RTX 2060 with NZXT H500 and no intake fans

[Manuel-KLG]

Hello everyone!

So, I am going to buy the rtx 2060 since it performs better than the 1070ti at a much lower price. I guess I will wait until msi or asus publish their own versions of this card, and not buy the Founds Edition. Is that a good idea? I guess the other versions will cost like 50$ more, right?

Also, I'm gonna be using the nzxt h500 as a case which comes with 1x 120mm fan at the back and 1x140mm fan at the top. I am gonna replace those fans with 1x corsair af120 and 1x corsair af140 fans since they provide better airflow, are much more quiet and they are gonna match the black and red color of the build. Now, as I've seen from reviews, the case doesn't provide much airflow from the front so putting 2 fans there would be useless, plus that you will have to deal with extra noise for like -1 or -2 degrees Celsius. So, I will have 2 fans, one in the back and on the top as exhaust fans, and an Arctic Freezer 33 eSports ONE cpu cooler (no intake fans). Is this fan/case setup going to be enough to keep the rtx 2060 at a normal temperature? I obviously don't want to deal with any overheating problems.

 

Thank you.

 

[Jurrunio]

5 minutes ago, Manuel-KLG said:

Is that a good idea? I guess the other versions will cost like 50$ more, right?

A good idea, and no not all custom cards will be $50 more than MSRP (but you have to wait for a few weeks). The EVGA Black or Gigabyte windforce models (i.e. the bland ones) should be around MSRP

 

6 minutes ago, Manuel-KLG said:

they provide better airflow, are much more quiet

not sure how the stock fan performs, but if what you said is true that means the stock fans are terrible. the AFs arent great in the first place.

 

7 minutes ago, Manuel-KLG said:

Is this fan/case setup going to be enough to keep the rtx 2060 at a normal temperature?

Of course no, that's stupid. Put the stock fans in the front or buy more fans.

[Manuel-KLG]

7 minutes ago, Jurrunio said:

not sure how the stock fan performs, but if what you said is true that means the stock fans are terrible. the AFs arent great in the first place.

 

Of course no, that's stupid. Put the stock fans in the front or buy more fans.

I have seen only positive reviews for the af fans (not the led ones) and a friend of mine uses them in his gaming rig and they are super quiet. The only problem I find is that they are 3-pin fans while my motherboard will have a 4-pin header. So I won't be able to control their speed.

 

As for the rtx 2060's temperature, how is it that a gtx 1070 would perform great with this fan setup and not the rtx 2060? Gamers Nexus has reviewed the nzxt h500 and doesn't recommend putting fans in the front because they don't really provide any extra cooling.

Thanks for your reply!

[TVwazhere]

2 minutes ago, Jurrunio said:

Of course no, that's stupid. Put the stock fans in the front or buy more fans.

Actually....

 

 

Negative pressure actually worked well for the GPU in this test.  Wasnt great for the CPU though. But I guess that depends on what CPU is gonna be paired with this system...

14 minutes ago, Manuel-KLG said:

I am gonna replace those fans with 1x corsair af120 and 1x corsair af140 fans since they provide better airflow,

 

Stats wise the AER F series fans are about the same if not slightly better, so changing these out for the corsair fans would be wasted money.

[Jurrunio]

5 minutes ago, Manuel-KLG said:

I have seen only positive reviews for the af fans (not the led ones) and a friend of mine uses them in his gaming rig and they are super quiet. The only problem I find is that they are 3-pin fans while my motherboard will have a 4-pin header. So I won't be able to control their speed.

Modern boards can switch between PWM and DC fan speed control method in the BIOS on the same header so that's not a problem.

 

7 minutes ago, Manuel-KLG said:

As for the rtx 2060's temperature, how is it that a gtx 1070 would perform great with this fan setup and not the rtx 2060? Gamers Nexus has reviewed the nzxt h500 and doesn't recommend putting fans in the front because they don't really provide any extra cooling.

Thanks for your reply!

5 minutes ago, TVwazhere said:

Actually....

 

Wait I thought  that's top intake and rear exhaust?

 

but anyway, that's bad for the GPU's dust build up because air filters dont do a thing in that case. This is especially true for reference RTX cards for their difficult disassembly approach, so good luck cleaning the heatsink.

[Manuel-KLG]

4 minutes ago, TVwazhere said:

Negative pressure actually worked well for the GPU in this test.  Wasnt great for the CPU though. But I guess that depends on what CPU is gonna be paired with this system...

 

Stats wise the AER F series fans are about the same if not slightly better, so changing these out for the corsair fans would be wasted money.

