Opinions are where to go from here with my setup.

[opio]

So this is where I'm at: I'm going to be getting a GTX 1080 (but I will be waiting it out for a watercooled or hybrid variant like the MSI Seahawk), then, as far as I'm concerned I won't need to do a thing to my PC for minimum 2 years, I may sell my 1080 in the future and get a 1080ti when it comes out, but I am DONE with SLI/Crossfire. But to keep my CPU nice and cool as I continue to overclock it more during that time I'm gonna need better cooling than a corsair H55, and I've loved the setup I've had now, it is so quiet.

I plan to upgrade my cpu's cooler as soon as I get my GTX 1080. Don't get me wrong, I would LOVE to get a Noctua DH-14 or DH-15, or any other number or equivalent air cooled cpu heatsinks, the only problem is that for me to get the same cooling performance, I have to get one that is HUGE, and if you look at my case, there's no way it's going to fit as I'm running an mATX motherboard. (unless any of you guys can point me in the direction of a really good aircooler that would fit, my case supports coolers up to 165mm in height)

Now on to my question, I'm trying to decide between a Corsair H80i or a Corsair H100i (I'd spring for a Zalman LQ320 but it's pretty much out of stock everywhere.) On the fractal design's website it says that if you're using a 240mm radiator on the top that you can't use the rear fan, and to me that's no good, but when I look at, It looks like it would fit, it looks like I could use a 240mm radiator and still be able to use the back fan slot. Comments? Suggestions? Alternate ways of doing things?

http://imgur.com/dKL8AaQ there is a picture of my pc's innards, I know it is kind of low res, let me know if you guys would like me to take a picture somewhere closer so you can see as I have a better camera now. My pc's specs are in my signature. Thanks to all for any input received.

 

[Nuckles_56]

I personally think that your next upgrade will be to go to a new case and a custom water cooling loop instead

 

[opio]

Don't got the money for it man..... I like the case I have now anyway. I'd rather just get a GTX 1080 that is liquid cooled or hybrid air/liquid cooled, I got my eye on the msi GTX 1080 seahawk, EVGA should be coming out with a similar card as well that I will consider, I'm sure Gigabyte and XFX will have similar hybrid or liquid cooled cards as well.

Once my CPU is outdated and I have to get a new motherboard, DDR4 ram and such I've considered a custom loop though, but that's like two years away minimum.

My little brother has a first gen i7 920 running on an X58 EVGA classified mobo that I overclocked to 3.5ghz for him (it was 2.66ghz stock) and it still works just fine with his GTX 980. Hell, it still rivals my setup. Until I get a GTX 1080 that is.

 

[Nuckles_56]

The reason I suggested it is that from what I can see of your setup, you have almost all the possible radiator space filled already.

 

[opio]

The reason I suggested it is that from what I can see of your setup, you have almost all the possible radiator space filled already.

But when I get my GTX 1080, which will be a liquid cooled version or hybrid liquid/air (the cards you see in my setup I used an NZXT Krakken sleeve so I could cool my 760's with Corsair H55's, which is awesome, I've overclocked my core on both cards to +130mhz and my memory to +505mhz, adding +12mV and I've never seen my cards go above 55C and it's all stable. They are actually 760 ITX versions so I actually had to cut the NZXT sleeve in halve and machine both of them and buy VRAM heatsinks and stuff. So once I have my 1080, which will be a 120mm radiator (stock though, so the VRAM will be covered), then I will have space for either a 240mm radiator or just a 120mm double thick radiator for my CPU, so one less radiator in my case. It just feels like that I would be able to fit a 240mm radiator on the top and still be able to use the back fan slot. Like I said though, if I could find a really good CPU air cooled heatsink I'm all for it. They're all just waaaay too big.

Plus I will never SLI again, I've had so many issues with games having crappy SLI profiles.... Titanfall is a big example, and since I can't use my removable top cage for 3 extra HDD/SSD slots I'll be able to put my second PCI-E slot to good use with a PCI-E SSD

 

[opio]

The reason I suggested it is that from what I can see of your setup, you have almost all the possible radiator space filled already.

Ya, today I just figured I'd get a NZXT X41 since it is 140mm and 36mm thick, most 120/140mm rads are 25mm thick. I also have an extra Noctua static pressure fan so I can push-pull, gonna put that in the top left (not to be confused with the rear fan slot), then have my GTX 1080's radiator go to the front, you can't see it in the picture, but there is a Noctua air flow fan in the front on the right side of the radiator because the fans clip in on the front, then I had to use standoff screws to put the radiator on and I screwed a static pressure fan in on the left, so both will be push-pull.

Then I'm getting an Arc Mini R2 side panel because the R2 has a window and I emailed Fractal Design and they said an R2 side panel will fit on the original Arc Mini, I figure I probably won't need the fan that goes on the original side panel anyway once I get everything where it needs to be, I'd rather be able to see inside.

Plus I did some measuring and I found that I really can't use the rear fan slot if I use a 240mm radiator, The NZXT X41 radiator has almost as much surface area to cool as a 240mm rad that is 25mm thick (like most are) anyway.

