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Additional fans on CPU cooler?

Giganthrax
By Giganthrax
in Cooling
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Posted

Hello. I can't find a comprehensive answer to this online. 

 

I have a Noctua NH-U14S single-tower heatsink. It has one 140mm fan that blows air through the heatsink and toward the rear of the case (exhaust). There's space enough on the back to add another 140mm fan. 

 

My questions are as follow:

 

- is there a noticeable cooling benefit to adding another fan on a single-tower heatsink? Has anyone tested this? I couldn't find any articles and my cooler is currently not installed (waiting for AM4 brackets to arrive) so I can't test it myself.

 

- I assume this other fan is also supposed to blow air toward the rear of the case and that this increases the overall airflow through the heatsink, which better dissipates the heat? Or did I get this completely wrong?

Ryzen 1600x @4GHz

Asus GTX 1070 8GB @1900MHz

16 GB HyperX DDR4 @3000MHz

Asus Prime X370 Pro

Samsung 860 EVO 500GB

Noctua NH-U14S

Seasonic M12II 620W

+ four different mechanical drives.

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Relative to the cost of another Noctua 140mm fan it is not worth it. The single tower os not that thick or restrictive and they are usually 20+€
That would only be worth it if you are struggling for the last little bit of noise/temperature ratio but not worth it price/performance wise.
If however you have another fan lying around feel free to add it to the mix :)

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Posted

It's not worth it. 

Yes, there is a measurable improvement but it's insignificant. 

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not really. The U14S' heatsink isnt that thick and difficult to push air through. If it's something like the Thermalright Macho Rev.B then it will be worth it.

CPU: i7-2600K 4751MHz 1.44V (software) --> 1.47V at the back of the socket Motherboard: Asrock Z77 Extreme4 (BCLK: 103.3MHz) CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-D15 RAM: Adata XPG 2x8GB DDR3 (XMP: 2133MHz 10-11-11-30 CR2, custom: 2203MHz 10-11-10-26 CR1 tRFC:230 tREFI:14000) GPU: Asus GTX 1070 Dual (Super Jetstream vbios, +70(2025-2088MHz)/+400(8.8Gbps)) SSD: Samsung 840 Pro 256GB (main boot drive), Transcend SSD370 128GB PSU: Seasonic X-660 80+ Gold Case: Antec P110 Silent, 5 intakes 1 exhaust Monitor: AOC G2460PF 1080p 144Hz (150Hz max w/ DP, 121Hz max w/ HDMI) TN panel Keyboard: Logitech G610 Orion (Cherry MX Blue) with SteelSeries Apex M260 keycaps Mouse: BenQ Zowie FK1

 

Model: HP Omen 17 17-an110ca CPU: i7-8750H (0.125V core & cache, 50mV SA undervolt) GPU: GTX 1060 6GB Mobile (+80/+450, 1650MHz~1750MHz 0.78V~0.85V) RAM: 8+8GB DDR4-2400 18-17-17-39 2T Storage: HP EX920 1TB PCIe x4 M.2 SSD + Crucial MX500 1TB 2.5" SATA SSD, 128GB Toshiba PCIe x2 M.2 SSD (KBG30ZMV128G) gone cooking externally, 1TB Seagate 7200RPM 2.5" HDD (ST1000LM049-2GH172) left outside Monitor: 1080p 126Hz IPS G-sync

 

Desktop benching:

Cinebench R15 Single thread:168 Multi-thread: 833 

SuperPi (v1.5 from Techpowerup, PI value output) 16K: 0.100s 1M: 8.255s 32M: 7m 45.93s

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Posted
16 minutes ago, Giganthrax said:

Hello. I can't find a comprehensive answer to this online. 

 

I have a Noctua NH-U14S single-tower heatsink. It has one 140mm fan that blows air through the heatsink and toward the rear of the case (exhaust). There's space enough on the back to add another 140mm fan. 

 

My questions are as follow:

 

- is there a noticeable cooling benefit to adding another fan on a single-tower heatsink? Has anyone tested this? I couldn't find any articles and my cooler is currently not installed (waiting for AM4 brackets to arrive) so I can't test it myself.

 

- I assume this other fan is also supposed to blow air toward the rear of the case and that this increases the overall airflow through the heatsink, which better dissipates the heat? Or did I get this completely wrong?

 

I am a fan of fans.  Will it change the world?  Nope as stated above.  Will it maximize your cooling potential of your CPU cooler - absolutely.  While the benefits may seem negligible I am of the opinion (laugh) that heat kills.  Why let heat raise to its max temps and stay there when we can keep it even cooler.

 

I run 11 fans in my gaming rig. 

