Cooling Overhaul

wako7654 · June 18, 2021

Hi,

I'm having problems cooling a 5950x and a 3080 inside a very old CoolerMaster Storm Stryker case. Ambient is around 24'C as its summer here.

For cooling I have noctua fans on the case, and NH-D15 for the CPU. The cooling doesn't seem to be cutting it as temperatures are still going up fairly high around 75+ cpu/gpu which I do know is acceptable but I use the rig almost 24/7 so i'm planning to spend for a complete overhaul to keep temperatures even lower.

I'm planning to buy an AIO + a newer case with added fans. Any recommendations on what should I change or buy to make the components run much cooler?

mr cheese · June 18, 2021

Arctic LiquidFreezer II 360mm, if it will fit in your case, will do you more than fine. If you want RGB, the EK AIO 360 is also one of the best (a mere 2nd only to the LF II) while also being very affordable. Unfortunately a dated case like yours wont fit... either of those. The best it looks like your case is ever going to support is the Liquid Freezer II 240mm and that will be mounted in place of the front fans, unfortunately it also looks like the radiator would be at the bottom of the loop when mounted like that so your pump would get flooded with air and die out. From the specs of fans I was able to find, unless you'd like to hard-mod your case, you're looking at a tough spot for water cooling. Your best option would most likely be the IceGiant ProSiphon Elite or a new case, and seeing as the Thermaltake V100 is ugly as fuck but also a cheap $50 case with 360mm radiator support, I'd say you're in for a case update too. Either way you're not going to see much improvement over an NH-D15 unfortunately. You've already got a top-of-the-line cooler in there that can fight off most 240mm radiators, you're not going to find much more thermal headroom unless you remove that case bottleneck or go full custom loop (literally don't spend that money just get a new case at that point)

wako7654 · June 18, 2021

19 minutes ago, DaJakerBoss said:

Arctic LiquidFreezer II 360mm, if it will fit in your case, will do you more than fine. If you want RGB, the EK AIO 360 is also one of the best (a mere 2nd only to the LF II) while also being very affordable. Unfortunately a dated case like yours wont fit... either of those. The best it looks like your case is ever going to support is the Liquid Freezer II 240mm and that will be mounted in place of the front fans, unfortunately it also looks like the radiator would be at the bottom of the loop when mounted like that so your pump would get flooded with air and die out. From the specs of fans I was able to find, unless you'd like to hard-mod your case, you're looking at a tough spot for water cooling. Your best option would most likely be the IceGiant ProSiphon Elite or a new case, and seeing as the Thermaltake V100 is ugly as fuck but also a cheap $50 case with 360mm radiator support, I'd say you're in for a case update too. Either way you're not going to see much improvement over an NH-D15 unfortunately. You've already got a top-of-the-line cooler in there that can fight off most 240mm radiators, you're not going to find much more thermal headroom unless you remove that case bottleneck or go full custom loop (literally don't spend that money just get a new case at that point)

Thanks! this helps a lot. I do think my case is showing it's age now and probably is the biggest bottleneck here. Which premium case should I go with you think?

mr cheese · June 18, 2021

9 hours ago, wako7654 said:

Thanks! this helps a lot. I do think my case is showing it's age now and probably is the biggest bottleneck here. Which premium case should I go with you think?

That's up to you honestly. The LanCool II Mesh is a really good one, just built a friend's $4000 rig in that and it's a beast, it's cheap, it's sexy, it's quality, you can easily slip a 360mm radiator in the front and it's surprisingly easy to build in (and has RGB if you're into that, I'm not and it was a bitch to learn for the first time but it is really clean)

The 18th Fret · June 19, 2021

21 hours ago, wako7654 said:

I'm planning to buy an AIO + a newer case with added fans. Any recommendations on what should I change or buy to make the components run much cooler?

It's one of the best things you can do for your PC, especially if you're an avid gamer, like me.

I recently spent some money buying a new case and AIO coolers for both my GPU and CPU. A lot of squeezing things here and there, a lot of cable management, a lot of thermal paste everywhere, but in the end it's really worth it because when you spend hundreds of dollars on components it makes sense to protect them with adequate cooling.

My 1080ti FE always would go up to 90C and stay there whenever I was gaming, so i bought a NZXT Kraken G12 bracket for $30, attached an old AIO I had lying around to it and now my 1080ti is water cooled and idles around 30C and goes up to around 50-55C during gaming/benching, instead of 90C.

As for CPU, it's a notoriously hot 10700K which has to have an AIO cooler, idles around 30, goes up to around 45-50C during gaming.

And as for a case I got the Be Quiet! Pure Base 500DX. 2 140mm fans on top and 2 on the front sucking air in and 1 140mm fan in the back along with the PSU fan sucking air out.

I'm looking forward to the day we have some amazing new tech AIOs and thermal pastes and we see our GPU/CPU temps idling around 10C and load temps around 18-20C.

One day.