Define R6 not quite good for aircooled GPU ?

[lapinobel]

I have my Define R6 with the X60 rad in front (4 140mm fans, 2 in front, 2 behind rad, so push/pull) and one 140mm outtake. My GPU (MSI RTX2080 Gaming X Trio) goes up to about 83°C and the gpu fans ramping up to 60%/65% which is kinda loud. When I leave my case open, temps of the gpu drop about 10°C keeping the card quite a bit more silent. So is the Define R6 not a 'good' case for aircooled gpu? Recommendations?

[Haro]

2 minutes ago, lapinobel said:

So is the Define R6 not a 'good' case for aircooled gpu?

It's not known for airflow 

It's not an airflow optimized case , it's far from that 

[Mateyyy]

Yeah it's not great. You could try mounting an intake on the bottom but it won't make too massive of a difference because of the restrictive PSU shroud.

[Stahlmann]

The Define R6 is not good for airflow. You're making it worse with your front mounted rad in this case. No surprise here with the temps. Of course you can live with an open side-panel but if you are concerned about temps i'd get another case.

[lapinobel]

Any recommendations? This is how my current setup looks.

RGB fans > NZXT AER 140mm (1 rear, 2 behind rad)

normal fans > NZXT 140mm (in front of rad), which came with the X60

(angle of the pic makes the gpu sag look worse than it is btw)

[Haro]

6 minutes ago, lapinobel said:

Any recommendations? This is how my current setup looks.

Put some intake fans on the top or 

Place the rad in top ( if possible) and place some intake fans on the front  

Or at the bottom like what @Mateyyy said

[lapinobel]

I kinda dislike the top of the R6 unless using the closed top. So maybe my case just isn't "fit" for me. Already tried a bottom intake, didn't make much difference. Might be that the AER fans aren't quite the best for airflow too. Always looking for a "silent" pc, but it's not working out now. Meshify C?

[Samfisher]

57 minutes ago, TofuHaroto said:

Put some intake fans on the top or 

Place the rad in top ( if possible) and place some intake fans on the front  

Or at the bottom like what @Mateyyy said

Rads on top interfere with CPU temps from the GPU way more than front mounting heat interfering with GPU temps.

 

You need more exhaust fans.  Your case has 4 intake fans, minus the rad that's the rough equivalent of 2 fans intake at full speed and that's probably a stock case fan that spins at low RPMs.

[TVwazhere]

8 hours ago, lapinobel said:

Always looking for a "silent" pc, but it's not working out now. Meshify C?

Meshify S2. Meshify C cant fit the 280mm rad and that GPU together. 

[lapinobel]

Would that case be an improvement for airflow and would I be better off getting different fans (have a feeling the AER fans are a bit noisy too).

[TVwazhere]

1 hour ago, lapinobel said:

Would that case be an improvement for airflow and would I be better off getting different fans (have a feeling the AER fans are a bit noisy too).

The Meshify C has nearly the exact same panel as the Meshify S2. 

https://www.gamersnexus.net/hwreviews/3441-fractal-s2-meshify-case-review

[Bartholomew]

11 hours ago, lapinobel said:

I have my Define R6 with the X60 rad in front (4 140mm fans, 2 in front, 2 behind rad, so push/pull) and one 140mm outtake. My GPU (MSI RTX2080 Gaming X Trio) goes up to about 83°C and the gpu fans ramping up to 60%/65% which is kinda loud. When I leave my case open, temps of the gpu drop about 10°C keeping the card quite a bit more silent. So is the Define R6 not a 'good' case for aircooled gpu? Recommendations?

I think choosing aio because of aestetics over top end air cooling is the real issue here (in combination with the case though).

 

I suspect that with a drp4 or equivalent the cpu heat is expelled much more directly out the back, and this opens up the front slots for cool fresh intake at both  top (for cpu) and bottom (for gpu).

 

I have the S2 (non meshify, completely closed panel with not even a door) with 3900x and 2060 (i know 2060 is lower wattage than 2080 but still) and my rig is whisperquiet, inaudible in common tasks, and hardly audible if pushed with cpu around 70-74 and 2060(asus strix) hardly hitting 60-62 . This is with the stock gp14  fans that with a custom curve are even at fan-stop when browsing or youtube, and dont exceed 700 rpm under heavy combined loads like bf5 or resolve exports.

 

Most of the time i am annoyed whenever the hdd (soo to be replaced with 2nd nvme) spins up as that is now the only noisemaker left.

