[SOLVED] PC Cooling Advice (w pics)

[doomfreak777]

Hi everyone, I was looking into OC'ing my CPU and realised pretty early on that it's temp limited and reaching the 90 degree limit fairly easily in benchmarking tests.

I feel like my airflow is not optimised too well and may be stagnating too - I was considering these options:

---AIO cooler mounted to rear fan area.
---Better air cooler with a fan that doesn't blow down onto the motherboard (literally only remembered this was an option yesterday)
---Plus any other suggestions you guys have.

I have a corsair 100r mid tower as per pictures, but I have added 2 intake 'holes' at the front so the airflow is isn't having to come through the slotted side grooves.
There is about 2 cm clearance between the near side of the GPU and the side panel FYI so potential for some air movement there.

Many thanks!
p.s. all GPU fans should be 'green' btw

 

[Lutfij]

To be very very blunt, the case and the airflow in your case won't get any better than that since all the fans are oriented in the right manner, although I see a mismatched set of fans. How are all the fans controlled in your build(apart from the CPU cooler's fan)? If I were you, I'd remove the top mounted fans, get an aftermarket aircooler like something from Be Quiet! or any other aircooler that's not taller than 150mm, then see what your temps are.

 

[doomfreak777]

To be very very blunt, the case and the airflow in your case won't get any better than that since all the fans are oriented in the right manner, although I see a mismatched set of fans. How are all the fans controlled in your build(apart from the CPU cooler's fan)? If I were you, I'd remove the top mounted fans, get an aftermarket aircooler like something from Be Quiet! or any other aircooler that's not taller than 150mm, then see what your temps are.

Blunt is OK!

Controlled using the 3rd party 'fan control' application (CPU fan too) - some show up as pairs from one control though:
CPU x1
Rear Case x1
Top Case 1&2
Front Case 1&2
GPU fans x 2
GPU fan x 1

Right now, just browsing on chrome with one or 2 programs open, CPU is sat around 45-60 degrees with little load.


In terms of a larger air cooler - what sort of orientation? Pulling air through bottom to top to exhaust out the top?

 

[Zerk2012]

Blunt is OK!

Controlled using the 3rd party 'fan control' application (CPU fan too) - some show up as pairs from one control though:
CPU x1
Rear Case x1
Top Case 1&2
Front Case 1&2
GPU fans x 2
GPU fan x 1

Right now, just browsing on chrome with one or 2 programs open, CPU is sat around 45-60 degrees with little load.


In terms of a larger air cooler - what sort of orientation? Pulling air through bottom to top to exhaust out the top?

From your picks the rear fan is blowing out as it should.
For upgrading to a better cooler it should be in from the front and out the back.

Edit what would be a good cooler depends on your CPU that was never listed.

 

[doomfreak777]

From your picks the rear fan is blowing out as it should.
For upgrading to a better cooler it should be in from the front and out the back.

Edit what would be a good cooler depends on your CPU that was never listed.

Actually you are right, the rear fan does blow OUT the back but it is extremely weak, maybe due to stagnation. I even tried turning off the top fans completely, and putting the rear fan to full (CPU fan still running) and I barely felt anything coming out apart from along one 'edge' of the fan.

CPU is Ryzen 7 5800X

 

[geofelt]

To some extent, the strong top exhaust fans are moving air out of the case before it has a chance to move past the cpu cooler.

The cooling capability of a cooler is largely dependent on the volume of the cooling fins.
You can install a top end air cooler like a Be Quiet dr4 pro
https://www.newegg.com/be-quiet-dar...30=5256313193264381212&id31=en&id32&id33&id34
Or a Noctua NH-D15s:
https://www.newegg.com/noctua-nh-d1...0=18392603172519611915&id31=en&id32&id33&id34

I would experiment with disconnecting the top fans.

Past these two solutions, you can always increase the speed of the front intakes.

