Questions on AIO Tube Angles

moonlight-strider · April 7, 2020

A while back, I upgraded to a pre-built Alienware Aurora R8 with a Core i5 9400, 1660Ti, 1TB HDD, and 16GB of DDR4-2666. Over time, I have improved it, upgrading to 16GB of DDR4-3000, adding a 500GB SATA SSD, and most recently, adding a liquid cooler to it.

The reason why I added a liquid cooler was because the way the case is designed only allows for the tiniest of air coolers, and the stock one that came with it might have been an inch and a half thick, if I'm lucky. Under Prime95 load, it would sound like a jet engine and easily reach 90-95C. In games such as DOOM 2016, or really, any game that is slightly intensive at all, it would get loud enough to be audible through my headphones. Enough was enough, and because of space restrictions, I could only get a liquid cooler to quiet it down, so I did.

The cases across the Aurora R8 line are the same, and the higher end models use 120MM liquid coolers, so I was able to look up the part number of the liquid cooler that came with the higher end versions, and get the retail version, an EVGA CLCC 120MM for about US$50 off Amazon. I got it in there, an immediately saw vastly reduced temperatures under Prime 95 load (max 70C) and much better idle temps (32C on a good day, 34-38C average). It is dead quiet no matter how high the CPU load is, the only problem is now the GPU fan. My only concern is that the angling on the tubes is bad, but I will note that they do not come into contact with any sharp edges.

My question is, will this cause any problems over time? They sort of have to be bent this way to reach where they need to go (the radiator can only be installed one way in the case), and because I'm going to be able to get around USD$600 or so in the near future, I want to know whether or not I should buy a new PSU and GPU, or buy a new case, motherboard, and PSU to alleviate this if it is a problem. It's been running for several weeks like this now, and I've not noticed any issues, knock on wood.

It came with a 460W PSU, so either way, I'm going to need to get a better PSU because I really don't want to be stuck with that thing for when I do get a new GPU.