Can I get my cooling any better?

[scottyp123]

Specs are 11700K, 3080ti, nothing overclocked (yet)
Twin fan water cooler sucking in air from the rear of the case, 3 fans at the front sucking in air and one fan at the top blowing out hot air, all 120mm. GPU has 3 fans

Is it all set up right, I've seen some videos that say the CPU radiator should be at the front but I'd lose one of the three front fans as one is in the way of the other for fastening it to the frame. Seems daft that everything blows hot air inside the case, would it be better if everything was fitted externally.

Anther quick question if anyone knows, I've got the GPU powered via 2 different cables but each cable has a loop to a 2nd connector, does it matter if I just use a single cable and loop it, is the available power the same, I would imagine they are both soldered to the same terminals in the power supply anyway.

[voram]

The problem is that heat sinks are designed to match components generating a specific max heat output and in a specific physical situation. Adding more fans and so forth can certainly help but it's difficult to solve intense localised heating that way.

[xeny]

5 sucking in and one blowing out will tend to raise the case pressure, which means backpressure on the fans, and they won't flow as much air as they would with a lower pressure differential.

You may find balancing out intake and exhaust better will help cooling overall, as you'll get more airflow through the radiator.

Taken to extremes, I once worked on a machine (PIII 700 to give an idea of how long ago) that would blue screen when the CPU load and hence fan speed ramped up - all the fans blew into the case, and the extra current draw dragged the power supply voltage down a little too much. Ran perfectly once I either removed the side (so the case didn't pressurise) or just unplugged the fan headers for the front fans.

[FourWheelDrift]

Tidy cables up at the front as they will be disrupting airflow in. What space do you have at the back to manage the cables and only allow what's needed through the gromits, routing the 8 pin CPU, 24 pin ATX and PICe GPU power through the closest gaps from rear to board, route fan cables away too.

Move fans on radiator to exhaust only, remove top fan as that will be blowing air out straight from the front fans.

[Drive Blind]

xeny said:

You may find balancing out intake and exhaust better will help cooling overall, as you'll get more airflow through the radiator.

this, the cpu water cooler blowing out the back would be a start ?

[HRL]

3 at the front as intake, rear and top as exhaust.

Well, it is PH after all!

That’s exactly how I have my Corsair 750D case setup and it’s cool and quiet.

Also, always use separate power cables for your GPU, not two connectors on the same rail.

[scottyp123]

Thanks for the replies, I'm actually running it with the side off for now, I presumed that the CPU radiator would be better getting its air from the outside to cool it rather than hot air already produced by the GPU inside but maybe not.

I've actually got a reverb G2 as a VR headset now and the CPU runs so much more cooler than it did do when using the Oculus running the same program even though the graphics are way better.

[dalzo]

HRL said:

3 at the front as intake, rear and top as exhaust.

Well, it is PH after all!

That’s exactly how I have my Corsair 750D case setup and it’s cool and quiet.

Also, always use separate power cables for your GPU, not two connectors on the same rail.

+1 for this setup too

I’ve got 3 front intake, 3 bottom intake and a 240mm aio at the top as an exhaust, 3 fans on the gpu too if that counts

Mines are generally quite low and keep the temps right down unless gaming for a while but I generally turn them up a little and fire headphones on anyway

[mmm-five]

I'd probably put a 240mm AIO rad on the top with the fans below, so blowing case air out over the rad.

I'd then have a single, matched fan on the rear as an exhaust.

3 in, 3 out...like this...


Once I put swapped from a 3070 to a 3080Ti, I bought the Corsair 12-pin power cable which plugs into 2 x 8-pin PCIe power outlets on the Corsair RMx PSU as I knew the 3080Ti was a hungry MF and didn't want to rely on single 8-pin PCIe power and a splitter.

Edited by mmm-five on Friday 24th September 09:20

[Brainpox]

scottyp123 said:

Anther quick question if anyone knows, I've got the GPU powered via 2 different cables but each cable has a loop to a 2nd connector, does it matter if I just use a single cable and loop it, is the available power the same, I would imagine they are both soldered to the same terminals in the power supply anyway.

