What case for open air GPU?

4

45454asasa

Limp Gawd
Joined
Nov 6, 2010
Messages
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I have been looking at cases for a few days now but I cant seem to find an answer on what kind of case works best for graphics cards that blow the heat back into the case.

Currently I have a Stacker 830 and its not doing well at all at cooling a 7950 Vapor-X. I haven't got any side panel fans on as the fan holder cant fit with the CPU heatsink in the way.

This is my understanding of what is happening in the case, from a side view.
TgeGF.png

Blue = Intake
Red = Exhaust
Red Block = GPU
--I forgot to draw the two intake fans on the bottom of the card. Imagine them :p--

The GPU has very high pressure air going thru on all directions, and it basically chokes the front intakes from doing much of anything. For that, I tried putting a fan on the mesh below the card, but it really didnt help.

So,
My initial thought was a sealed positive pressure case, like the 550D w/out side fans... but reviews show it has pretty poor cooling. Of course, with more fans it will be better... but then it's carrying a premium for silence when I dont intend for it to be silent, nor will it be with the fan covers' lids taken off.

So then I looked at the HAF X on the other end of the spectrum, but thats almost as open as a Stacker. And with low pressure large fans, I'd imagine the front fan would be fighting with the GPU's exhaust again. The side fan might help a bit, but its still not going to do any wonders, right?

Are there better options, like a sealed case that pushes air over the GPU, front to back? Or would putting Performance SP120's on the 550d do just that?

Thank you.
 
In my opinion there shouldn't be really that much of the difference.Well you can change for AF120 - quiet edition many times people uses quiet edition fans and that is not a problem. That why it rather only depends to you needs - if you want new case - just buy one but you don't have to it only because you have more powerful GPU :)
I've got 6850 windforce edition and on my case i've got 2 intake fans on low rpm and it works without any problem.
 
I'd simply concentrate on a case that has a similar side fan mount to the Corsair 300R - 2 x 120mm side-by-side. Mount exhaust fans on those locations and get as much intake as possible:

Corsair-300R-PC_Gaming_Case-Windowed,7-N-345011-13.png
 
Silverstone raven case 2/2E 3 as they do have better air direction(like a chimney) or, maybe put some kind of divider system to force the air in certain directions.

I do not like the current cases as most of them by design do not keep air flow linear, but rather, the air intake/exhausting fight against each other.

I would reverse the top fan or back fan it might help some. Or another option you have is to get a gpu block and not have to worry about it, maybe mod the cooler on the card, or even change the thermal paste etc to again, better direct the temps/airflow.
 
I have a buddy that modded one of those slot coolers to intake cold air, I think he was using dual GTX295 or somehting like that, he said it droppped the temps a good 10c and kept the cards/system from shutdown from heat and everything else ran a little cooler as well.

I wonder if you flipped one of those fans in the front so it would be one intake and one exhausting. This would prob keep you har drive area nicely cooled, and would prevent the air coming in from the bottomg having to compete with a mad rush of air coming from in the front?
 
Thanks for the input everyone.

@sybreeder: I considered buying new/more case fans, but I dont know if they can really help unless they are high RPM ones. Just too many holes in this case.

@stratosrally: Thats what I was leaning towards, but I'm not sure about which cases can or cant fit large CPU heatsinks w/ side fans on. 550D cannot. Fractal R4 I'm not sure. HAF X I'd assume yes, as those are very wide.

@Dragonstongue: Raven[And Fortress] arent so great for cooling open air coolers though I've read. I dont think switching the back or top fan will help any. Currently the CPU heatsink has push/pull blowing into the rear exhaust. The top fan is so far from the mesh that it would probably pull air from in the case in a loop rather than get new air. Waterblock is too expensive for me. Definitely considering modding the cooling though. VRMs run super hot.

As for the front fan, I actually have my HDD [Vertex 3] sitting on a CD/DVD drive towards the top of the case. I did this a few days ago so there was less to block the front intake flow, along with some cable management. Temps did go down, but I dont feel like it did enough.

However that is a very good idea & I'm gonna try it right now!

@phOkaz: That's a good idea & I'd completely forgotten about those. Might try that out if I wimp out on modding the card.. lol
 
The non-windowed 300R has its fans mounted lower, they wouldn't interfere with a large CPU cooler:

300r_side.png
 
I think the raven3 would work well for you.

I have one and compared to my old cent 590 case the temps are way better, granted space is a little crunched, but apprently even the Noctua DH14 will fit in here.

