Questions about cooling

[Inception9269]

I was planning on doing a system overhaul in the next couple of months, upgrading to a 5800x cpu and either an RTX 3080 or and AMD card if theirs actually do manage to outperform Nvidia.

 

My current case is a FD Define 6, which is a good case and all, but when I do these kind of big upgrades I always want to upgrade to a new case, to make things feel more unique. The next case I'm still trying to decide on, but currently I'm leaning toward the Phanteks p500a, since I want airflow to be the focus point of my next build.

 

I considered simplifying things by going with with a Noctua air cooler but decided that'd be stupid considering I'm using a perfectly fine FD s36 triple rad. My graphics card has a built in 240mm AiO but not gonna lie the pc looks jangy as hell in the inside with the wires and tubes for both AiOs in there.

 

My plan is to mount the s36  to the top of the case, and buy 3 better case fans for the front me wanting to go with three 140mm air flow fans. I also want to replace the three 120mm s36 fans cause they're kind of shitty as well. I'm behind on things when it comes to case fans, not knowing which ones to go for. I looked at some from pcpartpicker from Noctua but they were like 25-30 per fan, I'd be spending around $170 for just six fans. I'm looking for best performance, RGB I can live without but I'll still go for if it's still a really good case fan.

 

Another thing I was wondering about, just for limiting the amount of fans I have a bit, if I do three 140mms at the front and three 120s at the top, can I completely forgo a rear exhaust fan? Heat rises and all so I feel like three 120s at the top will function better. Another thing I'm interested in but haven't seen anything online about is gpu temperature when using the vertical mount. I've heard in the past that vertical mounted GPUs run much higher, but this case has three vertical expansion slots which should space it out a bit more so I was wondering if anyone had any idea of how the temps would be

[Dedayog]

You want us to guess what your temps will be?  

 

Uhm, 52c?

 

Did I win?

[bellabichon]

8 minutes ago, Inception9269 said:

I'm behind on things when it comes to case fans, not knowing which ones to go for.

Believe it or not, there hasn't been a huge amount of innovation in the case fan industry in the past decade. You haven't missed much. 

9 minutes ago, Inception9269 said:

I looked at some from pcpartpicker from Noctua but they were like 25-30 per fan, I'd be spending around $170 for just six fans. I'm looking for best performance, RGB I can live without but I'll still go for if it's still a really good case fan.

That's the one downside of Noctua fans, other than the gaudy color scheme: they're expensive. But, you do get what you pay for. Noctua fans have great silence and static pressure. If you're willing to pay a premium price for a premium product, go for it. If not, grab pretty much anything from a reputable brand (Corsair, NZXT, Cooler Master, etc), after performing a quick google search to make sure it doesn't have any major issues.

12 minutes ago, Inception9269 said:

Another thing I was wondering about, just for limiting the amount of fans I have a bit, if I do three 140mms at the front and three 120s at the top, can I completely forgo a rear exhaust fan? Heat rises and all so I feel like three 120s at the top will function better.

If I understand you correctly that those three fans at the top are pushing air out of your case, then yes, you can forgo a separate exhaust fan. 

13 minutes ago, Inception9269 said:

Another thing I'm interested in but haven't seen anything online about is gpu temperature when using the vertical mount. I've heard in the past that vertical mounted GPUs run much higher,

That's typically the case in situations where the GPU is mounted right against the side acrylic/tempered glass panel, because there's not much space for air from inside the case to blow across the fans. 

15 minutes ago, Inception9269 said:

but this case has three vertical expansion slots which should space it out a bit more

That should definitely help keep your GPU cool in a vertical position.

16 minutes ago, Inception9269 said:

so I was wondering if anyone had any idea of how the temps would be

No straightforward way for us to know that. Considering the fact that you've got a total of 6 case fans, and your GPU is mounted with plenty of room to breathe, I think you're going to be fine. My guess is 60C. If @Dedayog beats me, I owe them a 3080.

[Mark Kaine]

1 hour ago, bellabichon said:

That's the one downside of Noctua fans, other than the gaudy color scheme: they're expensive.

 

I think I agree with what you said, except the quoted.

 

 

 

https://www.amazon.de/-/en/Noctua-NF-P12-redux-1700-PWM-Performance/dp/B07CG2PGY6/ref=mp_s_a_1_31?dchild=1&keywords=chromax&qid=1602640652&sr=8-31

 

Is that really gaudy or expensive? Especially considering the quality and they don't come with cheapo cables either, they're high quality and 4pins instead of the 3pin cables that come with many similar priced fans.

 

At this point there's really no reason *not* to get noctuas (certainly not because of prices)

 

 

 

[bellabichon]

8 minutes ago, Mark Kaine said:

Is that really gaudy or expensive? Especially considering the quality and they don't come with cheapo cables either, they're high quality and 4pins instead of the 3pin cables that come with many similar priced fans.

 

At this point there's really no reason *not* to get noctuas (certainly not because of prices)

...That's not your run-of-the-mill Noctua fan. This is your run-of-the-mill Noctua fan:

 

As for prices, it's pretty location-specific. In Canada, where I live, Noctua fans are $26.09 each on Amazon. That's a decent bit more expensive than other offerings. Not saying they're not worth it (I think that in most cases they are), but it's not below consideration. 

[Mark Kaine]

12 minutes ago, bellabichon said:

...That's not your run-of-the-mill Noctua fan. This is your run-of-the-mill Noctua fan:

 

As for prices, it's pretty location-specific. In Canada, where I live, Noctua fans are $26.09 each on Amazon. That's a decent bit more expensive than other offerings. Not saying they're not worth it (I think that in most cases they are), but it's not below consideration. 

