Stacking radiators

[Tmt97]

Is there any significant decrease in cooling cabability of a custom water cooling loop with 3 120mm rads and fans stacked in a row in front of each other, vs a single 3x120mm rad?

[ClownFace1511]

It doesn't work at all. The hot air gets passed from the first rad to the second which really doesn't cool the water in the second rad. Then that air is 2x hot for the 3rd rad. So basically there is no point. I looked into this before.

 

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?220874-More-Radiator-Sandwich-testing

[W-L]

Is there any significant decrease in cooling cabability of a custom water cooling loop with 3 120mm rads and fans stacked in a row in front of each other, vs a single 3x120mm rad?

 

It's been tested before, stacking rads aren't desirable, having separate rads yields better cooling potential:

[MourningSouls]

I'd put $5 on it being worse.

[Tmt97]

Thanks for the quick response.

[OddsCrazyStuff]

It's been tested before, stacking rads aren't desirable, having separate rads yields better cooling potential:

At 1200RPM, so does stacked radiators beat everything but separated radiators. Granted, with less then 0.5C, but it might be something to it.

You just need a test, where the air flow through the radiators are the same (same air flow on the other side, to eliminate variations in thickness).

[W-L]

At 1200RPM, so does stacked radiators beat everything but separated radiators. Granted, with less then 0.5C, but it might be something to it.

You just need a test, where the air flow through the radiators are the same (same air flow on the other side, to eliminate variations in thickness).

 

At higher RPM's it does help but more so with the extra fans, but even just having an extra thick rad with a single set of fans, compared to stacking it gives very similar performance,