I am currently using the raven 3 with a 7870 twin frozr III and cpu cooler is a hyper 212+ push/pull 2 fans in bottom as intake fan in front over mech hddd as intake, one fan top as exhaust, one fan side also as exhaust

gpu OC/volted at 64% fan gets top gaming load 53c summer was 56c cpu gets to 43-46c.
In your case, with the 7950 being larger overall then mine, it might actually help alot for its temps as alot of the air needed for the card is fed straight up to it and the cpu cooler will extract most of the leftover now heated air.

I know I want to "mod" this case as it has so much potential as far as a "blank" canvas. The side panels, the back panel, even the top panel to a degree.

I don`t know, but, at the time I had alot of higher cfm fans that took a long time to get just right in the cent 590 e.g 2 front 2 side 2 top 1 rear gpu and power supply vs now 1 front 2 bottom 1 top 1 side my cfm is way less, noise is far far less, and temps for 3 gpu(1 blower 2 open air) 2 cpu and coolers are on average 10c better if not more.
 
I am using an Antec Eleven Hundred with an open air 6970 and it keeps the card nice and cool. The case has 2 120mm intakes at the front and an additional 2 120mm fans on the backside of the hdd cage. This allows me to have good intake flow across the hdd cage and then pickup the intake flow again with the other 2 fans carrying it into the GPU area without using high speed (noisy) fans. There are also 2 120mm side intake, 1 120mm bottom, 1 120mm rear and 1 200mm top fan locations.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129178
 
Well I tried different front fan orientations, but it didnt help at all. The mesh on this case is so horribly made that it blocks almost all airflow. A 1450rpm 120mm fan pushes next to no air thru the mesh - almost cant feel it. Intake sort of works though. Temps are the same either way though, as its so weak.

@stratosrally: Im looking at getting a more expensive case TBH. I've already gone thru 2, so I'd rather just pay a lot and stick with it for now on. Not like I want an overpriced case, but.. nothing budget oriented.

@dragonstongue: Amazon has the RV03 for $144, is it considerably worse than the RV02?

@JohnnyTX: That looks pretty nice, but its not better than a HAF X is it?
 
Ugh, well, the 550d is $90AR at newegg... really tempted by that.Does anyone know if it could fit an Xigmatek SD1283 WITH side fans?

$144 for the RV03, but the RV03 is worse than the RV02 :[
 
I doubt it. I've read that the case has about 179mm of clearance, but the side panel latch lessens that to about 160mm. I imagine you'd leave the panel off, if you were installing fans (of course), but still - 179mm - 25mm for fan thickness equals 154mm. The cooler you mention is 158-159mm tall.

Now, if you only installed a lower fan, this may be OK... or a slim-line fan (12mm thick, like the Scythe Slipstream Slim). I really can't confirm, as I don't have this case - but it is my planned next purchase.

So many people have detailed questions about it that if I get it I will immediately post measurements of everything I can think of! I have enough spare case fans (even a slimline model) that I should be able to come up with some very good numbers.

Do you already have the Xigmatek cooler? There are some pretty sweet lower-profile CPU coolers out there these days.
 
Well dang. Yeah, I have that cooler already.

I really just want to get a new case and stick with it. Would the Silverstone Fortress FT02 be a lot better than a 550d? I'd just get the Raven, but I dont want to spend $144 on a highly plastic case.

$229 is a big difference from $90, heh. Pretty sure it never goes on significant sales, either.
 
I think the FT02 is an extremely well-designed case with great innovations. It should run notably cooler than the 550D - the 90deg mobo rotation helps with airflow a great deal. My only complaint is that it has only 7 expansion slots - not a concern for most people using an ATX mobo. My need is for a case that accepts a dual-slot GPU in the 7th slot, making the Corsar the case of choice for me.

If my mobo had a different PCIe lane configuration, I'd be looking at the FT02 - most definitely!

The Ravens are much too plasticky for me.
 
