Question What water cooler would fit water cooling in a nzxt s340 elite

Sep 13, 2018
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Hi, what aio water cooler do you think would fit for overclocking a 2600 on a b450 tomahawk laying snug inside of a nzxt s340 elite?

thanks!
 
DimensionsW: 203mm H: 474mm D: 432mm
Material(s)Tempered glass side panel, Steel, ABS plastic
Weight8.13kg
Motherboard Supportmini-ITX, MicroATX, ATX
I/O Ports1x Audio/Mic
2x USB 3.0
2x USB 2.0
HDMI with VR Support
FiltersFront (Included)
Bottom Rear(Included)
Expansion Slots7
Drive BaysInternal 3.5": 2+1
Internal 2.5": 3+1
Radiator SupportFront 2 x 140 or 2 x 120mm
Rear 1 x 120mm
Fan SupportFront: 2x 140/2x120mm
Top: 1x 140/120mm (1 x 120mm FN V2 Fans Included)
Rear: 1x 120mm (1 x 120mm FN V2 Fan Included)
ClearanceGPU Clearance With Radiator: 334mm
GPU Clearance Without Radiator: 364mm
CPU Cooler: 161mm
Cable Management: Lowest Point - 17mm; Highest Point 168mm
Model NumberCA-S340W-W2
EAN5060301693238
UPC815671012906
Warranty2 years
Overall I would only use a 120mm cooler on your CPU and place it at the top of the case. If you place the radiator at the front you will be blocking airflow into the case.
 
So, you are recommending a single 120mm AIO on an overclocked CPU?

Can you please explain why?
First this a Ryzen 2600 so you can already overclock it on the stock cooler and a 120mm AIO will have more overclocking potential than the included Wraith cooler. Second the only way to run a 240mm or 280mm radiator is to block the front air intakes, which happen to be the only place for fresh air to come into the case, and create at best a negative air pressure case which will increase dust build up and cause hot air to be continuously recycled into and out of the case.

That being said I did just reread the specs and a 140mm AIO could also be used on the top vent.
 
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rubix_1011

Contributing Writer
Moderator
First this a Ryzen 2600 so you can already overclock it on the stock cooler and a 120mm AIO will have more overclocking potential than the included Wraith cooler

While I have not tested the Wraith Ryzen cooler, I would estimate that the potential between these two coolers might actually favor the Wraith and not the 120mm. I would never recommend a 120mm on any CPU that is overclocked. I would only recommend it for an extremely small formfactor case and hopefully on stock or underclocked CPUs. The cooling potential by nearly all 120mm radiators used by AIOs is relatively low and suffer from higher thermal load heat soaking.

Second the only way to run a 240mm or 280mm radiator is to block the front air intakes, which happen to be the only place for fresh air to come into the case, and create at best a negative air pressure case which will increase dust build up and cause hot air to be continuously recycled into and out of the case

This is rather misleading and not necessarily true.

It also contradicts your 120mm recommendation - if you think a 240mm rad will spill 'hot air' into a case...a 120mm (or even 140mm) will do even worse in cooling, regardless of where the air vents. With good airflow setup and fans, AIO placement shouldn't make a huge difference as long as good (read: excellent) exhausting airflow is provided. Excessive 'hot air' is an indicator that a liquid cooler is working, but also that a liquid cooling radiator is undersized if it the air it is expelling is very, very warm.
 

Karadjgne

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@jeremyj_83
Wrong on so many levels.

Rads don't block airflow, airflow is the only way they work. Air goes in one side, and out the other. You might lose some CFM to airflow restriction forcing air sideways through the gap between the rad and the fan, but the vast majority of the fans cfm goes through. It just loses most of its static pressure in doing so, but with exhaust fan vacuum and what little pressure remains, the air does move from rad to case rear, just not in a breeze you can feel.

Most of the time it's next to impossible to get a negative or positive pressure inside a pc. Pc fans do not have the capacity to overcome the air volume inside a case vrs the amount of holes the air can escape or enter. When a fan blade moves through air, it creates a vacuum on the trailing edge, the byproduct being air displaced. Faster ethe blades spin, the higher the vacuum draw, and nature abhors a vacuum, so ambient air fills the gap. But it's still a relatively weak and unfocused vacuum, so will draw air from the nearest available source, which for most cases is those giant holes in the ceiling where another fan can be set, or the gaps around the gpu and other pcie slots etc. The job of the intakes is not only to supply outside air, but move enough air inside the case that it becomes the source, not the case gaps. If you can move enough air, that's a positive system, if you can't, that's a negative system.

Slow rpm fans don't push high cfm, so for the most part, most pcs at idle speeds are negative, it takes ramping the fans up to get the change to positive.