Workstation Laptop: Dell Precision 7540, Xeon E-2276M, 32gb DDR4, Quadro T2000 GPU, 4k display

Wifes Rig: ASRock B550m Riptide, Ryzen 5 5600X, Sapphire Nitro+ RX 6700 XT, 16gb (2x8) 3600mhz V-Color Skywalker RAM, ARESGAME AGS 850w PSU, 1tb WD Black SN750, 500gb Crucial m.2, DIYPC MA01-G case

My Rig: ASRock B450m Pro4, Ryzen 5 3600, ARESGAME River 5 CPU cooler, EVGA RTX 2060 KO, 16gb (2x8) 3600mhz TeamGroup T-Force RAM, ARESGAME AGV750w PSU, 1tb WD Black SN750 NVMe Win 10 boot drive, 3tb Hitachi 7200 RPM HDD, Fractal Design Focus G Mini custom painted.  

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 video card benchmark result - AMD Ryzen 5 3600,ASRock B450M Pro4 (3dmark.com)

Daughter 1 Rig: ASrock B450 Pro4, Ryzen 7 1700 @ 4.2ghz all core 1.4vCore, AMD R9 Fury X w/ Swiftech KOMODO waterblock, Custom Loop 2x240mm + 1x120mm radiators in push/pull 16gb (2x8) Patriot Viper CL14 2666mhz RAM, Corsair HX850 PSU, 250gb Samsun 960 EVO NVMe Win 10 boot drive, 500gb Samsung 840 EVO SSD, 512GB TeamGroup MP30 M.2 SATA III SSD, SuperTalent 512gb SATA III SSD, CoolerMaster HAF XM Case. 

https://www.3dmark.com/3dm/37004594?

Daughter 2 Rig: ASUS B350-PRIME ATX, Ryzen 7 1700, Sapphire Nitro+ R9 Fury Tri-X, 16gb (2x8) 3200mhz V-Color Skywalker, ANTEC Earthwatts 750w PSU, MasterLiquid Lite 120 AIO cooler in Push/Pull config as rear exhaust, 250gb Samsung 850 Evo SSD, Patriot Burst 240gb SSD, Cougar MX330-X Case

 

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  • Author

Thanks for the answers guys.

 

I was mostly wondering about this "for science." I'm switching from FX-8150 (runs very hot when overclocked to 4300MHz) to Ryzen 5 1600x and thermals are unlikely to be a problem there since Ryzen can't be overclocked much anyway. 

 

Who knows. Maybe in a couple years if AMD figures out a way to make a highly overclock-able Ryzen chip, this knowledge will come in useful. :) 

Ryzen 1600x @4GHz

Asus GTX 1070 8GB @1900MHz

16 GB HyperX DDR4 @3000MHz

Asus Prime X370 Pro

Samsung 860 EVO 500GB

Noctua NH-U14S

Seasonic M12II 620W

+ four different mechanical drives.

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You aren't going to see much of anything. Not in normal use. But running higher OC and stress tests it can be seen. I'm running with dual fan, just because I can (and did fan upgrade anyway). I get max 67C on 4770K 4.0GHz 1.15V. With single fan it was 74C. However thats not that conclusive testing that I could recommend it. Back in that time I hadn't any really heavy stress tests to run.

 

(10mins on OCCT and temps are at 65C, room temp is probably 21C).

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44 minutes ago, LoGiCalDrm said:

You aren't going to see much of anything. Not in normal use. But running higher OC and stress tests it can be seen. I'm running with dual fan, just because I can (and did fan upgrade anyway). I get max 67C on 4770K 4.0GHz 1.15V. With single fan it was 74C. However thats not that conclusive testing that I could recommend it. Back in that time I hadn't any really heavy stress tests to run.

 

(10mins on OCCT and temps are at 65C, room temp is probably 21C).

Actually, 74 to 67C seems like a pretty huge upgrade to me. 

 

My current FX-8150 gets up to 66-68C under load at about 1.325V or a little higher, and that's pretty much its limit. Once I try to raise the voltage and go to 4400MHz and beyond, it stays on 70C or more during heavy testing and the system auto-shuts down due to overheating. 

 

I regret not trying to add another fan (never occurred to me), maybe I would've been able to overclock more. :)

Ryzen 1600x @4GHz

Asus GTX 1070 8GB @1900MHz

16 GB HyperX DDR4 @3000MHz

Asus Prime X370 Pro

Samsung 860 EVO 500GB

Noctua NH-U14S

Seasonic M12II 620W

+ four different mechanical drives.

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An additional fan would help and the difference is biggest when compensating for otherwise low fan speeds. An additional NF-A14 for example should lower temps by at least 2-3c at high rpm. Replacing the fan with a NF-A12x25 seems to achieve a similar result from what I've seen on Youtube.

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