[SOLVED] NZXT H710i liquid cooling opinions

Aug 23, 2020
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Hello, first of all I apologize if this is not the right section of the forum, I'm not sure where else to post this since it's a bit of a mix between a case and a cooling question.
I'm posting here after multiple disappointing readings and experiences on my home country's Tomshw and Reddit where people are often unfriendly or hating a specific brand etc, so I'll try my luck here.

I'm going to build my first computer in November and I'm doing my best and working hard in order to be able to get a pc that performs nice and that also looks nice. For this reason I've been debating a lot on which case to buy between the NZXT H510i and the H710i. For the look alone I'd go with the smaller case but since I've been reading a lot of stuff and seen lots of videos where the H510i is pictured as a "very bad airflow" case, I decided that I'll probably get the H710i.. I like this second one too in the end and if it will give me less headaches and if it will run a bit quieter then it's probably the best choice for me.

My question is about which liquid cooler to fit in the H710i: basically all the videos/threads that I've been reading had a Kraken X73 (or anyway a 360mm radiator) mounted in the H710i. Here's what I thought..

Please pay attention because my question requires a bit of imagination (if that's the right word).
The H710i comes with three 120mm fans on front and one 140mm fan on rear (pre-installed). I'm going to buy THREE NZXT 140mm RGB fans and I will put one on the rear and two on top (I'll be doing this for the aesthetic). This will leave me with a spare non-rgb 140mm fan (removed from the back of the case).

Now come the questions.

Option 1: I prefer 140mm fans, so I was thinking of getting a Kraken X63 and to mount it on front in push/pull using the Kraken's fans + the spare 140mm fan that was previously mounted on rear and then BUY an additional 140mm fan of the same kind. This way I would have to buy a total of 4 fans and the Kraken X63. Will this look good and work well in your opinion?

Option 2: I buy a Kraken X73 instead (which I like less compared to the X63) and attach it in a push/pull config to the three 120mm front fans that come with the case. If I go with this I will save a little money on the fans (buying 3 instead of 4) but I'll spend more for the water cooler compared to "Option 1".

All in all, the price of the two options is the same or almost the same. I'm more interested in figuring out which solution will be quieter and better looking. In the "Option 1" there would be a total of 7 fans spinning in the case, in the "Option 2" there would be 9 (6 of them being small 120mm). To me it already sounds crazy to have 7 (without considering the graphic card and the power supply) and I think I definitely prefer 140mm but I'm not sure how good a 280mm cooler looks and performs in such a big case. Mounting the radiator on top is not an option because having all of that free space on front will make me dislike the case.

If this is of any help, I'll say that I won't be going for crazy overclocks, I prefer a quiet and cool systems that can run my games normally in 2k. For reference, imagine a Ryzen 5 or Ryzen 7 and at most a rtx 3070 or 3080. Please let me know what you think ♥
 
Solution
The H500 series has a major weakness: limited cooler options.
There are specific hardware combinations that this chassis can't reasonably handle, and most people who own one don't set it up correctly anyways:
A)If only air cooling, the default fan setup of only front and rear exhaust is the best - there are no buts to this. The front should not be filled with fans, but people go and do it anyway, only to make it worse.
This chassis' design follows a different airflow pattern; the traditional setup doesn't work effectively.

B)When planning to install a liquid cooler, it is imperative that the user reserve the front for a 240/280mm hybrid cooler for the hottest device between cpu and gpu; the cooler device will be left to air cooling...

Phaaze88

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The H500 series has a major weakness: limited cooler options.
There are specific hardware combinations that this chassis can't reasonably handle, and most people who own one don't set it up correctly anyways:
A)If only air cooling, the default fan setup of only front and rear exhaust is the best - there are no buts to this. The front should not be filled with fans, but people go and do it anyway, only to make it worse.
This chassis' design follows a different airflow pattern; the traditional setup doesn't work effectively.