[lapinobel]

Did some more experimenting, moving fans around and swapping them for other brands I had laying around. One thing I notice, is the rear exhaust fan (whichever one I use) is pretty audible mostly due to the grill behind it, the way it pushed air through causes it to sound pretty loud compared to the other fans in the system (same brand/speed). When I disable the rear fan, the noise characteristic of the pc is a lot more subdued and even. But I of course need the exhaust to expell hot air from the case (unless I'd go with an open case which is not what I want to do).

 

So currently took out a lot of stuff. Put in the stock NZXT X60 fans in front of the rad, pulling air into the case and the 'stock' Define R6 140mm in the back for exhaust. Curiously, the stock fan for the case does not make the annoying sound in the rear pushing air through the vent as the Bequiet and NZXT fans do. So I'm "rgb-less" when it comes to fans now. Not that I really need it, kinda looks cool sometimes.

 

I think I might just get some decent 140mm fans, could be RGB or not. One would be used for outtake, and two to replace the stock X60 fans that came with the rad. Which one would you recommend? The Corsair QL140's any good? (expensive but yolo...).

 

And yeah I know a decent air-cooled setup might be quieter than the AIO setups but I have a windowed case and of course looks matter quite a bit too.

[lapinobel]

20 hours ago, Bartholomew said:

I think choosing aio because of aestetics over top end air cooling is the real issue here (in combination with the case though).

 

I suspect that with a drp4 or equivalent the cpu heat is expelled much more directly out the back, and this opens up the front slots for cool fresh intake at both  top (for cpu) and bottom (for gpu).

 

I have the S2 (non meshify, completely closed panel with not even a door) with 3900x and 2060 (i know 2060 is lower wattage than 2080 but still) and my rig is whisperquiet, inaudible in common tasks, and hardly audible if pushed with cpu around 70-74 and 2060(asus strix) hardly hitting 60-62 . This is with the stock gp14  fans that with a custom curve are even at fan-stop when browsing or youtube, and dont exceed 700 rpm under heavy combined loads like bf5 or resolve exports.

 

Most of the time i am annoyed whenever the hdd (soo to be replaced with 2nd nvme) spins up as that is now the only noisemaker left.

which cooler do you use?

[Bartholomew]

3 hours ago, lapinobel said:

which cooler do you use?

Drp4 (dark rock pro 4); but granted, that is a big blob compared to a aio as for eastetics

 

[TVwazhere]

23 hours ago, lapinobel said:

And yeah I know a decent air-cooled setup might be quieter than the AIO setups but I have a windowed case and of course looks matter quite a bit too.

Personally, I'd get good quiet fans, and then if you want them RGB's, you could always get something like the Phanteks Halo fan ring grills that shine light onto the blades (works better for white blades than black ones)

[lapinobel]

Been swapping fans and positions for several hours, but I really don't seem to get much difference in results. Currently stopped with the radiator front mounted with 2 intake fans, and 1 outtake fan at the rear. CPU temps are VERY good (+- 40°C idle, +- 60°C stressed). This is a 9700K non-overclocked. But my GPU still kinda bothers me. Idle temps are around 42°C (fans off), but once I launch a game temp immediately jumps to 60°-65°C and under load hovers somewhere between 73°C-78°C, speed drops to about 1920mhz and fans run at 60% (which is already a bit loud). I've seen Youtube movies with similar setup where GPU temps stay around 60°C under load. Also tried a bottom intake fan, speeding up the case fans and even run with open case, but gpu temps tend to jump quite easily to over 70°C.

 

Is this a normal temp for a MSI Gaming X Trio? Or should I try to apply better thermal paste on the card? Won't do this if temp seems 'normal'. Like I said before, my main issue is not the casefans (which are pretty ok noise-wise) but the gpu making too much noise for my liking. My pc is setup on a corner-office in our living room, so loud fan noise bothers the family members when I'm playing games.

 

Also looking at Noctua fans, which (black) 140mm should I choose?

[freeagent]

I have an R4 and its tough to get a good flow with regular fans. With my Define R4, and my Meshify C I use 120x38s. Almost no one will use them because they have no RGB, and a fear that they will be loud. High performance computing and silence do not go well together. As many of you are finding out now that summer is here.

[Stahlmann]

39 minutes ago, lapinobel said:

Also looking at Noctua fans, which (black) 140mm should I choose?

NF-A14 PWM chromax.black edition

They are completely silent up to ~650 RPM. After that you start to hear them. For my standards at 1000 RPM they are obnoxiously loud. You can also get Arctic P14 PWMs which have pretty much the same performance and noise, while being a lot cheaper.

[lapinobel]

Just installed 3x NF-P14s PWM fans, light grey. Two as a replacement for the NZXT radiator fans (intake, before rad) and one in the bottom of the case, connected to the same 'hub' which drives the radiator fans so the bottom fan will turn faster as CPU heat increases. The chromax were too expensive for the moment.