Fractal Design R4 + 980 Ti SLI Hybrid Coolers

rwick

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Nov 27, 2015
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I am thinking about adding EVGA hybrid coolers to both of my 980 Ti cards but I am not sure where to put the radiators. I know my case (Fractal Design Define R4) is kind of small for this much water cooling gear but I would like to stay in this case if possible.

My current fan slots are as follows:
Top 2 positions - H100i, push config/exhaust
Bottom Rear - Blocked by power supply, power supply is mounted upside down (pulling air from bottom)
Bottom Front - Blocked by hard drive cage (I am going to remove this)
Both Front Panel - Intake fans
Rear - Exhaust fan

Since heat rises I'm leaning towards trying to mount one on my bottom front and Front Panel bottom locations, both with the fans pulling air from outside of the case...but I'm concerned that will blow a lot of heat inside the case right towards the components I'm trying to cool.

Any ideas or suggestions would be appreciated.
 

krells

Distinguished
I would try this:

Top 2 positions - mount second 980ti radiator, exhaust
Bottom Rear - Blocked by power supply, power supply is mounted upside down (pulling air from bottom)
Bottom Front - intake fan
Both Front Panel - h100i intake
Rear - 980 ti radiator, exhaust
 

rwick

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Nov 27, 2015
16
0
4,510


Thanks for the reply, I guess no matter what I'm going to have at least 2 to 3 radiators blowing heat into the case (that is gonna bug me no matter what). I'll break out a ruler and check to see if the h100i hose is long enough to reach the front.

I thought about doing that and seeing if I can mount both smaller rads up top...IDK why but it seems like the h100 radiator would blow cooler air into the case than the GPU coolers. But the idea of having one rad blowing out of the back, one blowing out of the top, and one serving as exhaust up top sound good too. Got to do a lot of measuring to be sure all this crap will reach.

I've been wanting to mount my SSD's onto the rear of the mobo tray and move my magnetic drive up into a fixed bay, this just gives me an excuse to do it. Thanks again, hoping I can get more ideas/experiences with this situation/case.

--Update--
I ended up leaving the h100i at the top, removed the hard drive cage from the front of my case (put my 2 SSDs and 1 HD in the 5.25" bays) so I have nothing below my 5.25" bays. I installed both radiators with the fans on the front blowing in. I had more than enough tube length to install the hybrid radiators in any other position but this one made sense. I also have enough space to add another set of fans to the back side of the hybrid radiators but I didn't have enough screws to do it.

My concern about using the radiators as intakes was not an issue, my CPU and motherboard temps are the same and my 980Tis run about 25 degrees cooler than before (I had one reference cooler and one ACX 2.0 cooler...swapping the ACX2.0 cooler with a reference cooler from ebay was a minor pain).