The stock Wraith coolers are equitable to any other 120-140w cooler. So roughly equivalent to a 120mm AIO.

Best bet overall for that case would be a 280mm rad in front, 1x 120mm at rear and 1x 120mm fan at top. Best value would be a 240mm rad like Evga CLC 240 in front instead. Best air cooling would be 2x140mm fans in front, 120's exhaust and a NH-D15S. Most ppl argue air is cheaper, but never account for the fact OP will also spend an extra $30-$50 for a couple decent fans for the front.

CPU Cooler: EVGA - CLC 240 74.82 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler ($106.87 @ OutletPC)
———
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master - MasterLiquid 240 66.7 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler ($79.99 @ Amazon)
———
CPU Cooler: Noctua - NH-D15S 82.52 CFM CPU Cooler ($79.90 @ Amazon)
Case Fan: ARCTIC - P14 PWM PST CO 72.8 CFM 140 mm Fan ($12.99 @ Amazon)
Case Fan: ARCTIC - P14 PWM PST CO 72.8 CFM 140 mm Fan ($12.99 @ Amazon)
Total: $105.88
 
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@jeremyj_83
The job of the intakes is not only to supply outside air, but move enough air inside the case that it becomes the source, not the case gaps.
Unless you decide to mount the radiator with the fans on the case side blowing in, which will then blow HOT air from the radiator into the case, then you will have air being pushed out from the front fighting against air coming in. Then you will have the gaps in the case being the source of air coming into the case and that air tends to be already expelled hot air from the case. All of that leads to higher internal temps in your case which means your cooling solution needs to work harder.

While I have not tested the Wraith Ryzen cooler, I would estimate that the potential between these two coolers might actually favor the Wraith and not the 120mm. I would never recommend a 120mm on any CPU that is overclocked. I would only recommend it for an extremely small formfactor case and hopefully on stock or underclocked CPUs. The cooling potential by nearly all 120mm radiators used by AIOs is relatively low and suffer from higher thermal load heat soaking.



This is rather misleading and not necessarily true.

It also contradicts your 120mm recommendation - if you think a 240mm rad will spill 'hot air' into a case...a 120mm (or even 140mm) will do even worse in cooling, regardless of where the air vents. With good airflow setup and fans, AIO placement shouldn't make a huge difference as long as good (read: excellent) exhausting airflow is provided. Excessive 'hot air' is an indicator that a liquid cooler is working, but also that a liquid cooling radiator is undersized if it the air it is expelling is very, very warm.

Cooling performance of the Wraith Stealth is far less than that of DeepCool Gammaxx 200T, that is the performance of the Wraith Prism. https://www.techspot.com/review/1635-amd-wraith-coolers-compared/
By no means did I contradict myself, I said "Second the only way to run a 240mm or 280mm radiator is to block the front air intakes, which happen to be the only place for fresh air to come into the case, and create at best a negative air pressure case which will increase dust build up and cause hot air to be continuously recycled into and out of the case. That being said I did just reread the specs and a 140mm AIO could also be used on the top vent." That means I recommend the radiator to be placed at the top of the case with the fan blowing air over the radiator in a director out of the case instead of placing the radiator at the front vents where the larger radiator can be used.

"The stock Wraith coolers are equitable to any other 120-140w cooler. So roughly equivalent to a 120mm AIO."
That is not true for the Wraith Prism and totally not the Wraith Stealth. Since we already know that the Wraith Prism and the DeepCool Gammaxx 200T are about equal in performance, you can piece different cooler reviews together to know how it stacks up against 120mm AIOs. https://www.hardocp.com/article/2018/05/15/amd_wraith_prism_cpu_air_cooler_review/3 here we see that the Wraith Prism is out classed by the CoolerMaster ML120L RGB and here https://www.eteknix.com/corsair-h60-120mm-aio-liquid-cpu-cooler-review/4/ we see that the Corsair H60 out performs the CoolerMaster ML120, in fact the H60 is around the same performance as the Noctua NH-D15S. One can also assume that the 200T will have less performance than the 300 https://www.anandtech.com/show/6780/deepcool-cpu-air-cooler-roundup-playing-it-too-safe/4 and you can see the H60 once again out classes the 300 and therefore the 200T. Therefore your assertion that the stock Wraith coolers are roughly equivalent to a 120mm AIO is a total fallacy.

In the end I stand by my statement that you don't want to have a radiator at the front intakes. It is bad overall form for your case due to the fact you only have 2 front fan slots. You will either have the option of using the radiator fans to blow in the outside air over the radiator, which will in effect blow hot air into the case, or blow out from the case and cause a negative pressure situation where air will be sucked in from every other opening and increase dust buildup and just recycle previously expelled hot air.
 