Yeah but why would you buy that, they're ugly and expensive ._.

 

That was kind of my point, of course you can buy those but why would you when you can get redux version which looks much better is cheaper and technically the exact same model (minus unnecessary accessories)

 

They're really awesome !

[bellabichon]

10 minutes ago, Mark Kaine said:

Yeah but why would you buy that, they're ugly and expensive ._.

 

That was kind of my point, of course you can buy those but why would you when you can get redux version which looks much better is cheaper and technically the exact same model (minus unnecessary accessories)

For us non-americans, the redux and chromax.black versions are usually either twice as expensive, or not available at all ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 

 

[Inception9269]

2 hours ago, bellabichon said:

Believe it or not, there hasn't been a huge amount of innovation in the case fan industry in the past decade. You haven't missed much. 

That's the one downside of Noctua fans, other than the gaudy color scheme: they're expensive. But, you do get what you pay for. Noctua fans have great silence and static pressure. If you're willing to pay a premium price for a premium product, go for it. If not, grab pretty much anything from a reputable brand (Corsair, NZXT, Cooler Master, etc), after performing a quick google search to make sure it doesn't have any major issues.

If I understand you correctly that those three fans at the top are pushing air out of your case, then yes, you can forgo a separate exhaust fan. 

That's typically the case in situations where the GPU is mounted right against the side acrylic/tempered glass panel, because there's not much space for air from inside the case to blow across the fans. 

That should definitely help keep your GPU cool in a vertical position.

No straightforward way for us to know that. Considering the fact that you've got a total of 6 case fans, and your GPU is mounted with plenty of room to breathe, I think you're going to be fine. My guess is 60C. If @Dedayog beats me, I owe them a 3080.

Even though the fans that came with my s36 liquid cooler are functional, they're those cheapo white fans that Fractal Design uses, not those venturi ones (which I do have a few)

The black Noctua fans are the ones I was looking at, and that shit was close to $30 per fan. I do want to go with best possible performance so I might bite the bullet and go with Noctua even if more expensive.

 

When I asked for what kind of temps would I have, obviously wasn't gonna get a specified answer, meant that more so as anyone with similar setups if they still had good temps. Regardless I imagine my cpu temps will be perfectly fine, it's more so the gpu temps I was worried about. I've seen youtubers like Hardware Canucks go on about how vertical mounts typically put the gpu right against the glass, but was wondering if those have used cases where there's more space could talk about temps they have. I feel like with that case having three expansion slots there it'll have better temps than other vertical mounts, also considering I plan on having all the exhausting happening at the top, heat rising, it'd have a better impact on gpu temps since non-reference coolers blow air all around the sides instead of out back of case.

[Mark Kaine]

1 hour ago, bellabichon said:

For us non-americans, the redux and chromax.black versions are usually either twice as expensive, or not available at all ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 

Oof. Ok I didn't know that.

[Trik'Stari]

I can only answer one of your questions.

 

I can confidently say that ANY Phanteks case is an upgrade from ANY fractal design case.

 

Both in aesthetics and build quality.

[Inception9269]

1 hour ago, Trik'Stari said:

I can only answer one of your questions.

 

I can confidently say that ANY Phanteks case is an upgrade from ANY fractal design case.

 

Both in aesthetics and build quality.

I don't know about that. I do think the build quality in FD's cases is real good, and the functionality is good, but aesthetically speaking a lot of FD's cases look almost indistinguishable from each other.

 

I like my Define R6, but it is pretty boring to look at.

[Stahlmann]

3 hours ago, Mark Kaine said:

That was kind of my point, of course you can buy those but why would you when you can get redux version which looks much better is cheaper and technically the exact same model (minus unnecessary accessories)

To all the noctua stuff:

Except the redux sereies is not the same model minus accessories. The redux models are last-gen fans with differen bearings and without most of the acoustic enhancements to the frame.

Standard Noctua fans are this ugly because they focused on performance before acoustics and the brown/beige colors are just the normal colors of the used materials. The chromax series are a good alternative for that.

Also, if you go Noctua, F-Series fans are pressure optimized (ideal for useage on heatsinks and radiators), S-Series fans are airflow optimized (ideal for case fans that don't have to work agains a big resistance) and the A-Series is the jack of all trades, but master of none.

IMO the ideal setup in your case would be 3x NF-A14 in front, 1x NF-A14 in back, and 3x NF-F12 on top mounted to the rad. But then we're talking ~175$ of fans, so you have to decide if it's worth it.

 

Another option:

Arctic fans. They're extremely good value and performance. They're just cheaper because they don't really have any accessories but still use a top-notch motor & bearing design. Here you pay ~15$ for each 140mm fan, and 12$ for each 120mm fan. So here you're looking at ~95$ for 4x 140mm and 3x 120mm fans.

[NineEyeRon]

From reading your posts you seem to contradict yourself a few times, it seems you don’t quite know what you want.

 

If you really want performance you have to pay for it.

 

If you really want good cooling and airflow you will have to sacrifice visual appearance unless you go custom water cooling.

 

Take a bit of time to sit back, away from the forum and really think what matters most for this build and what you can live without or accept as a compromise.

 

If the best fans cost $160 and you want really good cooling then you need to buy those fans. I certainly wouldn’t hesitate and I am a budget/quiet type builder.

[LogicalDrm]

-> Moved to Air Cooling