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Thoughts on GPU cooling in an HAF 932 w/AIO CPU cooler

Tags:
  • Noctua
  • GPUs
  • Cooling
  • Fan
  • CPUs
September 19, 2014 9:01:39 PM

I recently won a Kraken X41 AIO CPU cooler and used it to replace the Noctua NH-D14 that had been cooling my i7-3770k. This seems to have affected the airflow in my case, as one of my GTX 780s is now running a lot hotter than it used to. Both of these cards are EVGA models with ACX coolers.

My rig is in a Cooler Master HAF 932, which already comes with a lot of fans. In case you don't remember the specifics, there's a 230mm front intake fan, a 230mm side intake fan, a 230mm top exhaust fan, and a 140mm rear exhaust fan. The motherboard is an Asus Sabertooth Z77; if you want an image, here's a photo of the mobo. The 780s are in the top two x16 slots, and there's a sound card in the x1 slot between those two x16 slots.

In the past, whichever card I would put in the topmost x16 slot did run warmer than the one in the middle x16 slot, as the sound card blocks pretty much all of one of the two GPU fans on the ACX cooler, but it was usually only a few degrees C difference. After this change in CPU cooler, though, whichever card I put in the top slot (and I did swap them today to see if that would help; it didn't) is consistently throttling as it hits 95C, while the one in the middle slot usually only gets into the low 80s on a warm day. I have the top card running at 90% fan speed; I don't think I could sleep with it running much faster. Both cards were factory OC'ed and are further OC'ed to around 1200 MHz boost.

Any ideas for how I could get that top card cooled down? Moving the sound card is an obvious option, but there's nowhere to move it to. The x1 slot above the topmost x16 slot won't work because the Kraken's radiator is encroaching on that space. The only other PCIe slot open is the bottommost x16 slot, but if I put it there I'd be blocking one of the fans on the lower of the two cards, likely with the same effect as what I have now. I don't really want to remove the sound card, as the integrated audio just isn't the same. I also don't want to set up a water loop because I don't want to spend that amount of money right now.

I think my ideal solution would be replacing some of the case fans, but I don't know if there are any that would do much better. The solution to my problem may very well be "remove the sound card or liquid cool, nothing else will do enough."

More about : thoughts gpu cooling haf 932 aio cpu cooler

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