Question Wanting to get the most out of my S340 Elite Hyper Beast - Cooling config.

[esq.david.holmes]

Hey all, I was thinking that it's about time to put something into my S340 Elite Hyper Beast case, and was wondering about a decent fan config.

I'm looking at the NZXT Kraken Z63 (mainly because I'm shallow and I like the LED' gimmick)
This 280mm would go at the front of the case, of course.

I'm thinking of the Noctua Industrial-2000 fans, both a 140mm for the top and a 120mm for the rear.

Now in my head, that's a decent cooling config, so to my questions;
1) Do I keep the base NZXT fans on the Kraken or do I get third party ones?
b) If so, will there be enough space in the case for a push/pull config?
2) What airflow direction should I use? Pull in the front or out? I think pulling in would make the air that gets moved through the case hotter and less optimal cooling for the GPU? Of course, I'm probably wrong, so what would be ideal?

I'm looking at getting one of the new 4k series cards, probably up to around £1,500. CPU will be the Intel i9-12900KF... If those might affect cooling decisions.

 

[Phaaze88]

1A)Look at it this way: the IPPC 2000 fans are completely wasted if you never run them at/over the speed of their original/Chromax version.
NF-A14 IPPC 2000 operating at 1500rpm Vs Chromax NF-A14 at 1500rpm = tie. The same applies to the NF-F12s too.

If you don't run the stock fans very high to begin with, new ones likely won't add any more to the table.

1B)As a reminder, that would potentially limit your gpu options...


2)Pull, aimed inside of the PC... or just look for a flashier air cooler.
Solid, or semi-solid panels are not healthy neighbors for fans, so the farther away, the better.



If the S340 is anything like their H500 series - well, it's the predecessor to the latter - it's a negative pressure focused chassis with both limited air intake and exhaust. The higher system power consumption gets, the harder managing cooling will be.
If the trend of high(er) power consuming gpus - along with specific cpus - continues, models like the S340 won't hold up well; you'll discover things like:
-cpu or gpu cooler not getting enough air intake.
-the cpu and gpu are producing more heat than the top and rear fan are capable of removing.
-both.

The 12900K is, in my eyes, a Tweaker's cpu.
If you've no interest in playing around or experimenting with various settings via bios or Intel XTU, you'll be hit by the freight train of high out of the box core temperatures that the chip has gained popularity for when running specific tasks that aren't games.
The folks who bought the cpu for work-related tasks and want it to work out of the box without doing anything more to the 12900K than installing it, especially see high core thermals. Games are not an issue.
If you've seen any reviews of the cpu - even 360mm AIOs(Kitguru did one) will kneel down to this cpu if it's allowed to do what it wants. [I repeat, games are not an issue.]

 

[esq.david.holmes]

Thanks for the response!

For CPU, I was looking at between the i9-12900KF or i7-12700KF.

Primarily something that will last me a decent few years, some OC headroom (hence K var.) and maybe some multi-core productivity on the side as a hobby.

I am aware of the case not being optimal, but it is something special that I was able to pick up 6 years ago and I want to make use of. However, if the cooling really can't keep up, I'll just use it as a second pc/guest pc and just get a better one.

So let's see if my brain can understand what you said about the fans... I should only change them out to third party fans if I plan on running them at a higher rpm than they can do?
I was wondering if replacing the NZXT fans with the Noctua 2000's would allow for better airflow, not just a higher speed.

I apologies if I don't understand that properly, but I look forward to your response in helping me with this.

 

[Phaaze88]

12700 or 12700K.

some OC headroom (hence K var.)

OC'ing is practically dead with 12th gen unless you do LN2. AMD smacked Intel so hard, that:
-XMP is supported on H and B chipset motherboards.
-the chips are already maxed from the factory. I guess they didn't want to take any chances with getting their crown back.
K-cpus and Z-boards have even less going for them now - Intel did it to themselves.
Experimenting with power limits and undervolting is the name of the game with 12th gen.
Maybe 13th gen will bring good OC'ing back? ¯\(ツ)/¯

So let's see if my brain can understand what you said about the fans... I should only change them out to third party fans if I plan on running them at a higher rpm than they can do?
I was wondering if replacing the NZXT fans with the Noctua 2000's would allow for better airflow, not just a higher speed.

To get that better airflow, your ears need to be able to tolerate higher fan noise, otherwise there's little to nothing to gain.