SMM Posted December 5, 2015 Share Posted December 5, 2015 I have a case with the following fan setup: Front: 3 x 120mm Top: 2 x 140mm Rear: 1 x 120mm I want to install an H110i GTX in the top and two GPU 120mm Rads in the front. Here are my questions: 1) I intend to have everything as intake except for the rear fan. Is this the best solution? 2) Should the two GPU Rads be on the top or bottom two front 120mm slots? If they are on the top, that means the 3rd front fan will be bringing in cool air on the very bottom which might be more beneficial for the GPU fans on the cards? Or, if the Rads are on the bottom two spots, cooler air will be blowing more towards the CPU. Not sure which is better, or if it really even matters. 3) I intend to replace the fans that come with the AIO coolers with Noctua fans. They have rubber anti-vibration pads in the four corners which will cause a small gap between the fan and cooler when mounting. I would assume it’s best to remove these so the fan is as flush as possible with the cooler? From photos, it seems that is how they are with the stock fans. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rik1254 Posted December 6, 2015 Share Posted December 6, 2015 1) I would have the top mounts as exhaust as well, otherwise you'll be working against the flow of natural hot air by trying to keep it inside the case. 2) Without knowing the case I can't really say. However, if the 3 120mm spaces are traditional spaces, you might find that you will have to put 1 rad in the top space and 1 in the bottom because the rads are bigger than a traditional 120mm fan space. 3) It doesn't really matter as the space is so small the interference will be negligible. However, if you are going for a Corsair AIO, SP120'S are probably your best bet as I believe they're designed to work best with their rads. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
red-ray Posted December 6, 2015 Share Posted December 6, 2015 Before you get a H110iGTX rather than a H110iGT I advise you to read http://forum.corsair.com/forums/showthread.php?p=795986. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SMM Posted December 6, 2015 Author Share Posted December 6, 2015 1) I would have the top mounts as exhaust as well, otherwise you'll be working against the flow of natural hot air by trying to keep it inside the case This was the first way I thought of doing it as well. But, after reading that the AIO's perform better as intake in general (getting cooler air from outside the case blown into/through them), wanting to maintain positive air pressure, and that the whole heat rises concept really doesn't apply to such a small space where fans are continually directing the airflow anyway I decided to put the top as intake. Also the rear fan should be more than enough to exhaust the warm air out and maintain good airflow. The GPU blowers help a little bit as well. I am still open to discussion on this though. 2) Without knowing the case I can't really say. However, if the 3 120mm spaces are traditional spaces, you might find that you will have to put 1 rad in the top space and 1 in the bottom because the rads are bigger than a traditional 120mm fan space. If the 120mm GPU Rads are placed horizontally (their hoses are to the side), can't they fit right up next to each other (directly on top of each other)? I know if they are vertical they can't but I thought they could horizontally. Haven't decided on which 120mm rad yet, maybe it depends on which model? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SMM Posted December 6, 2015 Author Share Posted December 6, 2015 Before you get a H110iGTX rather than a H110iGT I advise you to read http://forum.corsair.com/forums/showthread.php?p=795986. Thanks for the heads up, but I planned to plug all fans into the MB and run them off Asus Fan Xpert 3 (Ai Suite). Unless I'm missing something, that should be more effective? I don't care about the LED and understand that the pumps should run at "normal" speed and won't auto adjust doing this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
red-ray Posted December 6, 2015 Share Posted December 6, 2015 Thanks for the heads up, but I planned to plug all fans into the MB and run them off Asus Fan Xpert 3 (Ai Suite). Unless I'm missing something, that should be more effective? I don't care about the LED and understand that the pumps should run at "normal" speed and won't auto adjust doing this. OK. The H110iGT is a better option for that as it reports the pump speed to the CPU_FAN header. The H110iGTX reports the fans speed and the only way to get the pump speed is to use CL or another program with CL hardware support. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rik1254 Posted December 6, 2015 Share Posted December 6, 2015 This was the first way I thought of doing it as well. But, after reading that the AIO's perform better as intake in general (getting cooler air from outside the case blown into/through them), wanting to maintain positive air pressure, and that the whole heat rises concept really doesn't apply to such a small space where fans are continually directing the airflow anyway I decided to put the top as intake. Also the rear fan should be more than enough to exhaust the warm air out and maintain good airflow. The GPU blowers help a little bit as well. I am still open to discussion on this though. You're just going to be making them work harder, you already have the 2 GPU rads pushing hot air in, plus the CPU rad pushing hot air in. That's going to increase the ambient temperature inside the case and bring the temperature of the components up, thus making the rads dissipate more heat and raising the temperature further. If you have a very high CFM fan on the exhaust and keep all of the rad fans at low RPM, then yes you will be able to expel the heat, otherwise it seems you're going to make an oven. Why not go for negative air pressure? Technically speaking, having the front rad fans and top rad fans as exhaust and the rear fan (and possibly a base mounted fan) as intakes should work much better than trying to force all of the heat inside the case. If the 120mm GPU Rads are placed horizontally (their hoses are to the side), can't they fit right up next to each other (directly on top of each other)? I know if they are vertical they can't but I thought they could horizontally. Haven't decided on which 120mm rad yet, maybe it depends on which model? Like I said, without knowing the case I can't really say, will there be enough room to mount them horizontally? IIRC a H50 rad is 150mm long, so that's bigger than a 140mm fan mount. With all that being said though, it's your case and you can always change the orientation of the fans when you get it to best suit the setup. I'm basing all of what I said on a Phanteks Enthoo Evolv ATX as that's the most recent chassis I set up a custom loop in with a similar rad and GPU config. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SMM Posted December 7, 2015 Author Share Posted December 7, 2015 OK. The H110iGT is a better option for that as it reports the pump speed to the CPU_FAN header. The H110iGTX reports the fans speed and the only way to get the pump speed is to use CL or another program with CL hardware support. On my Asus board I have W_Pump, CPU Fan, and CPU Opt. My plan was to connect the two 140mm fans to each of the CPU headers and the single wire RPM sensor of the GTX to W_Pump. Asus Fan Xpert 3 can control the fans and monitor the pump rpm. Really, the reason I selected the GTX over the GT is that it's my understanding that it's quieter and offers slightly better performance. This was based on reading reviews, forums, etc. If that's not the case I would gladly switch. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SMM Posted December 7, 2015 Author Share Posted December 7, 2015 If you have a very high CFM fan on the exhaust and keep all of the rad fans at low RPM, then yes you will be able to expel the heat, otherwise it seems you're going to make an oven. Yes, I will have a high CFM fan- I will be using Noctua F12's. That is a concern if doing it the way I originally suggested will cause the temps to be way too high inside. I've read arguments both ways, but have not been able to find a solid test or review someone has done comparing the two methods. Why not go for negative air pressure? Because of dust and performance. My first desktop had negative and everyone since then has been positive and I was way more happy with the results of the positive pressure cases. Like I said, without knowing the case I can't really say, will there be enough room to mount them horizontally? IIRC a H50 rad is 150mm long, so that's bigger than a 140mm fan mount. Planning on the Carbide 330R with putting in that 3rd extra fan in the front-top behind the 5.25" bezels. For the GPU rads, if they are horizontal with the tubes on the side, their vertical width is 120mm which should allow them to be stacked on each other with the 150mm length running horizontal. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
red-ray Posted December 7, 2015 Share Posted December 7, 2015 the single wire RPM sensor of the GTX to W_Pump. Asus Fan Xpert 3 can control the fans and monitor the pump rpm. On the H110iGTX (+ H100iGTX + H80iGT) the single wire RPM sensor reports the fan RPM so this will not work to report the pump RPM. ASUS Fan Xpert 3 does not have CL hardware support to interact with Corsair coolers via USB. Look at http://forum.corsair.com/forums/showthread.php?p=805421 and you will see that the CPU_FAN is about the same as the H100iGTX cooler fan at ~1000 RPM with the cooler pump being about 1800 RPM. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SMM Posted December 7, 2015 Author Share Posted December 7, 2015 On the H110iGTX (+ H100iGTX + H80iGT) the single wire RPM sensor reports the fan RPM so this will not work to report the pump RPM. ASUS Fan Xpert 3 does not have CL hardware support to interact with Corsair coolers via USB. Look at http://forum.corsair.com/forums/showthread.php?p=805421 and you will see that the CPU_FAN is about the same as the H100iGTX cooler fan at ~1000 RPM with the cooler pump being about 1800 RPM. I gotcha, I misread your previous post to say "or another program with hardware support" - leaving out the fact that you wrote "with CL hardware support." In addition, reviews I read simply stated that single wire was a RPM sensor without specifying it was only for fans. So I thought Asus Fan Xpert would be able to read the pump info. My mistake on that and thanks for editing your post to make it friendlier :winking:. With that resolved and knowing the 110i GT will report the Pump speed through Fan Xpert- will I also be able to control the RPM of the Pump with Fan Xpert? If not, then I don't see any advantage of the GT (outside Pump RPM monitoring) given the way I want to set it up (don't want to use CL, don't care about LED, will have fans directly connected to and controlled by MB)? The only other thing I need to confirm is what speed the pump runs at out of the box with no CL interaction. I thought I remember reading it was something like "normal" speed (as opposed to full-bore-super-loud 100% performance), but having trouble finding the specific mention of it I found before. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
red-ray Posted December 7, 2015 Share Posted December 7, 2015 will I also be able to control the RPM of the Pump with Fan Xpert? The only other thing I need to confirm is what speed the pump runs at out of the box with no CL interaction. No, the only way to change both the H110iGT + H110iGTX pump speed is via the USB connection using CL or a 3rd party program such as my SIV utility. I have asked Corsair for the specification of how CL hardware operates when CL is not present and as far as I can tell this is not available. The usual answer is something like "Use CL to control it and it will work great" :(:. If you find such a specification please let me know where it is. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SMM Posted December 8, 2015 Author Share Posted December 8, 2015 Will do. Back to my initial inquiry, I was hoping more people with CPU and dual GPU AIO rad setups would shed light on how they arranged their intake/exhaust and results. Anyone? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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