A 3080 running at max power would exceed the spec for the cable if you only ran a single daisy chained one.

I use two separate cables on my 3070, probably overkill for me but if it means less load and perhaps better longevity, then I'll stick with it.

A 3080 definitely needs two, though. https://forums.overclockers.co.uk/threads/rtx-3080...

EDIT: just realised 3080ti, definitely use two!

[skinnyman]

I'm running an 5600x and a 3080FE in a Lian Li case of some description. Running with 2 large intake fans on the front, 240 AIO exhausting out the top, and a single 120mm fan out the back. Seems to work well for me.

Front in, top/back out

[Mark Asread]

Drive Blind said:

xeny said:

You may find balancing out intake and exhaust better will help cooling overall, as you'll get more airflow through the radiator.

this, the cpu water cooler blowing out the back would be a start ?

Generally speaking (there are no hard rules), the cpu cooler should be intake, as colder air over it is where you want to start, then plan the rest of the fans around that.

If CPU cooler is exhausting, it's drawing warm case air over the most important cooler, which is less efficient.

[xeny]

Mark Asread said:

Generally speaking (there are no hard rules), the cpu cooler should be intake, as colder air over it is where you want to start, then plan the rest of the fans around that.

If CPU cooler is exhausting, it's drawing warm case air over the most important cooler, which is less efficient.

This is what drives the radiator at the front approach, which I think is what the OP was trying to avoid. Essentially the tradeoff is quantity of fans vs optimal air flow.

As winter is coming, I wonder about rear intake, front exhaust, and put the thing on the floor to keep my feet warm....

[HRL]

If you’ve got an AIO CPU cooler then the water will keep the CPU in check just fine if you use it as a top mounted exhaust.

With a discrete GPU you want as much cool air passing over it as possible, hence intake at the front, exhaust at the rear.

Personally, I wouldn’t have the intake at the rear and exhaust at the front as the front is usually less obstructed and you want as much fresh air going in as possible.

[deckster]

Mark Asread said:

Generally speaking (there are no hard rules), the cpu cooler should be intake, as colder air over it is where you want to start, then plan the rest of the fans around that.

If CPU cooler is exhausting, it's drawing warm case air over the most important cooler, which is less efficient.

As you say, there are no hard rules

This setup doesn't work very well if you have a hard-working GPU, as by drawing in pre-heated air you increase the case temperatures and therefore your GPU runs hotter. Moving the radiator to the top rather than the side, and exhausting air over the radiator rather than taking it in, reduced my 3090 FE temps by 5 degrees under load with little difference to CPU temps.

[scottyp123]

FourWheelDrift said:

Tidy cables up at the front as they will be disrupting airflow in. What space do you have at the back to manage the cables and only allow what's needed through the gromits, routing the 8 pin CPU, 24 pin ATX and PICe GPU power through the closest gaps from rear to board, route fan cables away too.

Move fans on radiator to exhaust only, remove top fan as that will be blowing air out straight from the front fans.

Those cables are like lumps of lead pipe, the power supply is 1000W and takes up most of the bottom bit of the PC, somuch that I had to take the hard drive cage out to get the cables in. Comes to something when the hard drive fitted into a micro ATX case correctly with the same card and cooler but not a mid ATX case.

[The_Jackal]

What you are completing missing is the need to exhaust large amounts of hot air.
Air flow is what creates cooling.
With all those fans blowing in and minimal out, the result is all that hot air just sitting inside nicely cooking your components.
Also, a lot of people forget to allow for larger open areas in front and behind the unit.

[The_Jackal]

Try this

[mikef]

That's pretty much how I have my office PC set up and the cooling is fine:

[xeny]

The_Jackal said:

Try this

That's still five in one plus the waft from the GPU out.

OP - if you have a watt meter, does the power draw change between side panel off and on?