[SOLVED] Question about AIO

[gadenn]

If I buy say a 360mm cooler and put it in the front of the case, do the fans for the cooler also act as intake fans? IE, do I also need to buy intake fans?

Are there cases that have room to mount a cooler that large in the back and use as exhaust, if so, is that a better method?

 

[Karadjgne]

Most case designs in the ATX standard will use a single 92mm-140mm at rear, 120mm-480mm at top or 120mm-480mm at front.

Yes, there are a few cases with multiple fan rear exhaust, but they are niche cases and very hard to find, definitely not a mainstream case.

Fans are fans. Has nothing to do with whether there is a radiator attached or not, so Yes definitely you can use the fans included with the AIO as intake fans or exhaust. I ran a 280mm AIO with its 2x 140mm fans as intake and 2x 140mm fans as top exhaust for years. You can mount the fans to push air through the rad into the case, or mount them inside on the back of the rad to pull air into the case, doesn't matter, as long as airflow is into the case if the rad is at the front.

Same as for the top. Doesn't matter push or pull as long as air goes out.

Push/pull is where you have fans on both sides of the radiator, so you can add fans if you wish, but it barely makes any difference. Push works better at high rpm, pull works better at low rpm, so push/pull covers the differences of both.

 

[stefanos50]

If I buy say a 360mm cooler and put it in the front of the case, do the fans for the cooler also act as intake fans? IE, do I also need to buy intake fans?

Are there cases that have room to mount a cooler that large in the back and use as exhaust, if so, is that a better method?

If you install a radiator at the front that intake air from outside then the air after going through the radiator you will intake warm air in the case and this may have bad impact to all the other components temps in your case. In my opinion the best way is to install the radiator on the top as exhaust. One really good case for watercooling that i tried is lian li o11 dynamic it will give you many options.

 

[Karadjgne]

With decent airflow, case temps are only affected by 2-3°C at best with a front mounted AIO. Generally only impacts the gpu a few °C, so unless you are typically running the gpu at a constant 80+°C, there's realistically very little difference overall.

What people fail to realize is that the coolant in an aio isn't cpu temperature. You aren't pushing 70°C air into the case, you are pushing the 70w from the cpu into the case, the coolant is barely above the case temp.

Blow on your hand, feel the temp. Then put your hand on the other side of a light bulb and blow. Don't touch the light bulb. You'll feel the air slightly warmer, but not anywhere near the burning heat of the light bulb itself, only the additional 60w output. That's an AIO. The cpu might be 70°C but the coolant will be closer to 35°C, carrying the 70w from the cpu output.

A hairdryer on low heat is @ 400w in comparison, ask any woman the usefulness of that setting when trying to blow dry their hair.

 

[geofelt]

A top mounted exhaust is the best you can do.
I know of no cases with a 360mm rad mount in the rear.

What is the make/model of your case?
What is the cpu and gpu that you will be using?

 

[Karadjgne]

Inwin 909. Inwin has a couple of cases with a top mounted radiator (vertically and sideways mounted not horizontal), that exhausts out the rear.

There's also the niche cases like the Shift-X or Corsair One that use rear mounted radiators for either gpu aio or cpu aio, and not necessarily relegated to a small 120mm rad.