2 AIO radiators in Carbide Air 540?

[xLogick]

I am a proud owner of a Corsair Carbide Air 540. I have a Corsair H115i mounted on the top as exhaust. I recently got fortunate enough to purchase the EVGA GeForce RTX 3090 FTW3 ULTRA HYBRID GAMING. My question is would it's 240mm radiator + plus fit into my system in the front? And if so should the fans intake or exhaust?

 

Thanks

[Corsair Perd]

Unfortunately, I don't believe that card will fit with the 240mm radiator in the front.

- Max GPU length in the Air 540 is 320mm

- The RTX 3090 FTW3 Hybrid is 288.9mm long

- Radiator and fans combined, should be around 52-55mm in thickness (depending on what EVGA chose to use)

 

To answer the second part, you will want the front to intake.

[xLogick]

Hmm my current gpu is this: https://us.msi.com/Graphics-Card/GeForce-RTX-2080-Ti-GAMING-X-TRIO/Specification. Which is 327 according to the link. My front fans are 25mm and everything fits nicely. Should I assume the fans do not count towards the 320mm limit?

 

I also have the option to get this GPU https://www.evga.com/products/product.aspx?pn=24G-P5-3978-KR. Which is 277mm and researching the radiator thickness EVGA uses, its 28mm, that would make it 305mm. I'm going to use the same 25mm fans so should that be ok then?

 

thanks!

Edited May 17, 2021 by xLogick

[Corsair Perd]

So it looks like the 320mm is taking into account the front fan and a more accurate measurement would be closer to 330mm.

 

Based on that, either of the GPU's you listed should work fine with a front rad installed.

[xLogick]

Also another question. So that fans should intake. Which should face the outside of the case? The fans or the radiator?

 

Thanks!

[c-attack]

You will want to run the AIO radiator as exhaust. That’s 350W on the GPU for a 240mm radiator and potentially more if using one of EVGA’s alternative VBIOS. That’s going to keep the coolant above 40C all the time and that is a lot of hot air to be pumping into the case. It will destroy your CPU coolant temps and baseline.

 

Fans on the interior of the case blowing out will have a more pleasing tone than if you sandwich them between the radiator and the case. This means running the bottom/rear as intake for a reverse flow case. This is effective and I have done it with similar hardware in the 540/740 Air.

[xLogick]

You will want to run the AIO radiator as exhaust. That’s 350W on the GPU for a 240mm radiator and potentially more if using one of EVGA’s alternative VBIOS. That’s going to keep the coolant above 40C all the time and that is a lot of hot air to be pumping into the case. It will destroy your CPU coolant temps and baseline.

 

Fans on the interior of the case blowing out will have a more pleasing tone than if you sandwich them between the radiator and the case. This means running the bottom/rear as intake for a reverse flow case. This is effective and I have done it with similar hardware in the 540/740 Air.

 

I don't have any bottom fans in my case (see no place to put them) am I wrong in that assumption?

 

As for my rear fan I'm using this https://pcpartpicker.com/product/dwR48d/noctua-case-fan-nfa14pwm. Should I go with something more beefy(like this one https://pcpartpicker.com/product/4s6BD3/noctua-case-fan-nfa14industrialppc2000ip67pwm)?

 

So your suggestion would be make the front an exhaust and the back intake? If so I'm assuming the fans will be "inside" while the radiatior is "outside" like this wonderful drawing:

---------------

| |

| |

| (fan) (rad)|

| (fan) (rad)|

| (fan) (rad)|

---------------

 

Thanks!

[Corsair Perd]

I think what they meant is that you may want to consider running the GPU AIO on the top of the case as an exhaust; this way your system won't be bringing in warm air.

 

And you are correct, there are no fan mounts on the bottom of the Air 540.

[xLogick]

I think what they meant is that you may want to consider running the GPU AIO on the top of the case as an exhaust; this way your system won't be bringing in warm air.

 

And you are correct, there are no fan mounts on the bottom of the Air 540.

 

What about the CPU I got an h115i running on the top as exhaust (cooling an i9-9900k) should that go in the front?

[xLogick]

Should I do this?

[Vegan]

The 540 is not quite big enough for dual radiators with cards like the RX 6000 series which are over 12 inches long.

 

My RTX 2080 is a more mundane 10.5" in length.

[c-attack]

1) You have openings at the bottom of the case and surely you don't have dual HDDs. Air will come in this way as well as the back mesh and active rear exhaust. The exhaust fans on the front and top will draw air from anywhere they can. This is likely the most effective air flow set-up for dual radiators in separate loops, but there are situations where it does not work well. If you need to back the case into a tight corner, have to put it on the floor, or otherwise place it in a less than ideal position, reverse flow might just bring in air as warm as what would come off the CPU radiator.

 

2) If that is not feasible for whatever reason, putting the CPU radiator on the front as intake and the GPU on the top as exhaust is the next choice. A 2080 ti on light duty will be more wattage than the 9900K at maximum. The GPU is always going to be the larger heat source and there is actual advantage in prioritizing it in this kind of set-up. It doesn't actually matter if your GPU temps are 48 or 52C. On the other hand, dumping the GPU waste heat into the CPU radiator is going to be a clear and constant +12-15C penalty when the GPU is on a heavy load. You will still take some penalty to the GPU cooling by duping CPU waste heat into it, but for a typical gaming load you will see less than 100W on the CPU and thus the increase in exhaust air temp from the CPU radiator is probably around 4-5C. This should not limit your performance unless you are going for a max GPU clocks set-up. Top GPU exhaust, front intake CPU radiator may also be easier to work with the hoses.

[xLogick]

Hello. I am now toying with the idea of adding bottom fans to my case. I can easily remove the drive there and replace them with fans using this:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01JGMRKOQ/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1.

I can also purchase a mesh to fit the bottom part. And yes my case is on the floor but i can place it on a piece of solid wood if needed, would that solve that issue?

 

If this can work I just have one question. I will be have large GPU in the way, wouldn't that restrict airflow?

[c-attack]

If you prefer to keep the case on the floor, then you might also prefer CPU front intake, GPU top exhaust. Sucking air in off the carpet introduces an unpleasant element to the inside of the case. Wood may help some. That is what I did the last time I was forced to do this. However, you don't need active fans on the bottom. The front and top fans will pull all the air the need through whatever opening are available.

 

The GPU itself is not something to worry about as a restriction and you want airflow to move across it. The top plate usually benefits from active cooling.

 

Don't forget, the transition between the two suggestions above is flipping the direction on the front fans and rear fan. That is not major surgery and you can try both set-ups with out much difficulty.

[xLogick]

Thank you for the info. I am curious about what unpleasant elements would come from a bottom fan.

[c-attack]

Besides holding a fair amount of detritus from the normal human sources, the actual carpet fibers tend to wind up in the case. Obviously the shorter and tighter the carpet weave, the less this is a problem.

 

As to active fans vs none, they add noise and expense without necessarily aiding the amount of airflow through the radiators. A good example of this are my two O11 cases, one with a passive vented bottom and the other with 3x120 active fans. While I like appearance of the QL across the bottom, there is no difference in performance compared to the other in terms of case temps or coolant temperature. However, where active fans may have some utility is with direct cooling of some motherboard mounted hardware. Some chipsets run hot or if you have exposed M.2 drives on the MB they most definitely will show clear drops in temperature from increased airflow across the area.