Optimal i9 Cooling Orientation?

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x3nzox

Weaksauce
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May 12, 2014
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Building a new 2021 PC. Last one was 2012 and I need help!

Looking to go AIO due to the i9 on a Phanteks P500A case

What is the best orientation for the AIO, top or front mount? Also how should the case fans be adjusted?

I am used to the traditional front intake, top and rear exhaust.

Is something like this doable with a TOP mount A

https://www.google.com/search?q=pc+...920&client=firefox-b-1-d#imgrc=vM_shEOXhh6UwM


Expected parts:
i9 10850k
RTX 3080 Non Blower 🤞
Asus z490 Strix E gaming or Maximus XII Hero
Corsair Vengeance LPX 32GB 3600
NZXT x73 Kraken 360 cooler maybe x62?
Samsung 970 evo m.2 500gb
PSU -RMx 850k
Looking to Overclock
Phanteks P500A
 
I don't think your traditional approach is going to hinder you too much. It seems to make more sense that way as your CPU will get colder air flowing through the radiator as opposed to warm air from the inside of your case with your GPU blowing through the radiator as exhaust.

Generally, I've used AIOs with the fans set as intake and blowing through the radiator as long as I can do that while keeping some part of the radiator above the pump.
 
It depends what you value more. If it is gpu temps have the AIO on top exhausting all 3 fans. If it you value cpu put the AIO on the front with 3 tops exhausting. It really doesn't make much difference. Just make sure the tubes for the AIO are above the block. Having fans blowing different directions on top will hinder more then help. I would do AIO top exhausting, read exhausting and the front as intake.
 
kirbyrj said:
I don't think your traditional approach is going to hinder you too much. It seems to make more sense that way as your CPU will get colder air flowing through the radiator as opposed to warm air from the inside of your case with your GPU blowing through the radiator as exhaust.

Generally, I've used AIOs with the fans set as intake and blowing through the radiator as long as I can do that while keeping some part of the radiator above the pump.
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With the traditional approach and the AIO in front, does that have significant adverse effects on the GPU? I would normally test, but given I am in the planning stages of this build, its quite difficult
 
vegeta535 said:
It depends what you value more. If it is gpu temps have the AIO on top exhausting all 3 fans. If it you value cpu put the AIO on the front with 3 tops exhausting. It really doesn't make much difference. Just make sure the tubes for the AIO are above the block. Having fans blowing different directions on top will hinder more then help. I would do AIO top exhausting, read exhausting and the front as intake.
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This is what I truly want to understand before I buy this Kraken AIO. Fans blowing in diff directions on top.

See below 7:40

 
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x3nzox said:
With the traditional approach and the AIO in front, does that have significant adverse effects on the GPU? I would normally test, but given I am in the planning stages of this build, its quite difficult
Click to expand...

It might, because the air in the case would be warmer, but the GPU is also lower in the case where cooler air is going to be.

I guess it depends on how hard you are going to use your GPU. If that is constantly running full blast, then it's going to warm up the air being exhausted out of the AIO. I guess testing it both ways is the only way you're going to know for sure with your setup.
 
Air flowing into case through a radiator will be about the same temp everywhere inside of case. Every degree warmer air is become same degree hotter GPU and other components will be. Air temp entering cooler to component temp is a 1:1 ratio (SamE load & fan speed). Obviously rad as intake will be flowing warmer air into case, so of course all components not cooled by CLC will run warmer. Most of the time that is only a few degrees and not a problem.
 
Top mount will give you about 5-10 degrees higher temps, depending on airflow with a 3080. The 5 degrees would be with a high airflow case intake and rear exhaust on full blast to combat some of the heat the 3080 dumps in the case.

I did test it with a 360 AIO on a 5900x with a 3080 in the case for fun, with the 3080 on air and pulling approx 315watts.. When I tested it the difference between top mount and front mount the CPU temp was approx 7 degrees on average in favour of front mount. On my 3080 the difference between front mount was approx 65 vs 64. I did do the test with 2x140mm front and 1x140mm exhaust for the top mount and 1x140mm rear and 1x140mm top exhaust for the front mount. The top mount was run with air going out of the case. All fans were at fixed speed to aprox 1350rpm (did not change them between tests) and I have enough room that it was fine to leave the coldplate mounted to the CPU while changing orientation of the radiator. I almost never run my case fans at 1350rpm as it becomes too loud, but I did it to give "fair" test conditions. The load wasn't 100% static on the CPU, but the margin for error should be within 1-2 degrees as max, min and average watts were very close to each other and I was reading average temps over 10 minutes with pre-soak.

If I had to do top mount then I would probably try to pull air into the case. It will be a difficult load for the exhaust fan, but the 3080 will heat up the air by quite a bit, so even with lots of airflow you will realistically end up with a 5+ degree difference in ambient inside vs outside. The radiator will heat up the air a bit, but how much depends a lot on water temps and fan speed. Running fans at 1000rpm and with water 8 degrees above ambient, then you will most likely get air out that is 3-4 degrees above ambient.
 
top or front with tubes down. i prefer front mount to suck cooler fresh air.
 
