Better than a NH-D14 for my 8700K?

C6ckneyGeezer · 3 Jun 2018 at 20:53

Hi all! I would like to ask, is their a better cooler than my current NH-D14? Ive looked at many reviews and it points me into the direction of a custom loop, which I don't realllly want. I don't mind a AIO, but do prefer air if I'm honest. Also it seems my NH-D14 is better if not on par with 90% of AIO's? Would it be a better idea to keep my current cooler and upgrade my case for better air flow?

Atm I use a customised Corsair 100r, this is due to me needing a smaller case as it fits into my TY stand furnature. I have removed the lower drive bays, side mounted the SSD, drilled the front panel, all to allow maximum air flow. I have 2x 140mm Corsair high static pressure fans at the front blowing in, 2x 120mm Corsair high flow fans blowing out and a 140mm Noctua fan on my NH-D14 also blowing out. All fans set to max speed. And as you can see, the NH-D14 JUSSST fits in my case.

Current temps are Room ambient of 25*c, Inside case 28*c, Idle Average 35*c and I see a max average temp of 79*c after 30 mins of NON AVX Prime 95 Small FFT'S.

CPU is delidded with Conductonaut and Im using Krayounaut between IHS and NH-D14. Overclocked to 4.8Ghz @ 1.280v under full Prime load. All cstates etc are off, so constant 4.8Ghz even at idle.

Since my case temp and room temp are only 3*c different, I assume I have enough air flow and my case isn't an oven? My GTX 1080Ti idles at 28*c.

Rest of spec and pictures below. Excuse the dust, was before my current rebuild. I fully stripped it and done a Z370 build. Any comments much appreciated.

i7-8700k @ 4.8Ghz Delided / Noctua NH-D14 / T'Grizzly Thermals
Asus ROG Maximus X Hero / 16GB TG Dark Pro "8 Pack Edition" @ 3200Mhz
Crucial 480GB / Zotac AMP! Extreme Core GTX 1080Ti / Corsair RM750X

koooowweeee · 3 Jun 2018 at 21:54

Nothing wrong with tho temps. Unless you run stress test 24/7?

You could knock off a few C if you had died another fan to the cooler

BongoHunter · 3 Jun 2018 at 21:59

As above, add an extra fan - it's hard to beat what you have from a heatsink perspective

Edit - if not using the 5.25 bays maybe remove the cage, may help slightly with airflow

doyll · 4 Jun 2018 at 00:34

While temps are acceptable I like them a little lower. Try removing PCie back slot covers to increase rear vent area around GPU. This usually improves overall case front to back airflow and this flow moves heated air coming off of CPU back and out of case before it can mix with and heat up the cool front intake air going to coolers. While a 2nd fan may help I suggest getting a better fan to replace the NF-P14 you have in the middle now. Something like PhanteksPH-F140HP_BK2 is probably the best option if you can find one. Another is NF-A15 Chromax but it's £23.99
And clean that duct box you call a case, especially the front filter!

C6ckneyGeezer · 4 Jun 2018 at 20:07

koooowweeee said:
Nothing wrong with tho temps. Unless you run stress test 24/7?

You could knock off a few C if you had died another fan to the cooler

BongoHunter said:
As above, add an extra fan - it's hard to beat what you have from a heatsink perspective

Edit - if not using the 5.25 bays maybe remove the cage, may help slightly with airflow

doyll said:
While temps are acceptable I like them a little lower. Try removing PCie back slot covers to increase rear vent area around GPU. This usually improves overall case front to back airflow and this flow moves heated air coming off of CPU back and out of case before it can mix with and heat up the cool front intake air going to coolers. While a 2nd fan may help I suggest getting a better fan to replace the NF-P14 you have in the middle now. Something like PhanteksPH-F140HP_BK2 is probably the best option if you can find one. Another is NF-A15 Chromax but it's £23.99
And clean that duct box you call a case, especially the front filter!

Thanks for the replies guys! I managed to fit the other Noctua fan to the cooler, it jussst touches the side of my case. It didn't fit at all in my previous setup, so I assumed it wouldn't with my new ram. I also had a spare Corsair fan and mounted it on the inside at the front for good measure. I know it's looks a bit silly, but the need to have a small case and that said case being in a closed enviroment, I need to try and keep things as cool as possible. I also can't see inside my case, so looks don't bother me at all.

The results are; Room ambient of 23*c, Inside case 24*c, Idle Average 32*c and I see a max average temp of 73*c after an hour of NON AVX Prime 95 Small FFT'S!

Max temp of cores being;

Average - 73*c
Core 0 - 70*c
Core 1 - 68*c
Core 2 - 73*c
Core 3- 69*c
Core 4 - 68*c
Core 5 - 69*c

I didn't think 2 fans would make such an impact. A slightly cooler ambient, but Im down 6*c average core temp. So I guess they did knock a few degrees off...

Edit: Might even move that additional Corsair 120mm fan up one notch at the front to flow more air into the cpu area.

Thanks guys!

Edit: Found 2 matching Corsairs fans, mounted them up.