I'm probably gonna be using a Ryzen 5 2600 for this build.

 

Thanks a lot for the information about the AER F fans. Thought they were not that good. Does fan airflow matter if the fans are going to be used as exhaust?

[TVwazhere]

5 minutes ago, Jurrunio said:

Wait I thought  that's top intake and rear exhaust?

 

but anyway, that's bad for the GPU's dust build up because air filters dont do a thing in that case. This is especially true for reference RTX cards for their difficult disassembly approach, so good luck cleaning the heatsink.

Both fans are set to exhaust, so the front filter is still the primary source for intake since thats the easiest path for air to enter the case. This does not mean that the case is completely filtered at all air entry points (cracks/small openings) but a vast majority of the air entering the case still passes through the front dust filter. 

 

8 minutes ago, Manuel-KLG said:

I'm probably gonna be using a Ryzen 5 2600 for this build.

 

Thanks a lot for the information about the AER F fans. Thought they were not that good. Does fan airflow matter if the fans are going to be used as exhaust?

It's always best to check the specs on an upgrade to see if it's any better than what you currently have  

 

Airflow ALWAYS matters, its more of a question of "Do you have enough" and for an R5 2600 with a RTX2060 (1070ti equivalent) my opinion would be: "Just barely". Your system wont be the coolest system ever (for bot CPU/GPU thermals) but it shouldn't be in danger of overheating or thermal throttling. I would be ready for GPU temps in the 70's to 80's depending on ambient temp.

[Manuel-KLG]

2 minutes ago, TVwazhere said:

 

It's always best to check the specs on an upgrade to see if it's any better than what you currently have  

 

Airflow ALWAYS matters, its more of a question of "Do you have enough" and for an R5 2600 with a RTX2060 (1070ti equivalent) my opinion would be: "Just barely". Your system wont be the coolest system ever (for bot CPU/GPU thermals) but it shouldn't be in danger of overheating or thermal throttling. I would be ready for GPU temps in the 70's to 80's depending on ambient temp.

Ah I see. So should I just buy a different case for better airflow? If yes, do you have any in mind to recommend ? I've seen good reviews on the fractal design meshify c .

[TVwazhere]

3 minutes ago, Manuel-KLG said:

Ah I see. So should I just buy a different case for better airflow? If yes, do you have any in mind to recommend ? I've seen good reviews on the fractal design meshify c .

Meshify C is a top contender for best airflow under $100. It also has stellar buid quality (IMO) and great cable managment features. I've worked with the Define C (silenced focus version) and I was very satisfied with the building experience and end result. Almost any case with a mesh front panel will perform about the same depending on the fans. 

 

A few good cases in this category:

Coolermaster Mastercase H500 (no suffix, should be $99 or less)

Phanteks Enthoo Pro M TG

Silverstone RL06 (I'm not happy with the build quality or cable management but it comes with four 3-pin "okay" fans by default so it's worth a mention)

[Manuel-KLG]

38 minutes ago, TVwazhere said:

Meshify C is a top contender for best airflow under $100. It also has stellar buid quality (IMO) and great cable managment features. I've worked with the Define C (silenced focus version) and I was very satisfied with the building experience and end result. Almost any case with a mesh front panel will perform about the same depending on the fans. 

 

A few good cases in this category:

Coolermaster Mastercase H500 (no suffix, should be $99 or less)

Phanteks Enthoo Pro M TG

Silverstone RL06 (I'm not happy with the build quality or cable management but it comes with four 3-pin "okay" fans by default so it's worth a mention)

Seems like I will be going with the Mechify C case , even tho I really liked the design of the nzxt h500. Airflow is a priority. As I can see the case comes with 2 fans.  Im thinking of having 2 intake fans and 2 exhaust fans for neutral airflow.

[TVwazhere]

1 hour ago, Manuel-KLG said:

Seems like I will be going with the Mechify C case , even tho I really liked the design of the nzxt h500. Airflow is a priority. As I can see the case comes with 2 fans.  Im thinking of having 2 intake fans and 2 exhaust fans for neutral airflow.

Your best bet is to make sure your intake fans (assuming they're all the same type of fan) are set to be slightly faster than the exhaust. This gives you lightly positive air pressure, which theoretically helps prevent dust buildup the best. 

[Manuel-KLG]

59 minutes ago, TVwazhere said:

Your best bet is to make sure your intake fans (assuming they're all the same type of fan) are set to be slightly faster than the exhaust. This gives you lightly positive air pressure, which theoretically helps prevent dust buildup the best. 

