Watercooling an R9 390 with a 280mm Rad - Will it be quiet?

onVacation · March 6, 2016

Alright. So, I've recently built my first "real" PC and I bought my first AMD chip (due to a very good offer and Asus Cashback): An R9 390 (Strix). I was initially looking for a system that will be quiet while still having enough power for gaming, photo- and video editing. Therefore I bought a Fractal R5 case and paired the Xeon 1231v3 with a big EKL Brocken 2 cooler. I used bequiet! Shadow Wings as case fans and therefore got myself a pretty quiet system for the money. At least in idle.

Under load, the 390 speeds up, gets very loud and still hits temperatures of 80°C and it's winter. Ambient temperature at about 19-20°C, I don't even want to imagine what it's like during summer.

Now, I do realize, that my cooling setup might not be ideal, having only one 140mm exhaust at back, two 140mm intakes in the front and one 140mm intake at the bottom that turns on when under load, but if I open the top of the case, I lose the sound damping and create a slit between the motherboard and the fan, where dust will have an easy way in.

So I thought maybe it would be a good idea to watercool the 390. I thought about putting an Alphacool block on it, using a 5,25" reservoir (with an attached D5) and a 280mm radiator in the front.

Now I have several questions regarding that setup:

• Does it make sense? Will the overall setup be quieter or will it be just as loud as there's still just that one 140mm exhaust in the back?

• If it makes sense: How thick should the radiator be? I thought: The thicker, the better, as there is plenty of space, but I also read that eventually there is a point, where it doesn't change much..

• And last but not least: In the end I am looking for a quiet system that just works without much maintenance. So, maybe a tube change once or twice a year and a water change every few months. For me, watercooling wouldn't be for the looks, but for the noise. Will this do the trick for me or is it more work than I thought? I don't want to be cleaning the loop every few weeks due to some plaque issues or stuff like that...

Necrodead · March 6, 2016

you will get lower noise for sure, I can't say it would be silent, but a 280mm is really good for a 390. More-so than the thickness, the amount of fans matter, especially if you are going for quiet. (quiet enthusiasts like myself prefer thin rads, as they perform better at lower speeds than thick rads, but have lower overall cooling) It may seem backward, but if you put 4 fans on the single rad you can run them slower and quieter than the 2 fans would be. Either way 280mm is enough rad for a 390 that it shouldn't make much difference, 4 fans or 2. Your single exhaust fan in the back should still be fine.

onVacation · March 7, 2016

4 hours ago, Necrodead said:

you will get lower noise for sure, I can't say it would be silent, but a 280mm is really good for a 390. Your single exhaust fan in the back should still be fine.

Alright, thanks. That's good to hear. I don't expect the system to be completely silent, as this is simply impossible, but I did hope that I could use 2 or 4 good fans running at 7V or a little higher while keeping the temperatures at a level that doesn't kill the card.

Regarding the thickness I was thinking of a rather thick radiator of 60, or maybe even 86mm. Will 86mm make a difference big enough to have the fans run a little slower or is that the point where it's just for those extra 3°C some enthusiats might want to squeeze out of their rads?

Necrodead · March 7, 2016

4 hours ago, onVacation said:

Regarding the thickness I was thinking of a rather thick radiator of 60, or maybe even 86mm. Will 86mm make a difference big enough to have the fans run a little slower or is that the point where it's just for those extra 3°C some enthusiats might want to squeeze out of their rads?

86mm rads are more for bragging rights, I believe the xspc monsta cools about 2c more than a 30mm thick rad with the same fans at low speed, but no difference at 2000rpm. A 60mm and 86mm will probably not even be noticeably different in the end. With watercooling your fans are still the most important part, if you go for push/pull the thickness of your rad won't matter. However if you want to pick the best radiator, I leave you with a link to my favourite radiator comparison. The best performing rad you can buy right now is the EK XE, however they did not test the 86mm monsta rad.

http://www.xtremerigs.net/2015/02/11/radiator-round-2015/10/

10e · March 7, 2016

Yes, a 280mm radiator with push/pull fans would be very good at keeping that card cool. You'd probably see load temps in the low 50s with the fans running at around 1000 RPM, which is quiet.

If you want to go thin, the Hardware Labs GTS 280 would be great, with the only real potential improvement coming from the HardwareLabs 280 GTX version. The EK CE 280 is pretty good as well. The big problem with the thicker radiators like the Monsta is that they need push-pull to see a real performance improvement. The Hardware labs and EK CE rads are not louvered so they avoid collection of dust, and make better use of the static pressure of fans.

D5 Bay reservoirs can transmit a fair bit of noise through vibration into the case, so make sure you get a D5 Vario Pump to lower the speed down to setting of 1-3 and see how that works for you. These are very strong pumps and should have zero issues driving water through a single radiator and GPU water block.

I was cooling an R9 290X overclocked and i7 3770K at 4.4Ghz with a 280mm Monsta with push-only fans and a small XSPC EX120 and the front 140mm fans were running at around 1100 RPM, and the r9 card never exceeded 50 degrees celsius. But the Monsta isn't any better than the Hardware Labs GTS 280, and not as good as the GTX 280 according to XtremeRigs.net

I'm gonna copycat NecroDead and submit a link here

http://www.xtremerigs.net/2016/02/25/hardware-labs-nemesis-280-gtx-radiator-review/5/

The 280mm radiators are almos as effective at heat dissipation as the 360mm rads are. But keep in mind you would want to lower the fans' speeds as 140mm fans at 1300 RPM are not necessarily as quiet as 120mm, but in this case you could probably run them at pretty low speeds.