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Portable build; Liquid or Air?

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  • Components
  • Cooling
  • CPUs
Last response: in Components
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March 27, 2014 4:18:13 PM

Dear Tom's Harware community,

I'm planning on building a semi-portable ATX PC. (Mostly used at home, but I want to be able to bring it to LAN's)

1) Do Liquid all-in-one CPU coolers have any issues when you transport them, ex carrying and in a car? (Such as bubbles, creating tears, etc)
2) Would transporting builds with large air CPU coolers (ex: Noctua NH-D14), could they possibly fall of and damage other components?

Also, if you would have any general tips or personal advice I'd greatly appreciate that :-)

PS: This website is absolutely amazing. I've been reading tons of articles on here and it has been incredibly useful, thumbs up.

More about : portable build liquid air

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a c 381 à CPUs
March 27, 2014 4:33:07 PM

If you want a portable pc, I suggest you look at M-ATX or ITX formats.
You can put a full length graphics card in many ITX cases.
The CM elite 120 or the lian li Q08(aluminum) come to mind.

You could certainly cool a cpu with an all in one cooler in either one.
But... I might ask why bother? A good liquid cooler may let you OC a 4670K from 4.3 to 4.5.
But such a cpu will game very well, even at stock. It is the graphics card that matters most.

If you did want to use a NH-D14, I might suggest a Silverstone TJ08E M-ATX case.
It fits a NH-D14 and has a extra support for the cooler.

Any time you drop a case, you might expect damage. Don't do that.
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March 27, 2014 4:48:31 PM

geofelt said:
If you want a portable pc, I suggest you look at M-ATX or ITX formats.
You can put a full length graphics card in many ITX cases.
The CM elite 120 or the lian li Q08(aluminum) come to mind.

You could certainly cool a cpu with an all in one cooler in either one.
But... I might ask why bother? A good liquid cooler may let you OC a 4670K from 4.3 to 4.5.
But such a cpu will game very well, even at stock. It is the graphics card that matters most.

If you did want to use a NH-D14, I might suggest a Silverstone TJ08E M-ATX case.
It fits a NH-D14 and has a extra support for the cooler.

Any time you drop a case, you might expect damage. Don't do that.


Thanks for your response geofelt,

I actually have looked into smaller cases, but they simply did not meet my requirements for a case. Besides, it doesn't have to be super compact, just need to be able to pick it up sometimes and carry it around (so just no 900D sized cases)

And with the dropping part I didn't mean dropping the PC, I meant the CPU cooler breaking of from the motherboard, but I guess you have a point that a decent CPU won't need such a massive cooler anyway (compared to stock).

Once again, thanks a ton for your response, clears some things up for a new builder like me :) 
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