identical performance for half the cost.

CPU Cooler: EVGA - CLC 240 74.82 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler ($99.89 @ OutletPC)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master - MasterLiquid ML240L RGB 66.7 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler ($69.89 @ OutletPC)
CPU Cooler: Corsair - H100i PRO 75 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler ($89.99 @ Newegg)

Is there any difference between the ML240L and ML240R? other than price? More fins on the rad maybe?

 

[Karadjgne]

Airflow is important. But you don't need gale winds inside either. Just a good, steady constant flow. One of the better advantages of AIO's is that cpu temp as such from an aircooler is largely removed as a factor. Even as an intake, you'll only see case temps go up by an average of 2°C or so. The vast majority of heat inside a case will be due to the gpu. And 1060's at a max 120w are not exactly hot running to start with. As long as you have some air intake, a single 120mm exhaust at rear is fine. A 240mm AIO like the Evga 240 CLC will provide plenty of air intake. Cfm is cfm, the air is not restricted as much as it would seem. Higher sp fans on radiators still put adequate air through the rad. The restriction is more in the form of that air not reaching further back into the case, not the amount of air input. With a smaller case, that's not so important as the draw from the exhaust will create a lower pressure area by the fan, and nature abhors a vacuum, so any air from the intakes will naturally gravitate towards the back of the case, taking gpu heat with it.

Putting an intake on the side would be a mistake. That air intake would blow directly onto the gpu/mobo, and while artificially cooling them according to sensors, will also push heat back towards the AIO's intake, which over longer periods of use ends up as a hot spot, right at where most drives sit. If anything, that side fan should be used as exhaust, with a low rpm fan to pick up gpu heat and exhaust it out before it rises, a high rpm fan doing the lions share of the work would leave the top front as the Hotspot.

You want natural thermal vectors to work for you, not against.

For htpc's cpu temps are not nearly as important a number as benchmarks would have you believe. It's of far more importance to have as silent a pc as possible. The cpu does not care if it's 45°C or 60°C so having a smaller cooler that's screaming away to get you 45° is a whole lot less useful than a larger capacity cooler with inaudible fans churning out 60°C under any workload. As long as the cpu remains under @ 70°C, actual temp is a useless number. For htpc's use the biggest capacity cooler you can cram into the case, it simply means the fans can be turned down in rpm until near silent, even if the cpu temp goes up a little. Higher cfm silent exhaust fans are also a bonus.

Nobody wants to watch a movie with a htpc that sounds like you are driving 60mph with the window down.

 

[Karadjgne]

The ML240L and ML240R are the same cooler, except the ML240R has addressable RGB that's used via motherboard software or 3rd party software directly for the RGB on the fans/pump whereas the ML240L uses a physical controller and has a somewhat less pronounced RGB. ARGB fans are also somewhat more expensive than standard RGB, as individual leds are separately controllable vrs standard RGB which affects every led in the fan simultaneously. You pay a lot more for the ability to see a fan with rainbow colors than a fan at a single changeable color.

Personally, I can live without the disco-ball affect, especially since it'll only be seen through the front grill with that Antec and chances are good your motherboard doesn't have ARGB capability like MSI Mystic, or Gigabyte Auros etc with ARGB headers.

 

[tennis2]

You can use the same cooler from your 2500K on a 4570K and even a 9600K

To remove the front panel just pull where the plastic front panel meets the metal case. There will be a post in each corner.

When you say "low profile case" I think of something like the Fractal Design Node 202 or similar. Cases like that can't take a 240mm rad.

 

[Karadjgne]

Yes, you can use the same cooler for a 2500k and 4670, but I'd not use it on a 9600k. TDP is the amount of power used in moderate apps averaged out. It usually coincides within 5°C ± of the cpu temp with a stock cooler. What it doesn't coincide with is temp under extreme usage. Under 100% loads, thermal output can easily reach 1.5-2.5x the TDP of the cpu, depending on the cpu. Stock coolers will not suffer that kind of abuse, generally reaching high 90's or better.

 

[tennis2]

Well yeah, if it's a stock Intel cooler then it belongs in the garbage anyway. We don't know what the OPs current cooler is.

 

[inund8]

Fractal Design Node 202

I hadn't seen the node till now, but I was more considering the thermal take core G3 Slim

 

[Karadjgne]

At 110mm cpu cooler clearance, that's a case for AIO/small custom loop only where you are looking at 1x 240mm rad and 1x 120mm rad at best unless you go external. Which is ok for an i5+gtx1060, but nothing really too much bigger in wattage.