What's the ACTUAL performance difference between a 120mm radiator and a 240mm radiator?

[nitroxc]

So I've been looking around recently for tests that show the differences in temperatures between a 120mm radiator and a 240mm radiator for liquid cpu cooling. I am mainly interested in AIO coolers and not custom ones. This is because soon I will be looking at getting an AIO cooler and i'm upgrading from a cm hyper 212 and I want to know whether I should just go for a single 120mm radiator AIO or a 240mm one like the Corsair H100I. All I can really find is that "yeah the 240mm radiator will give lower temps" which is ofc a no brainer but I want to see the actual temperature differences so I can decide on my own whether it is worth it or not.

 

[CBender]

It depends more on the usage you are going to get out of it. The 240/280 radiators begin to shine at really high overclocks. If you won't do an oc or it is going to be mild an 120/140 would suffice. It is better if your case supports it to go to 140 instead of 120 fans. The 140 work in lower rpm and that some times could be the difference between relatively quiet to irritating noise.

What is your platform? If you overclock how high do you intend to go?

 

[k1114]

Different reviews show different results. 1-9c
http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/7277/corsair-hydro-h100i-gtx-high-performance-liquid-cpu-cooler-review/index7.html
http://www.guru3d.com/articles-pages/corsair-h100i-gtx-review,11.html
http://www.frostytech.com/articleview.cfm?articleid=2790&page=5
http://www.legitreviews.com/corsair-hydro-series-h100i-extreme-performance-cpu-cooler-review_124024/5
http://www.anandtech.com/show/9758/the-corsair-h80i-gt-and-h100i-gtx-aio-coolers-review
http://www.hardocp.com/article/2015/01/20/corsair_hydro_series_h100i_allinone_cpu_liquid_cooler/3#.VxPQ7rgrKUk

 

[nitroxc]

I'm running an I5 3570k and I have it overclocked to 4.2ghz as it is but under intel burn test it gets to around 80c and around 60c in gaming. I want to overclock it to around 4.6ghz and would like for it to still run pretty cool.

As it is i have 2 120mm intake fans in the front and a 120mm exhaust in the rear. I have 2x 120mm spaces in the top of my case where the radiator would go.

Also another quick question: if I got a 240mm AIO and put that in the top of my case with 2 fans pulling air from inside the case, through the radiator and out of the top, would it be best to have my rear exhaust as a 3rd intake or leave it as it is because atm the back of my pc is about 4 inches for a wall.

 

[k1114]

Those temps are kinda high for that, what is your vcore? It also isn't a good value spending that much for such a little boost.

 

[nitroxc]

I was finetuning the vcore and got it to the point just above where it would run stably which is 1.175v

Also I don't really care too much about the value of it, as long as it lets me do a big overclock while keeping the temps at a decent level.

Even at completely stock settings with no overclock in intelburntest the temps rise to around 65-70c

 

[CBender]

No the exhaust should remain as is (exhaust). I would say that since you want to increase the overclock go for the 240. As an upgrade it should last a good 2 to 3 years, so the price difference doesn't really cut it in your situation. Your temps are quite high, maybe it is your ambient room temp too high or you just need to re apply some thermal paste.

 

[nitroxc]

I don't think its the thermal paste because I got this cpu about 2 weeks ago and put brand new paste one there. It could be my ambient room temp because I have a lamp next to my desk which gets quite hot and I have 2 enclosures for my pet snakes which have heat mats set at 34c. I think my overall ambient temp in my room is like 26c or something.

Also I'm going to be upgrading my r9 285 gpu soon which should help a bit because it generates quite a bit of heat, I'm tempted to either go with a gtx 970 or wait for the new nvidia gpus to come out and see if i can get a hybrid water cooled one for cheap.