Alright ! Thanks a lot for your help !

[Hister]

Manuel, TVwazhere gave you a sound advice when it comes to the NZXT H500 case. I fell in love with it from the visual point of view and what I thought were very reasonable and encouraging reviews so I bought it in Oktober 2018 together with all the other needed PC components. 

 

I left the two stock fans as exhausts on the back and the top.

 

For the 8700k cpu (OCed to 4.700 MHz) cooler I got NZXT Kraken x62 AIO liquid cooler and its radiator is positioned in the ussual manner so that fans pull the air in the case from the front which then passes the AIO radiator as was advised to me by NZXT team. I have no problems with the CPU temperatures, they are cool so the AIO is doing its job but the radiator and the case fans (which are also automatically regulated by Kraken AIO) do get too loud when CPU is on high load.

 

The problem I ran into was the MSI 1070 Ti GPU temperatures in this setup. I have the GPU installed in a suggested horizontal position (so not vertical which is known to make the GPU run very hot). Like TVwazhere said, the GPU's temperatures rise to 80 C quite quickly when under load (playing more demanding games) and then the GPU's fans start to become really loud when trying to keep the temps not above 80 C. And I bought this particular MSI GPU model precisely because I wanted to have low noise when playing games as the reviews were saying these are among the quietest GPUs on the market. 

 

I wanted to build a reasonably quiet PC and it is far from it as it stands. I don't exclude that I am oversensitive to noise and my expectations might be set too high when it comes to this- I don't know because I don't have much experience with this, I haven't seen other people's gaming PCs perform. Aside from my prevoius couple of PCs which were all too noisy really. This one is the least noisiest of the ones I had in the past but still too loud. I have it set up on my desk and is positioned right  next to where I sit so that doesn't help.

 

I played around with the custom fan settings in MSI Afterburner for the GPU but it seems I can't avoid having high GPU temperatures and lots of noise. @TVwazhere, any suggestion how I should set up the custom fan setup for my rig? Also do you know what is the highest still safe MSI 1070 Ti temperature under load? Can't find any info on this and am afraid to go past 82 C that I am currently reaching with GPU fans at 80-90%.

 

So I think you did well to listen to the advice you were given. How do you like your Fractal C case?

[Manuel-KLG]

Hello Hister! Thanks a ton for your reply. Informative and very helpful indeed. Didn't expect you to have problems with the gpu temperatures since as I had seen from reviews, the temperatures of the cpu were high and not the gpu. 

 

As much as I loved the nzxt h500 because of its look, I didn't buy it because I highly prefer cooler temperatures than a good looking pc. The Meshify C is an absolutely amazing case. As TVwazhere said, it's one of the best ( if not the best) case for airflow. I also got used to the mesh front panel and now I love it! The best part was the cable management of course. It was my first ever pc build so that helped me a lot .

[Hister]

Ah glad you like you other case choice so much. Now you are making me feel bad for not going with Meshify C which was also one of the cases I had on my buy list before I spoted H500. ;) 

 

I loved and still do many of the H500 aspects - the cable management and modality that the case provides was defenitely one of them. It was a real joy assembling everything together. Oh and the insides of the case are totally dust free after 5 months of use. I love how it looks, especially in combo with my NZXTKraken pump and other components which I made sure would visually fit in the case. 

 

The reviews for the H500 case said that the GPU temps are a non issue and that the CPU temps are the thing that are higher but those reviews didn't tetst things with an AIO in the front. That changes things a lot. 

 

I will now remove the dust filter on the top exhaust and see how that goes. I opted to have it there in order for dust not to go inside the case when the comp is turned off.   

[Hister]

Removing the dust filter defenitely helped at droping the temperatures. I can now feel the hot air gushing out whilst before it was barely noticable.

 

I reset to the the default GPU fan settings and made some changes in my Kraken custome fan profile and my comp is now much more quiet and the temps so far haven't exceeded 79 degrees C. 

 

I am now very happy with my purchase.   

[Hister]

Turns out my MSi 1070 Ti Gaming 8G GPU needs to be RMA-ed (confirmed by MSI technical help). It is running too hot no matter where I put it. Fans are struggling to get rid of the heat and are thus running at 88% RPM and more which makes what should have been a very quiet card a noisy one. So the case is not to be blamed intirely in my case (pun intended).  

[Hister]

Got the RMAed card back - the cause of the above average temps and higher fan spinning rates was in the unsufficiently applied thermal paste on my MSI 1070 Ti. Technician applied a new termal paste and now the card is very cool and performing as it should - being very quiet.