AIO watercooling: Push pull or Push?

Joel Oberlin · Dec 1, 2015

Guys! How are you. Yesterday I bought a DeepCool Maelstrom 240T for my i5 4690K which is stock yet. My temps improved from 40-42° to 32-35° at idle, and 70-74° to 50-55°. The temps could be a little bit better but my room is too hot. And obviusly not every chip are the same. I was wondering if I should consider doing a push/pull setup. I have a NZXT Phantom full tower case, and I think two fans should fit without problem at top. Am I going to see a big improvement or it is not worth? In that case, what fans are recommended?

Thank you very much!!

J-Roc and The Rockpile · Dec 2, 2015

Definitely do a push pull set up. Those are kinda high temps for a stock 4690k with an aftermarket cooler though...you sure the cooler is fully functional? I'm not even hitting 55C with my 4690k at 4.8 ghz after several hours of stress testing with my H75i.

Joel Oberlin · Dec 2, 2015

J-Roc and The Rockpile :

Yes... Also I take into account that not every CPU are the same so the temps will be different.. I have a friend who has the same cpu and watercooler and gets similar temps (4690k @ 4.2ghz and idle at 32-33 and gaming 55). As I said before, my room is too hot and I dont have air conditioner yet, Maybe that influences the temps? I will try a push pull setup if I can, here in my country the fans are too expensive.. Options: CM JetFlo, Bitfenix Spectre, Corsair SP120, IDCooling..
Another thing, I dont think the the watercooler is broken since my temps went down a lot, I mean, coming from Intel stock fan, at full load which was my biggest concern, they went down from 75° to 50-53°, however do you think the could be better?

Thank you!

rubix_1011 · Dec 2, 2015

With liquid cooling, ambient air temperature is your limiting factor, no matter how good the cooling system. Temperature delta (DT) is the difference in water temperature vs. ambient air temperature. If room temperature rises, your idle and load temperatures will also rise.

Closed loop coolers really only work well with high speed fans usually running close to high speeds. They utilize poor pumps which move coolant very slowly - coolant flow rate is one of the aspects in calculating DT. Others include fans/airflow, radiator dissipation potential, ambient air temps and thermal load in watts.

Given the warm room temps, lower flow rates (I measured a Corsair 110i GTX at under 1 liter per minute), as well as a cheap, aluminum radiator and the only thing you really have control over is thermal load (CPU clock speeds @ specific voltages compared with stock speeds/stock voltages) and fans/airflow.

Joel Oberlin · Dec 2, 2015

rubix_1011 :

-Thanks, I didnt know that! Well.. I think my room temperature is limiting the performance of the watercooler. Before buying it I did a research and the performance was really nice for the price, although is not a custom watercooler. In some months I'll be moving to a new house with air condiotioner in my room so hoping to get better temps

-I ask you, I have set my fans like this:

-Should I put the fans between the radiator and the case, or leave it like this? Also, should I consider getting better fans in the near future? (CM JetFlo, Corsair SP120, are the best fans I could get)

-Last question, Could you recommend me a good software for monitoring my temps? I currently use Realtemp which gives me around 34-35° and also I have installed Asus Thermal Radar II that came with my motherboard and gives me about 31°. I don't know which is more accurate.

rubix_1011 · Dec 2, 2015

Ambient air temps aren't your problem - a full watercooling loop has the same limitations of not being able to cool below room temperature when it comes to CPU reported temps and DT. Remember, the DT as it pertains to water temperature does not mean that is the same thing as your CPU reported temps in Core Temp or Real Temp. So, it comes down to how well your cooling loop performs as a function of DT - the lower the delta of water temperature to room temperature, the better performing the cooler based on the setup. Also remember that any time the thermal load in the loop/cooler is increased, your DT is impacted. This means that your stock CPU will run cooler than an overclocked CPU. If you have a water cooling loop that is only for your CPU and you add in your graphics card, your cooling performance will be impacted and might require additional radiators to offset the additional thermal load.

Real Temp or Core Temp is what most people use.

For the question on where to put your fans, I don't think I follow what you are saying.

Edit - the image showed up. You can leave it as-is unless you want to run push/pull. Just make sure all the fans are blowing the same direction so airflow moves through the cooler and fans entirely.

Joel Oberlin · Dec 2, 2015

rubix_1011 :

Ambient air temps aren't your problem - a full watercooling loop has the same limitations of not being able to cool below room temperature when it comes to CPU reported temps and DT. Remember, the DT as it pertains to water temperature does not mean that is the same thing as your CPU reported temps in Core Temp or Real Temp. So, it comes down to how well your cooling loop performs as a function of DT - the lower the delta of water temperature to room temperature, the better performing the cooler based on the setup. Also remember that any time the thermal load in the loop/cooler is increased, your DT is impacted. This means that your stock CPU will run cooler than an overclocked CPU. If you have a water cooling loop that is only for your CPU and you add in your graphics card, your cooling performance will be impacted and might require additional radiators to offset the additional thermal load.

Real Temp or Core Temp is what most people use.

For the question on where to put your fans, I don't think I follow what you are saying.

Edit - the image showed up. You can leave it as-is unless you want to run push/pull. Just make sure all the fans are blowing the same direction so airflow moves through the cooler and fans entirely.