B)When planning to install a liquid cooler, it is imperative that the user reserve the front for a 240/280mm hybrid cooler for the hottest device between cpu and gpu; the cooler device will be left to air cooling.
THIS is what most people do wrong in the H500s. They liquid cool the cpu by default, when it's the gpu that should've gotten it instead; then the gpu is seen running unnecessarily hot. There are far more gpus regularly pulling 200w+ compared to cpus.
NZXT intended for users to utilize their Kraken G12 for the gpu, but not everyone likes taking their gpu apart, so for that...

C)The H700 series is NZXT's direct response to the H500's weaknesses.

Now, as for the questions:
1)Push-pull is worthless in this chassis. Do push or pull only.
Look at the design of the chassis. The front push fan would be too close to the solid panel to really do anything.
Push-pull would work better if the entire panel were mesh, but it isn't.
Kraken X63 front pull, 2-3 top exhaust, and 1 rear exhaust sounds pretty good, or Kraken X63 up top(if it fits), pushing air out, 3 front intake, and 1 rear exhaust also works.

2)This is pretty much identical to question 1, except I don't know of any Ryzen part that needs a 360mm hybrid cooler, because they don't.
That would be far more useful on the gpu, but liquid cooler compatibility for the RTX 30 series is mostly unknown - it is new after all.
 
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Solution
Aug 23, 2020
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Thank you so much for the answer! I learned a lot of things from it!
So what you're saying is that, starting from the front of the case, I would have to install first the radiator and the fans behind it as intake to pull the air in.

If I was to install the radiator on the front, do you think that the X63 would look bad/worse than the X73 (since it's shorter)?

My concern without push/pull is that I will create negative pressure inside the case (2 pressure fan intake and 3 airflow fans as exhaust) while I thought that a more balanced config would have been better (for the dust too) with 2 pressure + 2 bad (?) airflow fans intake and 3 airflow fans exhaust.
 

Phaaze88

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A)The radiator fans set to pull, will have more 'breathing room' from the actual air intakes.

B)Looks are subjective; I can't help you there.

C)Don't overthink it.
-Dust is inevitable. Just clean the PC 2-3 times a year.
-The advantage of push-pull is being able to run the fans at lower rpms, but if the intakes aren't open mesh, you'll have to run higher rpms anyway.
 
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Aug 23, 2020
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Thank you again for the answer! Since I have about 1 month or 1 and half month before needing to finish my build, I'll have (hopefully) the chance to catch some components when they're on sale. For this reason I'd like to ask about things that I will buy for sure.

Is the NZXT C750W a good power supply?

For the storage I won't need crazy amounts of GB, so I've been thinking of a config with a NVME + Sata SSD.
NVME: Samsung Evo Plus 250GB
Sata SSD: Samsung 860 EVO 1TB
Are they good or can I do better for around the same price? (I don't want HDD). Will the Sata SSD be fast enough if I want to record a bit of what's happening on my screen (gaming)?

Should I get two M2 SSD instead of one M2 and one Sata? My motherboard will probably be an ATX with B550 and I know that the second slot m2 is probably slower, so I'm looking for opinions. Will having two m2 installed stress the chipset more?

And another question: I've been told to install the OS and the drivers on the NVME for faster boot and overall system responsiveness. But what about games? Should I install them on the second SSD?
 

Burigeller

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Sep 16, 2020
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I prefer 140mm fans, so I was thinking of getting a Kraken X63 and to mount it on front in push/pull using the Kraken's fans + the spare 140mm fan that was previously mounted on rear and then BUY an additional 140mm fan of the same kind. This way I would have to buy a total of 4 fans and the Kraken X63. Will this look good and work well in your opinion?
I had the same question a year ago when i bought my Dark Base Pro 900. So i did some research.
There is no point in getting a X73 over a X63 the extra money is not worth it for 1-2°C difference. Same goes for Push-Pull config. You dont really need the excessive power of 4 Fans for a 280mm Radiator. Temps dont change much. Radiator infront is a really good decision. make sure you have enough exhaust fans to get the heat from the mobo (not much but still) and the GPU out, i have the Kraken X62 and never had to run the fans at more than 30% (and that in a Bequiet Case where the airflow sucks balls yo) You should go with option 1 without having 4 fans mounted to the Radiator. The rest is perfectly cool.
 
