Airflow fan setup for LIAN-LI O11D ?

PecaCZE · November 12, 2022

What fan setup would you recommend for LIAN-LI O11D ? I will go with CPU air cooler.

I am thinking of side 3x 120mm, rear 1x 120mm, top 1x 120mm. Or 2x 120mm on top ? It´s also basic setup for all cases right.

I don´t know about bottom fans, isn´t it too much ? It looks good with decent RGB but for cooling is useless.

Bonus question, what is your opinion on 13900K air cooler ( NH-D15 ) ?

Thank you for help.

Planning to buy:

CPU - Intel Core i9-13900K

GPU - Asus GeForce TUF Gaming 3080 Ti, 12GB

RAM - G.Skill Trident Z5 RGB, DDR5 5600 CL36, 2x 16GB

CPU cooler - Noctua NH-D15 chromax.black

SSD - Seagate FireCuda 530 Heatsink 1TB + 500GB

PSU - Corsair RM1000x

Display - Asus ROG Swift PG279QM, 27¨ 240Hz

DarkSwordsman · November 12, 2022

eh... the O11 isn't really designed for air-flow per say. You're going to be capped a bit on CPU cooling because of the air flow of the case, since it was designed for water cooling.

In my O11, I have an AIO for the CPU which does keep my 3950X pretty cool. But if you were to do an air cooler, you'd probably want to mount it vertically if I were to guess (fan facing up/down) and probably have the top and bottom fans as intake(?). I also populated all the fan slots with some cheap arctic fans and they do a great job. No matter what you do, there won't really be much air "flow" because of the GPU location and no front-fans.

Dogzilla07 · November 12, 2022

@PecaCZE

GamersNexus already covered the case, and the best fan setup and orientations for air cooling (as can be seen on the pictures and video below).

3 fans intake on the side is best for both CPU and GPU (there could be variations based on the exact GPU, but that config is the best place to start).

One important thing to note (as can be seen in the video for CPU comparison with other cases is how an high fan speed produces a sizeable 5c degree drop. What that tells us is the case needs raw speed, and using the most superior fans will make quite a difference. Using cheap fans would be counter-productive. That means top LCP, or comparable fans like (Noctua A12x25, Phanteks T30-120, be quiet! Silent Wings 4/4 PRO, Thermalright TL-B12 and similar).

Only fans that top expreview, VSG (techpowerup) and hwcooling charts and specifically achieve that while spinning at high RPM speeds. The key/the trick is to get the equivalent of 100% fan speed temp drop from GN charts, but without the noise than those high speeds usually entail. Have the cake and eat it too!