All right. Do you think would be worth to upgrade fans? Or just leave the stock fans? I could get CM JetFlo or Corsair SP120, since I saw they're designed for rads. Thank you.

rubix_1011 · Dec 2, 2015

I don't really think so, it isn't going to make a huge difference for the money you would be spending, but that is difficult to really know without actually doing so. Most of these coolers have decent fans, which is actually a plus (at least from the stance of Corsair) which is kind of required for the units to actually perform well.

55C at load is pretty decent all things considered.

Joel Oberlin · Dec 2, 2015

rubix_1011 :

Yes, I don't know if this counts, but I have turbo mode ON so the clocks while gaming are 3.9 Ghz, not 3.5, so I think I am goiont to continue with this setup. Maybe I will try new fans so as to see if there's some improvements. Sorry for being insistent, but I don't know why Real Temp shows 53-55° while gaming, and Asus Thermal Radar and Speedfan, plus other software show 45° while gaming, I don't know what software is the most accurate since it's almost a 10° C difference. Other than that, thank you for the support!

rubix_1011 · Dec 2, 2015

Turbo mode is likely raising your vCore on the CPU higher than it needs to be for the 400mhz clock difference. Most of the time when you use automated overclocking tools like that, it over compensates on voltages to try and assure stability at the cost of utilizing too much voltage and therefore increasing the heat output.

Real Temp was developed for Intel processors (it is what I use).

Joel Oberlin · Dec 2, 2015

rubix_1011 :

Thanks for the help.

rubix_1011 · Dec 2, 2015

No problem, good luck.

J-Roc and The Rockpile · Dec 2, 2015

rubix_1011 :

With liquid cooling, ambient air temperature is your limiting factor, no matter how good the cooling system. Temperature delta (DT) is the difference in water temperature vs. ambient air temperature. If room temperature rises, your idle and load temperatures will also rise.

Closed loop coolers really only work well with high speed fans usually running close to high speeds. They utilize poor pumps which move coolant very slowly - coolant flow rate is one of the aspects in calculating DT. Others include fans/airflow, radiator dissipation potential, ambient air temps and thermal load in watts.

Given the warm room temps, lower flow rates (I measured a Corsair 110i GTX at under 1 liter per minute), as well as a cheap, aluminum radiator and the only thing you really have control over is thermal load (CPU clock speeds @ specific voltages compared with stock speeds/stock voltages) and fans/airflow.

Yeah...that's basic thermodynamics...lol

Ambient temps would be assumed by someone with half a brain. Just saying.

rubix_1011 · Dec 3, 2015

Yes, but not everyone understands or even thinks about thermodynamics when it comes to cooling, so please curtail the public shaming as it isn't helping anyone or fostering a positive environment. Everyone learns of these things when they are ready and when it applies to them; likely just not common knowledge to the typical person who does not apply this train of thought.

Making assumptions that everyone can and should think and learn in the same manner as someone else is the first major step of misunderstanding (and failure) by both the teacher and the student.

J-Roc and The Rockpile · Dec 3, 2015

rubix_1011 :

Wasn't intending for it to be "public shaming" so I apologize I guess? It's a bit overly dramatic, but I guess I'll say sorry.

Laws of thermodynamics are fairly intuitive, in everyday life and especially when building PCs. Most middle schoolers know them...and I'd hope most adults know that heat rises...and that heat dissipates to cooler areas.

Heat is made, heat is bad for PCs, head needs to get out of the case (hence the need for case fans, CPU coolers and GPU fans...). It doesn't need to be all that complicated IMO. I'm not suggesting having the word for word laws of thermodynamics memorized along with their equations!

Also, it's a concept pretty much universally taught in most middle school science classes, and even in some grade school science classes, but I guess I'm just a bad teacher and student! Sorry you were offended and sorry for proposing such advanced topics that you believe is not common knowledge, even though most have people have a pretty good grasp and understand thermodynamics, whether they associate it with the term or not.

rubix_1011 · Dec 3, 2015

I am not offended, but the assumption that 'everyone should know' doesn't always mean the assumption is true and therefore the 'half a brain' figure of speech assumes that the baseline of this knowledge would have to be consistent for everyone.

I am just trying to make the point that common knowledge to one group of people might not be common knowledge for others for many possible reasons, and therefore, cannot be used as a sweeping conclusion as to the understanding of concepts being discussed. Also, you are over-simplifying the 'heat is bad, remove the heat' argument - temperature delta is kind of an abstract differential as it is directly dependent on environment and hardware, yet it always manages to be a fluctuation based on those environments...so, not really something you discuss with your co-workers in passing.

J-Roc and The Rockpile · Dec 3, 2015

rubix_1011 :

This is getting blown way out of proportion. Relax, okay?

You're the one throwing the word assumption around, not me.

Let's end it, because this is becoming some sort of odd, unintended p*ssing match, and it's not necessary.

rubix_1011 · Dec 3, 2015

I'm perfectly relaxed. I think you assume that you are upsetting me, but that indeed is not the case.

J-Roc and The Rockpile · Dec 3, 2015

rubix_1011 :

Cool beans!

AIO watercooling: Push pull or Push?

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