Corsair H70 - Intake Versus Exhaust Install?

Good Evening Everyone.

I have the new H70 enroute from Newegg as I write this post. I intend to install it in my new build consisting of a Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD5 (Rev. 2.0) board, with an i7-980X proc, along with six sticks of Corsair TR3X6G1600C8D memory, 1 SSD, 7 hard drives, 2 optical drives, a Gigabyte GV-R585OC-1GD video card, and a 2250 TV tuner, all powered by a ThermalTake Toughpower 850 modular PSU. All of this installs in a Zalman Z-Machine GT1000 case - and that's the source of my concern.

The GT1000 case has been designed to cause a front-to-rear wind tunnel effect from two 92mm intake case fans in the lower case front and a 120mm exhaust fan in the upper rear of the case below the PSU. There are no other exhaust fans (or opening for same) in this case.

Therefore, if I install the H70, as per Corsair's suggested intake install recommendations, I will have eliminated the primary exhaust fan from the system (aside from the 140mm PSU exhaust fan), and in the process will likely unbalance the airflow design for that case. I realize that the PSU fan could assume some of that additional exhaust load, but I'm hesitant to add undue thermals to the PSU, since heat is usually not a friend of a PSU.

The array of components in my new build obviously displaces a considerable amount of thermal energy, and it darn well needs a place to go to get out of that case without delay or accumulation. Otherwise, I'll have a mini-oven on my desk.

So the question is this: Under these circumstances, can the install be done with the push-pull fans set for case exhaust rather than Corsair's suggested intake design, without doing substantial harm to the intended functionality and performance of the H70?

I'd really appreciate some INFORMED information (as opposed to speculation) about this whole matter. Thanks for any solid info that can be provided.

Best regards to everyone. TheBeagle

All my testing (all in a Corsair 800D which is considerably different than your case) shows that the H50 can be mounted in any attitude and any location that the water lines can reach. It can also be mounted as exhaust or intake. The CPU cooling performance was better as an intake with the cooler air. Radiators perform very differently based on the temp of the air that flows across them.

That said, it still cooled well as an exhaust, just not as well. It will really depend on what temp it gets to inside you case. With your case set up, I don't see that you have any alternative. I would expect your idle temps to appear a little higher than mine. I would say that you may even get some overclocking out of your Core i7 980X if you keep the voltage down. I would not shoot for 4.5Ghtz though.

Unless someone has tested it in the identical set up, there is no guarantee, just educated predictions.

Enjoy your 980X. My goes "Vroooom".

Thanks Mr. Kolbo for the speedy reply.

Your comments echo what I kind of expected to hear from experienced Corsair H series users. Closing off the only exhaust fan in my particular case configuration doesn't seem like any kind of a viable solution.

I was shooting for an OC of between 4.0 and 4.2 on the 980X, so if I can keep the temps under reasonable control, it seems like a doable situation. And if the performance of the H70 doesn't also take a major hit, then the exhaust install is probably the way to go.

I'll let you know how it all turns out. But in any event, I suspect that it will do better than an air cooler alone. Thanks again for the useful comments.

Best regards to everyone. TheBeagle

I am not sure that you will get that much of an overclock under those conditions. My 980X throws some serious heat at 4.0 and above. 4.0 is where the heat per speed step curve gets real steep from the way mine behaves. I think you will probably get 4.0, but after that it will depend on what temp you consider acceptable. Keep the voltage as low as possible.

Vroooom

BTW at 4.0 the 980X gets an incredible amount of work done.

Hello Again Mr. Kolbo.

In both of your kind responses you have suggested that I keep the voltage of the 980X down to the bare minimum. What initial settings do you recommend to maintain stability and at the same time provide a decent OC? I am not interested in setting any new OC records for a 980X. Rather, I am looking for a stable machine that will provide plenty of computational power, especially for encoding and recoding video streams.

Thanks again for your help on this matter. TheBeagle

Read this http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/core-i7-980x-efficiency,2590.html

Pay particular attention to this page of it http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/core-i7-980x-efficiency,2590-4.html

All of these use less than 1.3 v. There is even a page on how far you can go without more voltage.

With my MB, I can just set an offset instead of a hard voltage. I use less than 15mv to get 4.0GHz. That is about 1.22 v

To: Mr. Kolbo.

Thanks very much for the reference links to the Tom's article. That provides some good insight into the X980 settings. I'll give those base settings a whirl and see how it performs. Hopeful I don't turn it into a toaster - LOL!

Best regards to everyone. TheBeagle