I'm curious how well a HAF X case would do with video cards like yours. My 200mm side fan has a shroud around it that helps it direct air toward the video card, plus with my PSU mounted with the fan facing up at the bottom of the case, it would also help move the air from the video cards.
The HAF X also comes with a couple different brackets that can support more fans for your video cards, there is one that would put a 120mm fan next to the hdd mounts to help move air toward the card(s). Also there is a side mount bracket that can hold 2x 80mm fans but with that side bracket you can't use the fan shroud for the big side fan.
 
ravens do work well but yes, they do need top optimize the design a tad, which I will be doing when I have the cash to do so, to much plastic, I don`t like the mesh they use, but overall, I love the way it looks once its all done, and its cooling potential is excellent really, I don`t find it noisy either def quieter then any other case I have owned.

well there is the one problem with power supply drawing air down away from gpu. hot air rises cold air drops obviously, this is self defeating, and probably hurts the gpu and other such cooling or def makes it harder on the psu fan to draw the little bit of air it needs. Beyond the dust etc, it makes more sence to have the psu draw its own air and vent its own air.

I personally found with the cases that have the side fans, they didn`t help my temps at all, if anything, it made different parts hotter depending on how they were arranged.

A case fan hanging off the back of the card to force more air out of the pci-e slot covers a case fan blowing extra cool air in through the bottom back(ducted even) a modded slot blower fan etc, there is lots of ways to achieve this.

Enermax Fulmo line, some of the xigmatech cases, there is tons of choices there truly is. But in my opinion I would try to find something that balances the airflow a little better in regards to intake and exhaust without relying on fans on the top or side of the case which can make it really difficult to achieve a good intake to exhaust balance which obviously helps keep all the components cooler not just one of them.

cooler master HAF XB has tons of room and apprently excellent cooling in its "strange" design Review here
Nanoxia deep silence 1 is another option can fit XL ATX boards and is chock full of features with 8 slots
Spire Epoxi rev 2 good for dual gpu but not else, still regarded as the best for its price point
LEPA LPC302 Mid-Tower
Rosewill Black Hawk Ultra
Akasa Venom Toxic without a doubt one of the best aircooling cases available

I suppose its just that, for the card to stay as cool as possible you need as much smooth airflow as possible, it will not help the rest of your system to have the hot air pile up heating everything else up, and if that air is going right by the card without being drawn into it, well that doesnt help either.

A better designed case, or possibly a different cooler, or some modding to get it the air it needs and to keep the air a little more smooth the major problem I had with my centurion 590 was that, not a lack of airflow, but no good direction to make the air go, not much different then most cases with fans on the side and top really.
 
Thats a nice article. But I just purchased a FT02 2hrs ago so no for now I just have to avoid looking at anything that makes me regret it hahahaha.
 
Well the system is set up and running, but unfortunately the Vapor-X does not work well with it. It heats up ~15c hotter on the core under heavy load and the VRMs, surprisingly, also run hotter in that orientation... also by about 15c.

However, I stupidly tried running the case with the front panel facing downwards, so that the motherboard faced the normal direction, and the temps improved dramatically, lower than they were in the old Stacker 830 on both the VRMs and core.

The problem with this orientation [at least, the one that worries me] is that the power supply is now horizontal on the top of the case, with its only supports being 4 screws on what is now the back panel. In the stacker 830, which did this as well, there were guide rails holding it up.. lol.

Is this unsafe, or is a 5.5lb CoolerMaster M600 power supply most likely OK there? It's only 150x150x86, so I dont know how much force its really exerting on those 4 supporting screws.

If anyone has some ideas on how to give it a fail-safe of some sort, that would be awesome.
 
At first glance that sounds pretty fishy. Depending on screw material and width, it could fail in a couple days or never.
 
Yeah, I'm not sure. I've been doing really rough measurements of the power supply's location, and it does not appear to have shifted yet.

I did realize that there is one additional thing supporting it, though. The case comes with a long velcro strap that goes from the back of the motherboard tray, around the power supply, and then back to the start - with its original intention probably being reducing vibrations, as it wouldnt offer any support in the normal orientation. When this part was done, I was very sure to be as tight as possible. This is about 2/3rds the way down from the screws, so it might in fact be what is protecting it from imminent failure.
I sure hope it continues to do so...

Obviously I'd just run the case in the normal orientation, but my max OC goes from 1225/1800 to <1100/1775, and runs hotter doing it.
 
well, thing is with heatpipes on alot of coolerss and motherboards, thier "wicks" are not capable of being used in all orientations, only some, usually horizontal OR vertical.

4 screws provided they are in there tight, should hold it perfectly well. It would have to rip the case/strip the screw holes of the psu itself, I dont see this happening, probably be just as bad to kick the case hard enough to cause a hard drive to fail as it would be for power supply to just fall out :p I would be more worried about the power supply get proper airflow and such then its screws falling out.
 
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