Deciding between case choice- airflow

deeplearningmachines · December 23, 2015

I am torn between a case labs case (expensive) or a cheaper case (corsair air 540).

If I go with the corsair air 540 all the air coming in will be hot air from the radiators. I will have 4 video cards EVGA with the hybrid cooler. The front panel will have three of the 120mm radiators and the exhaust will have the last 120mm radiator from the GPUs. The top will have a corsair H110i GTX for the CPU. I will use Noctua industrial fans in all push/pull. Will this case have enough airflow to cool the other components like the PCIE 950 pro,VRAM, and motherboard since it will be putting in all hot air from the radiators? Also I noticed that this case doesn't have any fans directing air towards the the power supply. I will be running a EVGA T2 1600 W, which might get quite hot. This will cost about $421 for the case and fans + dust filters. I have not use a PC in a long time, but my last one would shut down due to overheating issues or thermal throttle, which I would like to avoid.

The caseslabs would most likely be the mercury s8. It is better than the air 540 in room and cooling options. This case will allow me to have direct cool air from the outside and not from radiators to cool the VRAM, PCIE SSD, motherboard, etc. The downside is that this setup will cost me $800 if I go just push for the radiator fans + filters or $950 + filters if I go push pull for all the radiator fans. If I choose this route I will probably go just the push since there are additional intake fans.

Essentially the corsair 540 is $400-$500 cheaper. If that is the case I would get a 4k monitor otherwise I will use my very old monitors from the days when I used desktops. Btw this desktop is not intended for gaming, but running simulations for days on end.

Or is there any other case is cheaper that would provide all the benefits of the mercury s8? I like cases with direct airflow to the motherboard and minimalistic design.

Streetguru · December 23, 2015

I am torn between a case labs case (expensive) or a cheaper case (corsair air 540).

well, A why 4 GPUs? and B if you have money for 4 GPUs you might as well go caselabs

deeplearningmachines · December 23, 2015

well, A why 4 GPUs? and B if you have money for 4 GPUs you might as well go caselabs

My research requires lots of parallel processing to have a reasonable computational time. Just because I have the money doesn't mean I like to throw it at everything I like.

Streetguru · December 23, 2015

My research requires lots of parallel processing to have a reasonable computational time. Just because I have the money doesn't mean I like to throw it at everything I like.

Well are you doing a custom water cooling loop? or do you just need to mount like 4 Fury X radiators, I'm going to guess you're using Nvidia cards though

deeplearningmachines · December 24, 2015

Well are you doing a custom water cooling loop? or do you just need to mount like 4 Fury X radiators, I'm going to guess you're using Nvidia cards though

I will most likely be purchasing the Titan X hybrids. Custom water-cooling require maintenance and if I destroy computer components it will result in downtime. AMD cards are not well supported for the applications I will be doing.

Streetguru · December 24, 2015

I will most likely be purchasing the Titan X hybrids. Custom water-cooling require maintenance and if I destroy computer components it will result in downtime. AMD cards are not well supported for the applications I will be doing.

AMD has like a CUDA converter thing apparently coming next month, but ya that seems to be Nvidia's thing mostly.

If you just need to mount radiators then any case with enough fan ports will be fine, although I'm not sure how many are going to handle 4 120mm radiators easily. caselabs has that down packed

Given how modular the Master Case 5 is, it could most likely be adapted for that purpose

http://www.coolermaster.com/case/mid-tower/mastercase5-series/