 

[rolli59]

That AMD cooler is not enough for 5800X, there is a reason they do not bundle cooler with it.

 

[doomfreak777]

Thanks to both of you, I did think I would need to upgrade as I previously had a different CPU.

I tried turning the top fans off completely (without removing) and the temperature was much the same.

Opinions on a H60 AIO, the case can apparently only fit the single rad version. Would a large air cooler as previously linked be much better?

 

[Phaaze88]

Whether you go with the 120mm AIO(rear exhaust) or the air cooler, REMOVE the top fans.
The AIO would then be able to get some fresh air from the top.
The air cooler would then be able to get fresh air from both top and front.
... ~BUT, if you wish to prioritize gpu cooling, then leave the top fans where they are.

Arctic Liquid Freezer II 120(if available), then the H60, I guess.

Air cooler options are very limited - 150mm max clearance - then there's still the matter of availability.
Vetroo V5(148mm)
Thermalright Assassin King 120 Mini(135mm)

 

[doomfreak777]

Whether you go with the 120mm AIO(rear exhaust) or the air cooler, REMOVE the top fans.
The AIO would then be able to get some fresh air from the top.
The air cooler would then be able to get fresh air from both top and front.
... ~BUT, if you wish to prioritize gpu cooling, then leave the top fans where they are.

Arctic Liquid Freezer II 120(if available), then the H60, I guess.

Air cooler options are very limited - 150mm max clearance - then there's still the matter of availability.
Vetroo V5(148mm)
Thermalright Assassin King 120 Mini(135mm)

Thanks, I was about to reply to say my max clearance is 150mm!

I have a spare H60 knocking about so i'll try that first with some benchmarking - top fans removed...
GPU cooling hasn't been a problem for me so far at least
I guess there's no negative reason to be constantly removing and applying thermal paste to the CPU (have removal fluid and surface purifier)?



Thought's on this:

https://www.scan.co.uk/products/noc...oler-with-nf-a9-fan-copper-base-for-intel-amd

The compatibility section doesn't list AM4 socket compatibility however, am I missing something?

 

[Phaaze88]

I guess there's no negative reason to be constantly removing and applying thermal paste to the CPU (have removal fluid and surface purifier)?

I've never personally tried it, but some say if it was applied very recently, it doesn't need to be cleaned off and reapplied. There might be some truth to that if excess paste is used... too little, and I don't believe that would work.

I don't know what the latter part is about, but 90% iso alcohol(dries quickly) and a disposable cloth(kleenex/napkin/coffee filter) do just fine.

 

[geofelt]

Measure the height available to you for an air cooler.
The specs do say 150mm.
But, looking at your photos, it looks like there is good height available.
A review showed a 165mm thermalright silver arrow-SBE installed:

Corsair Carbide 100R Silent Edition Mid-Tower Case Review - KitGuru

Today we are going to take a look at one of the latest cases in the Corsair range, the Carbide 100R

www.kitguru.net

If you truly need 150mm max, this noctua NH-U12L comes in at 145mm:
https://noctua.at/en/nh-d12l/specification
The dual towers will be about as good as you can do.

 

[rolli59]

H60 may struggle with the CPU but is better than current cooler. We have seen multiple example here with 120mm AIO struggling.

 

[doomfreak777]

So I went for the Noctua NH-U12L and removed the 2 top fans. It's made a huge difference, now there is no thermal throttling so my CPU can boost properly up to 4.7 - before it was stuck at 4.4.

The heat coming out the back of the case is crazy with the benchmarking, so it's obviously working well. Sits at 80 degrees during Cinebench R23 and, when idle, is about 8 degrees cooler too. Also less noise without the top 2 fans.

As someone mentioned, there is clearance to get a radiator larger than 150mm in there but I went for the safe option. I may consider adding another fan to the heatsink which will sit slightly proud due to the RAM clearance but I'm not sure if this is really entirely necessary right now.

Thanks to everyone that helped!