Noctua makes great fans, arguably the best.... but man.... I just wish they had a better color scheme and maybe some lights ya know? Anyway I gave you best answer because you took the time to give me some advice and made me think about stuff, I wouldn't have come to the conclusion on what exactly to do without your input. Thank you.

 

[geofelt]

My opinion which is what you asked for:
You are on the wrong track with liquid cooling for either the cpu or the graphics card.

What is the objective of liquid cooling in the first place?
You buy a liquid cooler to be able to extract an extra multiplier or two out of your OC.
How much do you really need?
The stock GTX1080 is a very strong card that is overkill for gaming at 1440P.

Your 4770K is a very good processor and it is already overclocked to 4.0.
How much more you can get out of it is determined by the quality of your chip, and not so much with the cooling you apply to it.
Higher clocks are accompanied by higher vcore and you are likely to run out of safe vcore limits(at about 1.30v) before you run out of thermal limits.

I replaced a i7-4790K with a i5-6600K because I wanted the ultimate in core speed which was most important for my games.

I have no problems with heat using s simple noctua NH-U12s cooling a i5-6600K@4.8
My stock GTX980ti SC runs my games at a steady 60fps on a 4k monitor that would be civ 4&5 skyrim.
If you will be playing fast action shooters at 4k, then the rumored GTX1080ti might be required.

Just my opinion; it is smarter to buy fast stock parts with conservative overclocks in the first place and not spend on parts trying to get something for nothing.

 

[opio]

My opinion which is what you asked for:
You are on the wrong track with liquid cooling for either the cpu or the graphics card.

What is the objective of liquid cooling in the first place?
You buy a liquid cooler to be able to extract an extra multiplier or two out of your OC.
How much do you really need?
The stock GTX1080 is a very strong card that is overkill for gaming at 1440P.

Your 4770K is a very good processor and it is already overclocked to 4.0.
How much more you can get out of it is determined by the quality of your chip, and not so much with the cooling you apply to it.
Higher clocks are accompanied by higher vcore and you are likely to run out of safe vcore limits(at about 1.30v) before you run out of thermal limits.

I replaced a i7-4790K with a i5-6600K because I wanted the ultimate in core speed which was most important for my games.

I have no problems with heat using s simple noctua NH-U12s cooling a i5-6600K@4.8
My stock GTX980ti SC runs my games at a steady 60fps on a 4k monitor that would be civ 4&5 skyrim.
If you will be playing fast action shooters at 4k, then the rumored GTX1080ti might be required.

Just my opinion; it is smarter to buy fast stock parts with conservative overclocks in the first place and not spend on parts trying to get something for nothing.

I can't really fit a lot of CPU air coolers on my board as it is micro ATX, plus I don't like the way that the air coolers that are actually worth it hang off of the motherboard like they do, I do realize that this really is not a problem, but all that aside, there are a lot of air coolers that just don't fit on my mobo without blocking my ram, or a pci-e slot. I already know I can get my CPU up to at least 4.5ghz, I've just been using overclock genie so far, that's why it's only at 4.0ghz. I already had my buddy get it to 4.5ghz and it was stable, but he recommended keeping it at 4.0ghz for now until I get a better cooling solution, because yes, I realize that there are a TON of air coolers out there that outperform a Corsair H55, they just don't fit on my mobo. But the NZXT X41 is a GOOD AIO.

I also think that the GTX 1080 is perfect for 1440p gaming at 120+ fps with a 21:9 IPS G-sync monitor. Not looking for 4k until I completely redo my setup, as in: get a new case, get a new motherboard, get a new CPU, get whatever GPU will be out by then, get new everything pretty much. And I'll more than likely be getting a full ATX mobo next time around, and yes, I will probably air cool the CPU..... but for me that's like mid 2018. And by then they'll more than likely have 4K 144hz IPS monitors with G-sync and 2ms or less response time. I will never go back to not having some form of advanced adaptive vertical sync, whether it's G-sync or Freesync.

Liquid cooling my GTX 760's has allowed me to overclock the hell out of them and keep temperatures down. I'm sorry, but there is no way anybody can convince me that I could get the overclocking that I do out of my 760's if they had the original stock coolers on them. I just wish they had 4gb of GDDR5 instead of 2gb.

And other than SC2, pretty much all I play are shooters and flight sims. As for never going for SLI again, Titanfall is a good example of why SLI is dead to me, that game has a crappy SLI profile, even if you force alternate frame rendering 2, it only utilizes half of each of my GPU's and I still get blinking and lens glaring and a bunch of other crap, it's better to just force single card with Titanfall. Plus Doom 4 STILL doesn't have an SLI profile, at least at the time I posted this.

At least right now I can play Overwatch at 120+fps with all the settings turned up at 1080p with my GPU's overclocked to +510ghz memory, +145mhz core, overvolted all the way to +12mV. Blizzard knows how to make a great SLI profile. I can still play Overwatch with settings turned up all the way without using my OC profile on msi Afterburner, but I lose about 15 fps