Need help optimizing fan cooling setup.

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druppes

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Sep 7, 2014
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Hi,

I'm currently water cooling my CPU and 2 GTX 780s. I'm not sure my fan setup is optimal. Anyone have any advice on what might work best?

Water temps are 3-4 degrees above room temp when idle.
Water temps reach about 40-43 degrees when playing bf4 for a few hours
Whilst this is okay now in the summer it might be a bit too high and I would like to see if I could get a slightly lower water temperature.

My radiators are:
1x 240mm medium/high fine density (top)
1x 120mm medium/high fin density (back)
1x 200mm x 200mm low fin density (bottom)



Here is the build, (purple is proposed fans)

current setup by RupertHopkins, on Flickr

Current Problems:

- Limited space between top fans and Gpus,
- Static pressure optimized fans all in pull configuration whereas might benefit more from push.
- Can't experiment too much as a loop drain is needed to change the top fans.

Options I have thought about:

- Change the direction of the airflow so the air goes up through the bottom and rear fans and exhausts the through the top fans. (probably what I will try but most people seem to be worried about the conflict with the PSUs exhaust)

- I have a couple of Scythe 2000rpm slim fans (could lower to same rpm as the NF 12 fans, that would fit in positions 1 and 2 (purple writing), (if airflow direction was reversed these fans would all be pulling)

- Potentially I could put another 200mm fan (20mm thick) beneath the case but this would only allow for around 20mm between the fan and the table. whereas at the moment there is 40mm.

 
Solution
H
yup u should do the Intake Bottom Exhaust top works the best as Hot air rises

the PSU should int crate conflict as i can see it has its own Filter/Air tunnel thingy :D
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madmatt30

madmatt30

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^ holyrage - not in that case setup it won't.
What case is that ??
Am I lookin right here ??
The board mount is upside down ?? & the psu is front mounted??
Assuming its a bitfenix of some kind??

Where are your hard drives??

Looking at it there's not really any massive improvements you can make IMO.
You need those top fans as intakes for your GPU - I wouldn't change the configuration there to exhaust in that respect.
Is it not possible to mount the fans to the case with the rad underneath - as you say pull configurations only work at 50% with rads/sinks - you're far better with the airflow being pushed through them
Your cpu temps look good tbh.
You could try 2 x 120/140mm on the bottom as intakes directly to the case with the rad seated on top if this configuration is possible??
You would likely drop CPU temps but raise case temps with only 1 exhaust.
 
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druppes

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Sep 7, 2014
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I managed to swap the fans the exhaust at the top without too much fuss. So the the bottom and rear are now intake. The water temps have droped about 4 degrees in bf4. I'm guessing this is probably more to do with more radiators taking in cooler air than hot air rising but I don't know.

I also tried putting the two scythe fans on top of the case and 240 rad. at 1500 rpm it made 1 degree of difference and at 2000rpm 2 degrees.

Overall this results in the CPU temps staying just below 75 so a huge success.. I'm probably going o buy another scythe slim fan to put inside the case at position 1 (rear rad).

Madmatt thanks for all the suggestions

The case is the bitfenix prodigy M,
The case is really strange to fit the Micro ATX in what should really be a mini ITX case. The motherboard is indeed upside down.
Your suggestions of having two fans on the bottom would be really awesome there just inst enough room so i'm stuck with a large slow fan instead. Also the GPUS are water cooled so does it matter that the top is now exhaust? If i'm getting better temps do you think I should keep this setup?

I have 2 500gb SSDs attached to the back panel in raid 0 making it a 1tb drive.

My largest question is; Can the Scythes run at 2000rpm pulling without damaging the Noctour NF 12s who are pushing below the rad at 1500 rpm. Or should I equal them out both to 1500?

I have bought an internal fan controller to try and get some kind of decent controlling going as I cant seem to get speedfan to work with this motherboard and a front controller wouldn't fit.
 
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madmatt30

madmatt30

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didnt realise the gpu's were water cooled mate (shoudl read more)
so with the top rad fans - you still have the fans mounted nearest the gpu,with the rad to the case itself?? but with air pushing outwards through the rad & case vents?? thats pretty much optimum mate to be fair??
If your doing push/pull then you want to try & sync the fan rpms mate yes definitely - Honestly though its pretty much proven that you only get maybe a 10% max improvement over a straight single fan in a push configuration - I assume you wear headphones or turn up the sound loud when youre gaming?? ;)

 
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druppes

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Sep 7, 2014
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I will make sure to sync the fan speeds then. I feel like i'm getting more than 10% but probably physiological. Yes that's the configuration of the top fans/rad.

I mostly game with headphones on. But I also do alot of editing with 4k files in which I don't care for case volume much, but when exporting for 12 hours its nice to not have anything very hot. One of the reasons I went with water cooled GPUS is to keep things cool when i'm maxing the system so regularly.

However I do want a quite ish system for normal use. The pump itself has a slight hum from the vibration somewhere. I have also just bought this http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=FG-027-NX (Edit: corrected link)

I'm hoping to be able to setup something where I can have it on silent with all the fans at like 400 rpm and then to jump up to max when its been used. I haven't figured out how I will do this yet. I'm guessing a very low cpu threshold to ramp the fans up and hopefully the will have a setting that stops them changing erratically. Ideally I would like to control the fans based on my water temperature, but god knows what hardware I would need to do that.
 
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