I apologize for jumping in late to this thread (though nowhere near the hilariously old threads I see every once in while here).

I recently moved from a fairly cool OCed i7-6850K to a toasty non-OCed i9-10850K (varies between 50 to 70C throughout the day). The cooler is the Corsair H115i RGB Platinum mounted on top of a Corsair 780T with an ASUS TUF 3070 OC.

Should I stick with top mount for the radiator or go with the front? The GPU stays fairly cool through gaming but the CPU definitely sizzles (80C I think) even with AIO running at max (Extreme or custom fan curve).
 
CrimsonKnight13 said:
I apologize for jumping in late to this thread (though nowhere near the hilariously old threads I see every once in while here).

I recently moved from a fairly cool OCed i7-6850K to a toasty non-OCed i9-10850K (varies between 50 to 70C throughout the day). The cooler is the Corsair H115i RGB Platinum mounted on top of a Corsair 780T with an ASUS TUF 3070 OC.

Should I stick with top mount for the radiator or go with the front? The GPU stays fairly cool through gaming but the CPU definitely sizzles (80C I think) even with AIO running at max (Extreme or custom fan curve).
Click to expand...

You will get better temperatures with the front mount at the expense of a slightly warmer internal case temp.
 
kirbyrj said:
You will get better temperatures with the front mount at the expense of a slightly warmer internal case temp.
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Thanks. I'll change it & see how it goes.

I'm using MX-4 paste (older release). Stay with that or go for something else?
 
CrimsonKnight13 said:
Thanks. I'll change it & see how it goes.

I'm using MX-4 paste (older release). Stay with that or go for something else?
Click to expand...

You have to figure that when you're gaming, the heat from your video card is being exhausted through the AIO on top. Where if it is mounted in the front, you're going to get cool air to the CPU first, and then the heat from the CPU will exhaust into the case, so your GPU might warm slightly. But if it is running cool, you should be fine.

Don't get me wrong, the CPU is still going to be warm, but maybe you can get the same temps without having to rely on full bore fans.
 
kirbyrj said:
You have to figure that when you're gaming, the heat from your video card is being exhausted through the AIO on top. Where if it is mounted in the front, you're going to get cool air to the CPU first, and then the heat from the CPU will exhaust into the case, so your GPU might warm slightly. But if it is running cool, you should be fine.

Don't get me wrong, the CPU is still going to be warm, but maybe you can get the same temps without having to rely on full bore fans.
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From what I've seen the GPU's fans work quite well & adapt accordingly to keep temps down. I'll do some thorough testing with the front mounted AIO & see how well the case fans help (1x 120 & 2x 140) overall. If the CPU shows better temps, I'll be very happy.

Any point in having the tubes facing down like pendragon1 said? I normally keep the pump oriented horizontally (Corsair text looking as intended) with the tubes to the right.
 
CrimsonKnight13 said:
From what I've seen the GPU's fans work quite well & adapt accordingly to keep temps down. I'll do some thorough testing with the front mounted AIO & see how well the case fans help (1x 120 & 2x 140) overall. If the CPU shows better temps, I'll be very happy.

Any point in having the tubes facing down like pendragon1 said? I normally keep the pump oriented horizontally (Corsair text looking as intended) with the tubes to the right.
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As long as you have part of the reservoir/radiator above the pump you'll be fine.

I'm not a big Jay2Cents fan, but this video about AIO mounting referencing how people were misusing the Tech Jesus video was a good watch.
 
kirbyrj said:
As long as you have part of the reservoir/radiator above the pump you'll be fine.

I'm not a big Jay2Cents fan, but this video about AIO mounting referencing how people were misusing the Tech Jesus video was a good watch.
Click to expand...
Thanks. I'll take a look at that & go from there this week.
 
CrimsonKnight13 said:
I apologize for jumping in late to this thread (though nowhere near the hilariously old threads I see every once in while here).

I recently moved from a fairly cool OCed i7-6850K to a toasty non-OCed i9-10850K (varies between 50 to 70C throughout the day). The cooler is the Corsair H115i RGB Platinum mounted on top of a Corsair 780T with an ASUS TUF 3070 OC.

Should I stick with top mount for the radiator or go with the front? The GPU stays fairly cool through gaming but the CPU definitely sizzles (80C I think) even with AIO running at max (Extreme or custom fan curve).
Click to expand...
My RTX 3080 heats up my case air around 10-12 degrees with good ventilation while my high end radiator heats up the front intake air around 3-6 degrees (depending on fan speed) with 340w load on the GPU and around 110w load on the CPU. The GPU doesn't care much about the in-case temp as it just ramps up the fans so difference on that is 1-2 degrees while I would get 10-12 degrees up on the CPU if I had a case where I could top mount my radiator and use it for exhaust. The 3070 draws less watts than the 3080, but my guess is you would see a 7-10 degree drop in CPU temps by front mounting the rad at the expense of 3-5 degrees higher case temps with static fan speed.

