Vertical Mount GPU in H500i??

pstarlord · November 7, 2018

Hey Everyone,

Thanks for the help on my last question of what Vega card to get. (Went with Sapphire Nitro+ 56 if anyone is keeping score) Hoping to tap your brains again for a little more advice.

My new build is going to be in the NZXT H500i case; it has the option for a vertical mounted graphics card. I've seen/read a few things advising against this due to air flow constrictions caused by the fans being too close to the glass panel. The Nitro+ is a pretty hefty and my question is, how close is "too close?" While I'm hoping to make the build as aesthetically pleasing as possible, and I'd be willing to sacrifice a little tiny bit of performance to achieve it...the health of my not cheap graphics card is certainly more important.

The case is going to have plenty of air flow. I've got an NZXT Kraken X62 AIO that will be mounted at the front of the case, one (for now, a second will be coming) 140mm fan on the top and 120mm fan on the back. (yeah, they'll be replaced with RGB fans in the near future)

Thanks for the advice!

November 7, 2018

Don't do it. Too close in that case. There are ways to do it properly with an air cooled card. Something like the @CableMod mount which I used recently works nicely. Puts more than 3 inches between the card and the panel in my 570X. You lose PCIe expansion though.

dfsdfgfkjsefoiqzemnd · November 7, 2018

In most cases with a vertical mount even a regular 2-slot card is so close that thermals, performance, fan speed and/or noise are affected. Looks like the Nitro+ is more than 2.5 slots thick, so it'll be worse. Much worse.

Those fans are going to be millimeters from the glass, so they'll have a really hard time getting any air in. I'd suggest mounting it the proper way.

CableMod · November 7, 2018

1 hour ago, pstarlord said:

Hey Everyone,

Thanks for the help on my last question of what Vega card to get. (Went with Sapphire Nitro+ 56 if anyone is keeping score) Hoping to tap your brains again for a little more advice.

My new build is going to be in the NZXT H500i case; it has the option for a vertical mounted graphics card. I've seen/read a few things advising against this due to air flow constrictions caused by the fans being too close to the glass panel. The Nitro+ is a pretty hefty and my question is, how close is "too close?" While I'm hoping to make the build as aesthetically pleasing as possible, and I'd be willing to sacrifice a little tiny bit of performance to achieve it...the health of my not cheap graphics card is certainly more important.

The case is going to have plenty of air flow. I've got an NZXT Kraken X62 AIO that will be mounted at the front of the case, one (for now, a second will be coming) 140mm fan on the top and 120mm fan on the back. (yeah, they'll be replaced with RGB fans in the near future)

Thanks for the advice!

@pstarlord as @King Poet mentioned, you would be choking your card for airflow if you were air cooled. Check out the CableMod Vertical PCI-E Bracket though if you want a no modding required solution that will keep thermals on par with traditional orientation.

pstarlord · November 8, 2018

Thanks @King Poet and @CableMod Once I started putting everything together last night it quickly became apparent that the card was too darn big haha. In case anyone is wondering, a Kraken x62 and a Nitro+ Vega 56 will fit in an H500i without about 1cm of clearance.

Thanks for the advice, i really appreciate it.