Eliminating Preheating from Front Intake Rad

[Nanook]

Although I like the aesthetics of a beefy front rad, I can't get over that intaking air from the front is going to increase the temperature inside my case. I am aware that the increase in temperature inside the case from a front intake rad is small, but hey we are enthusiasts anyways so why not min/max for fun. The idea is to use a high air flow case with a mesh front panel to intake a lot of fresh ambient air. I was thinking the Phanteks p500a with 3x140mm fans up front. Although I didn't have much room to show it in my sketch pic, both the top and rear rad would have exhaust fans on them. This way a ton of fresh ambient air gets taken into the case so fast that board components don't have time to change the temp at all resulting in incase temps being exactly the same as ambient. Air is then immediately passed through the top and rear rads and exhausted straight to the atmosphere. No more front rad preheating air into the case then passing through the other rads.

 

One of the draw backs about this loop setup is that I have not found a case that supports larger than a 120mm rad in the rear. Another is that all rads I have found have both the inflow and outflow on the same end. The complexity of tubing runs would be simplified if I could find rads that had inflow and outflow ports on opposite ends.

 

Please tell me what yall think. Will skipping a front rad in favor of greater air intake and eliminating air preheating reduce temperatures any noticeable amount, or am I just chasing squirrels?

[Tristerin]

I run 1 front intake 240mm rad, 1 top exhaust 240mm rad, and 1 rear exhaust 120mm rad, I suggest that combo if you have the space as radiator real estate is a large part of the thermal equation.  I dont have a pic of when I put in a waterblocked Fury X but the same run next to the Fury non X is the same.  

 

There are radiators with opposite end in/outlets, just less typical

 

 

 

 

[Nanook]

5 minutes ago, Tristerin said:

There are radiators with opposite end in/outlets, just less typical

 

 

 

 

 

 

I would love if you can point me in that direction.

[Tristerin]

Examples:

 

https://www.performance-pcs.com/water-cooling/radiators/black-ice-nemesis-360gts-xflow-ultra-stealth-cross-flow-low-profile-radiator-black-carbon-n360gts-f1pb.html

 

https://www.performance-pcs.com/water-cooling/radiators/magicool-360-g2-x-flow-slim-radiator-black-mc-rad360g2x.html

 

https://www.performance-pcs.com/water-cooling/radiators/xspc-ex360-crossflow-radiator-v2-xspc-ex360-cf-v2-bk.html

 

 

[Nanook]

9 minutes ago, Tristerin said:

Examples:

 

https://www.performance-pcs.com/water-cooling/radiators/black-ice-nemesis-360gts-xflow-ultra-stealth-cross-flow-low-profile-radiator-black-carbon-n360gts-f1pb.html

 

https://www.performance-pcs.com/water-cooling/radiators/magicool-360-g2-x-flow-slim-radiator-black-mc-rad360g2x.html

 

https://www.performance-pcs.com/water-cooling/radiators/xspc-ex360-crossflow-radiator-v2-xspc-ex360-cf-v2-bk.html

 

 

Just out of curiosity, are those rads allowing fluid to flow from one end to the other in one direction through all channels simultaneously, or do they do the back and forth flow 2 or 3 channels until they reach the other end?

 

I ask because I am trying to break another norm. I noticed that most regular rads that have the inflow and outflow ports on the same end only allow fluid to flow down half the channels and back up the other half to the outflow port. This restricts the flow. I was looking for a rad with inflow and outflow ports on opposite ends that also allows fluid to flow in one direction across all rad channels simultaneously. This would help our D5 pump or maybe even larger to "spread its wings" and increase overall loop flow rates! Which hopefully translates to cooler temps across the board.

[Tristerin]

4 minutes ago, Nanook said:

Just out of curiosity, are those rads allowing fluid to flow from one end to the other in one direction through all channels simultaneously, or do they do the back and forth flow until they reach the other end? 

Not sure, Ive cut open rads before for project proofing and they were split even from in to out (left radiator you can see I left the "sidewall" intact)

[Nanook]

7 minutes ago, Tristerin said:

Not sure, Ive cut open rads before for project proofing and they were split even from in to out (left radiator you can see I left the "sidewall" intact)

 

Ha! I found a video explaining it all and I got to learn some new stuff today. I haven't checked out the other ones yet, but the black ice rad you linked is a cross flow rad. Meaning it does allow fluid to flow from one end to the other through all channels simultaneously.

 

Thank you for all the help. I got the rads I wanted and learned some new stuff.

 

 

[Lipe123]

There is very little flow restriction with a normal rad, you need to all the volume of all the channels up to get the total flow capacity and it should be much more than the cpu/gpu block restriction.

 

Front intake or rear rad is going to be more or less the same, the air will be warm by the time it gets to the rear soo meh? 

Even though air passed through the front rad it might not be fully saturated and still be able to collect heat on the way out. Or just reverse the flow and make the front an outlet and the rear intake.

[Mick Naughty]

I don’t use use rads on the front if I can avoid it. Temps are much better for the components that don’t have blocks on them. 
Ram, plx, chipsets and m.2’s in my case all have better temps doing so. Some people only think about the cpu and gpu and half the time it’s comparing using an aio on the cpu and open air cooler on the gpu. 
 

Do it right and just have the rad as exhaust and have fresh air for the entire build. 

[Bitter]

Who says that the front has to be intake? Top/rear intake and front exhaust through a radiator. VRM/RAM/Board/M.2/ back of video card get a fresh blast of cool air and all the heat goes out the front of the case. Why not?