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Phaaze88

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Is the NZXT C750W a good power supply?
I had to look this one up - almost no one mentions their psus anymore.
It's OK though: https://www.tomshardware.com/uk/reviews/nzxt-c750-power-supply-review


For the storage I won't need crazy amounts of GB, so I've been thinking of a config with a NVME + Sata SSD.
NVME: Samsung Evo Plus 250GB
Sata SSD: Samsung 860 EVO 1TB
Are they good or can I do better for around the same price? (I don't want HDD). Will the Sata SSD be fast enough if I want to record a bit of what's happening on my screen (gaming)?

Should I get two M2 SSD instead of one M2 and one Sata? My motherboard will probably be an ATX with B550 and I know that the second slot m2 is probably slower, so I'm looking for opinions. Will having two m2 installed stress the chipset more?

And another question: I've been told to install the OS and the drivers on the NVME for faster boot and overall system responsiveness. But what about games? Should I install them on the second SSD?
Hmm...
A)An M.2/NVMe isn't necessary for a boot drive - as long as it's an SSD, period.
Avoid the really cheap, Dram-less SSDs though. The performance on these things drops off a cliff if they're even moderately full, and end up performing worse than HDDs.

B)250-500GBs is enough for an OS-only drive.
I prefer to have an OS exclusively for the OS, because if for whatever reason, I need to reinstall it, I don't have to hesitate to backup or reinstall any files not related to it.
Well, I may have to reinstall the occasional chipset driver that forces itself on to the C drive, but not a big deal.

C)Some newer titles, I hear, do benefit from being installed on an SSD, but they also appear to be getting bigger and bigger.
SSDs still have a worse price per GB than HDDs, so it depends on how much you're willing to spend on that game library. A 1TB SSD might hold 7-9 AAA games.

D)Samsung is good, but they make you pay for it; they're pricey. Some more affordable alternatives:
Intel 660P/665P
Kingston A2000
Western Digital Blue/Blue SN550
Crucial MX500
Adata XPG SX8200 Pro
SK Hynix Gold S31

Hope this helps!
 
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Aug 23, 2020
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I am planning to play quite a bit but I play always the same games so I'll never have more than 2 or 3 games installed.
Do you think that one m.2 + one sata would be better than having twoa m.2 then? And which one should hold the OS and which one the games/files/random stuff?

As for recording the gameplay on a Sata SSD, will it be fast enough to record 60fps 2k?

Thank you very much to both of you ♥️
 

Phaaze88

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Do you think that one m.2 + one sata would be better than having twoa m.2 then?
Depends on the pricing at the time.
For an OS only drive and a game library, it really doesn't matter whether its an M.2 or SATA SSD.

And which one should hold the OS and which one the games/files/random stuff?
Same as above; it doesn't matter.
Get the storage type that's more affordable for you at the time, because the pricing tends to change quite often between them.

That said, M.2 does have one small thing going for it - it's more of an aesthetic though: since it plugs directly into the mobo, there's one less cable to see/use.

As for recording the gameplay on a Sata SSD, will it be fast enough to record 60fps 2k?
Unfortunately, that is unknown to me, as I'm not familiar with game recording/streaming; I can't give ya a concrete answer here.
 
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Aug 23, 2020
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Thank you again. I'll keep asking some silly questions if you don't mind because I'm totally ignorant about this stuff!

When I buy the components for my pc, will I have to buy the sata cable for the SSD separately? Or does it usually come with the motherboard? In case I have to buy it separately, is THIS a good one? Should I go with 30 or 60cm length?

I'm sure I'll have more questions 🦊