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Karadjgne

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I'm sorry, but if you choose to stand, it'll facing the corner with a cone hat with a prominent D.


The Corsair H60 is equal to a CM hyper212 evo. Same temps, same range, same 140w limit. The Noctua NH-D15S is a whole different beast, well capable of loads in excess of 250w. As I said, which you obviously did not read, 'in their ranges'. That link you posted shows the H60 beating the NH-D15S by 1°C at stock levels, not OC levels. At stock levels very few cpus get beyond 100-120w, so a 140w cooler like the H60 can handle them just fine. You try and put a 200w OC load through a H60 and expect throttling and thermal shutdowns when gaming.

The exhaust from a 240/280mm AIO is anything but hot, you'll generally only see a 2-3°C raise in case temps/gpu temps, and does not affect cpu temps in a negative way as cooler air is used, dropping cpu temps by 2-3°C. Which is chump change considering pc's never run a static temp, the cpu is constantly bouncing anywhere upto 20ish°C while gaming.

Fan direction is only applicable during rpm. At less than @ 1200rpm,pull is better as the dead-spot over the motor is negated, using the full area of the fan. Above @ 1500rpm, push is better due to increased airflow over the fins used negates most of the dead-spot loss.

All in all, please get an education.
 
The Corsair H60 is equal to a CM hyper212 evo. Same temps, same range, same 140w limit.
Where is your evidence of such a statement? I went and linked actual evidence to my statement and you give nothing but conjecture.

None the less for this build a 120mm AIO is PLENTY for overclocking. All the reviews I linked use CPUs that have higher TDPs than the 2600, and overclocked they draw a lot of power and create a lot of heat.
 

Karadjgne

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http://www.frostytech.com/articleview.cfm?articleid=2705&page=6

Hyper212 evo is @ 1°C better than the H60, hyper212/plus is about 1°C worse.

http://www.relaxedtech.com/reviews/amd/wraith-max-and-wraith-spire-cooler/2

Hyper212 evo is 1°C better than a Wraith Max, ergo makes it equitable to a H60

While the AMD Wraith Prism maintained 48.3 degrees the wraith max managed to run the CPU at 47.2. Moving on to 2000 rpm and we see the AMD Wraith Prism keeps the CPU at 43.3 degrees while the Max manages to run the CPU at 42.7.

Wow, a whopping 1°C difference between the Max and Prism.

With ANY benchmark or test or comparison done by ANYONE, if the results are only 2-3°C or less, can be considered the same thing as there is ALWAYS a margin of error which cannot be accounted for in results as the coolers are subject to human manipulation, such as amount of Tim applied, tightness of the Cooler differences etc.

Do you even know what TDP is? TDP is thermal design Power. Intel has a specific set of programs they test on certain cpus and measure the power requirements for each program. Then they average all the results. That's TDP. Most cpu heat output is within 5°C± (a couple of cpus are closer to 10°C hotter than power used) of the TDP so was adopted as a guide to thermal outputs as well. The caveat is that those test programs are pretty average loads, so if that average load is 100w, on a 100w TDP cpu and you stick a 100w cooler on it, you'll get a cpu that runs 100°C. This does not account for Hyperthreading. 100% loads are extreme or max power used, which can be 1.5 to 2x TDP. At stock voltages and values.

Which means a i7-4790k with hyperthreading enabled at stock voltages under 100% torture test loads can generally see anywhere upto 150ish or more watts of thermal output. Which on a 140w hyper212 or H60 means throttle temps.

74w TDP i5-3570k at 1.08v (less than stock voltage) at 4.2GHz on Corsair H55 (same thing as H60 but uses asetek instead of coolit pump) Prime95 26.6 small fft torture test, ½ hr, cpu =71°C. At stock voltages (1.232v) 3.4GHz, same test =93°C.
Same test on 77w TDP i7-3770K @4.9GHz, 1.32v on 280mm aio = 70°C. Both pc's under gaming loads run 55-56°C. I5 with OC runs @ 100w at 100%, at stock voltages its just under 140w. The i7 @ 4.9GHz runs @ 250w. With a Cryorig R1 Ultimate (same thing as a NH-D15 250w+ but noisier) the cpu runs 74°C.

Done with proof? Or are you going to keep quibbling over margin of error results?

You assumed the H60 is the same thing as a NH-D15S based on a test done within the range of the lowest TDP. All coolers within that range will have equitable results. But you put a 200w OC on those same coolers and the 140w budget coolers will tank, and hard while the 250w+ coolers (NH-D15S or 240mm+ AIO's) will still be sitting pretty.

The bigger the cooler does not mean you get lower temps. The bigger the cooler just means the capacity of the cooler is greater, which results in a longer temp curve and lower rise per watt output.
 
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