Jump to content

Where should I mount GPU's 120mm Rad & Fan?

KnowledgeByTech
 Share
Go to solution Solved by Egad,

I do rear exhaust.  Top mount also works.  The primary benefit of the hybrid cards is the ability to dump the heat outside the case.  Given you have a 280mm AIO for the I'd go rear, because I assume your top AIO is also exhaust, so that's three fans all exhausting in the top rear of the case.  At that point your only concern is dust if the case the case ends up negative pressure, depending on the air those three fans move vs whatever you have on intake duty.  For exhaust the only concern is that you're not pumping the hot air off your CPU tower cooler through the radiator, and since that's all going out the AIO, the only heat you're getting is off the VRMs.

 

Front mount isn't terrible unless you have a really small case with poor airflow.  In most setups even if you have the radiator on intake, it's not going to heat up the case any significant amount.  The only time I'd really get worked up over the hybrid on intake would be a super compact case where you have to go with a low profile like a NH-L9a or such and then mount the radiator literally right next to it, so you're blowing your GPU's hot air right onto a CPU cooler that is already fighting for its life.  When I had two 980Ti hybrids in SLI in a midtower, all the gain was purely in moving the heat away from the immediate vicinity of the cards.  Both rads exhausting out the top or intake on the front showed no difference.

 

 

Posted

Just bought an EVGA SC2 Hybrid 1080 Ti, I was thinking of mounting the rad & fan at the rear of my case but I've heard others say not to. Where should I mount it? Should it share the top of my case with my 280mm AIO?

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted

Depends on your cpu water cooler. If it is in an exhaust mounting to the case, placing the gpu cooler in the rear in an exhaust mounting will make it ok since the inside of the case is never hot. thus the only source of dust is the front intake fan, lowering the amount of maintenance done to the coolers.

 

Im with the mentaility of "IF IM NOT SURE IF ITS ENOUGH COOLING, GO OVERKILL"

 

CURRENT PC SPECS    

CPU             : Ryzen 5 3600 (Formerly Ryzen 3 1200)

GPU             : ASUS RX 580 Dual OC (Formerly ASUS GTX 1060 but it got corroded for some odd reasons)

GPU COOOER      : ID Cooling Frostflow 120 VGA (Stock cooler overheats even when undervolted :()

MOBO            : MSI B350m Bazooka

MEMORY          : Team Group Elite TUF DDR4 3600 Mhz CL 16
STORAGE         : Seagate Baracudda 1TB and Kingston SSD
PSU             : Thermaltake Lite power 550W (Gonna change soon as i dont trust this)
CASE            : Rakk Anyag Frost
CPU COOLER      : ID-Cooling SE 207
CASE FANS       : Mix of ID cooling fans, Corsair fans and Rakk Ounos (planned change to ID Cooling)
DISPLAY         : SpectrePro XTNS24 144hz Curved VA panel
MOUSE           : Logitech G603 Lightspeed
KEYBOARD        : Rakk Lam Ang

HEADSET         : Plantronics RIG 500HD

Kingston Hyper X Stinger

 

and a whole lot of LED everywhere(behind the monitor, behind the desk, behind the shelf of the PC mount and inside the case)

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted
  • Solution

I do rear exhaust.  Top mount also works.  The primary benefit of the hybrid cards is the ability to dump the heat outside the case.  Given you have a 280mm AIO for the I'd go rear, because I assume your top AIO is also exhaust, so that's three fans all exhausting in the top rear of the case.  At that point your only concern is dust if the case the case ends up negative pressure, depending on the air those three fans move vs whatever you have on intake duty.  For exhaust the only concern is that you're not pumping the hot air off your CPU tower cooler through the radiator, and since that's all going out the AIO, the only heat you're getting is off the VRMs.

 

Front mount isn't terrible unless you have a really small case with poor airflow.  In most setups even if you have the radiator on intake, it's not going to heat up the case any significant amount.  The only time I'd really get worked up over the hybrid on intake would be a super compact case where you have to go with a low profile like a NH-L9a or such and then mount the radiator literally right next to it, so you're blowing your GPU's hot air right onto a CPU cooler that is already fighting for its life.  When I had two 980Ti hybrids in SLI in a midtower, all the gain was purely in moving the heat away from the immediate vicinity of the cards.  Both rads exhausting out the top or intake on the front showed no difference.

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
 Share
Go to topic listing Custom Loop and Exotic Cooling

×