For paste, the MX-4 should be fine unless you are very picky about temps or the tube is old. I generally swap out thermal paste tubes once they are more than 2-3 years old (normally use them up way before that).
 
I found out that the Corsair Graphite 780T case doesn't work with the H115i Platinum for front mounting. Screw holes don't line up sadly.

I have 2 ML140 Pros drawing in up front, 2 ML140 Pros drawing out up top with the radiator underneath & a ML120 Pro drawing out at the back. Should the rear fan remain that way or should it pull in as well since there's cold air behind when the AC is on?

Eventually I'll buy strong static pressure fans for the radiator. Would the case benefit from such up front, too?
 
I would keep the rear fan as exhaust as the hot air needs to go somwhere and it will prevent some of the hot air from reaching the radiator (primarily the half of the radiator that is towards the front). If you are worried about the CPU temp then one thing you can consider is using the radiator as intake at the top, along with front intake and rear exhaust, but that will create a lot of positive pressure in the case.

Better fans is always a benefit, but the balance is cost vs perceived worth. The ML series from corsair aren't bad fans, even if you can get fans that are quieter at the same performance or move more air at the same noise level. I doubt you will see a massive drop in temps by swapping to something else, unless you go with something very noisy, if you are already running the ML fans at high RPMs.
 
evhvis said:
I would keep the rear fan as exhaust as the hot air needs to go somwhere and it will prevent some of the hot air from reaching the radiator (primarily the half of the radiator that is towards the front). If you are worried about the CPU temp then one thing you can consider is using the radiator as intake at the top, along with front intake and rear exhaust, but that will create a lot of positive pressure in the case.

Better fans is always a benefit, but the balance is cost vs perceived worth. The ML series from corsair aren't bad fans, even if you can get fans that are quieter at the same performance or move more air at the same noise level. I doubt you will see a massive drop in temps by swapping to something else, unless you go with something very noisy, if you are already running the ML fans at high RPMs.
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Thanks for the advice. I'll stick with my current setup for now & figure out if the RoI of static pressure fans will help by comparing specs & reviews for a while.
 
I have an aio on my cpu and my graphics card is a factory water cooled unit with its own aio. I put my gpu radiator front mount as intake and my cpu radiator top mount as exhaust. Since I’m a gamer, graphics card is more important to keep cool. I would make my top mount radiator an intake but my computer is a completely sealed unit with filtered intake fans for the ultimate positive pressure “clean room” pc. If my cpu radiator weren’t exhaust then there would be no airflow in my case, just a bunch of fans trying to make my case into a pressure vessel lol
 
DaeviousMax said:
I have an aio on my cpu and my graphics card is a factory water cooled unit with its own aio. I put my gpu radiator front mount as intake and my cpu radiator top mount as exhaust. Since I’m a gamer, graphics card is more important to keep cool. I would make my top mount radiator an intake but my computer is a completely sealed unit with filtered intake fans for the ultimate positive pressure “clean room” pc. If my cpu radiator weren’t exhaust then there would be no airflow in my case, just a bunch of fans trying to make my case into a pressure vessel lol
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What case are you using?
 
Furious_Styles said:
What case are you using?
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Oh it’s an old Corsair air 540 that I customized by sealing all the vents and creases with clear tape or copper tape for bling. The only holes that air can infiltrate my rig are the 3 intake fan holes which have 2 layer mesh and micro mesh filters, one exhaust fan hole, I precision cut the hard drive bays at the bottom of the case into 2 more intake fan holes also with mesh and micro mesh filters, and the top mount radiator with exhaust fans. I sealed the free space around the radiator on top with copper tape which looks awesome in my opinion, and all the fans use fan gaskets to seal the cracks between fan and fan hole. It’s hard to describe how sealed the case is but I’ve had a sandy bridge-E 6 core in there for 7 years and when I gutted the case for my new 5900x build the motherboard, radiator, graphics card, etc still looked new haha and that’s including living with a dog, 2 cats, and a rabbit that sheds its fur coat every week it seems like. It is an ordeal to keep the filters clean and It’s a lot of work to seal everything but I highly recommend it!
 
I don't like front intake, simply because it makes the fans louder, when they are backed up against an grill/vent.
 
chameleoneel said:
I don't like front intake, simply because it makes the fans louder, when they are backed up against an grill/vent.
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I generally use pull inntake on front mount. Temp wise the difference between push and pull is within margin of error and having the radiator in between the fans and the front of the case blocks a good portion of the noise from the fans. Granted I use a thick radiator, which blocks off more noise than a slim along with 4xNF-A12x25 PWMs on the radiator in my main setup so the noise stays low unless ambient is very high or the air cooled GPU is running at 300w or more (exhaust fans are sensor regulated). While I didn't measure the difference in noise between push and pull, the perceived noise levels were quite a bit lower with pull and fans were on fixed RPM.
 
anywhere but the bottom mount orientation should be sufficient. The best thing to do is to try the orientations to see which gives the best results
 
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