=

Danny75 · 5 Jun 2018 at 03:36

Wouldn't you get less blowback if you used one rear fan instead of two joined together like that? Never tried it myself but I've read that one of the fans will act like a partial obstruction instead of increasing the volume of exhaust.

doyll · 5 Jun 2018 at 12:24

How / where are you measuring the air temp inside of case?

C6ckneyGeezer · 5 Jun 2018 at 21:38

Danny75 said:
Wouldn't you get less blowback if you used one rear fan instead of two joined together like that? Never tried it myself but I've read that one of the fans will act like a partial obstruction instead of increasing the volume of exhaust.

I done some more testing and it seems the stacked fans gave me no advantage what so ever. So indeed you are correct! Ive removed them! There were tons of videos on Youtube experimenting stacked fans with mixed results. All in all, more noise not much gain if at all!

doyll said:
How / where are you measuring the air temp inside of case?

From the sensor which says "Mainboard" in HWM? Correct one or wrong?

Fan wise now is 2x 140mm Corsair SP140's up front, 1x 120mm Corsair HF120 for exhaust, 1x Noctua 140mm and 1x Noctua 120mm on the NH-D14.

Just ran Prime again for an hour of small FFT's and got a max temp of 72*c. So all those extra fans I had were just added noise, no added cooling at all! I do however think the extra 120mm fan has helped out a lot. Also firstly I plugged the big 140mm fan into CPU Fan and the 120mm fan into the OPT CPU Fan headers. But then I realised, the headers are linked, so I assume the 120mm fan would have dropped to the same speed at the slower 140mm fan? Now plugged the 120mm into it's own header, all fans set to max speed/QFAN Off.

Room ambient of 23*c, Inside case(Mainboard?) 24*c

Max temp of cores being;

Average - 72*c
Core 0 - 69*c
Core 1 - 68*c
Core 2 - 72*c
Core 3- 69*c
Core 4 - 68*c
Core 5 - 69*c

Every day is a learning day, thanks for all the advice guys.

Danny75 · 5 Jun 2018 at 22:10

Good of you to test and share results. Nice rig by the way.

The front fans, maybe next time you tinker with the case try mounting them deeper into the case, i.e. on the other side of the mounting, might pull a little more air yet by allowing more air to gather in front of them, inside the front chamber. Not that there's anything wrong with those temps.

LuckyBenski · 6 Jun 2018 at 08:37

Regarding speed of different fans controlled by one header (or in this case, PWM signal really), the PWM control signal is not directly aware of the fan's speed. I'll explain...

PWM control signals offer a "duty cycle" (switched on time) as a percentage. So, 10% means the signal saying "go" is on 10% of the time. 75% would mean it's on 75% of the time etc. What this means is that proportionally more power is sent to the device (fan), up to the full power that 12V would supply.

If you connect two different devices whether it's two fans, a fan and pump, or even some LEDs, they will both receive the PWM % control signal. They will then use this proportion of the full energy so, very roughly speaking, a fan receiving 50% PWM will run around 50% of its full speed.

What I'm getting at, is two fans will run at different speeds on the same PWM signal, if they have different speed ranges.

I'm trying to keep it simple and all this is a little irrelevant, suffice to say: the fans will take care of themselves, so it's OK to set and forget

doyll · 6 Jun 2018 at 09:49

I will add to what LuckBenski said in that different fans with same rpm top speed may not have same PWM signal % to rpm curve, as you can see in this graph of 8 PWM fans. This is because the PWM% to rpm curve is programmed into the PWM circuitry of each fan. This circuitry is then controlled by the PWM% trigger on motherboard or other PWM controller.

C6ckneyGeezer · 8 Jun 2018 at 16:47

Danny75 said:
Good of you to test and share results. Nice rig by the way.

The front fans, maybe next time you tinker with the case try mounting them deeper into the case, i.e. on the other side of the mounting, might pull a little more air yet by allowing more air to gather in front of them, inside the front chamber. Not that there's anything wrong with those temps.

I can mount ome of them internal, but the other one won't fit due to the drive bays being in the way. Shame I still can't push for 5Ghz, I need 1.360v to stay stable and get 90*c in Prime under stress testing. Bit hot for me...

LuckyBenski said:
Regarding speed of different fans controlled by one header (or in this case, PWM signal really), the PWM control signal is not directly aware of the fan's speed. I'll explain...

PWM control signals offer a "duty cycle" (switched on time) as a percentage. So, 10% means the signal saying "go" is on 10% of the time. 75% would mean it's on 75% of the time etc. What this means is that proportionally more power is sent to the device (fan), up to the full power that 12V would supply.

If you connect two different devices whether it's two fans, a fan and pump, or even some LEDs, they will both receive the PWM % control signal. They will then use this proportion of the full energy so, very roughly speaking, a fan receiving 50% PWM will run around 50% of its full speed.

What I'm getting at, is two fans will run at different speeds on the same PWM signal, if they have different speed ranges.

I'm trying to keep it simple and all this is a little irrelevant, suffice to say: the fans will take care of themselves, so it's OK to set and forget

doyll said:
I will add to what LuckBenski said in that different fans with same rpm top speed may not have same PWM signal % to rpm curve, as you can see in this graph of 8 PWM fans. This is because the PWM% to rpm curve is programmed into the PWM circuitry of each fan. This circuitry is then controlled by the PWM% trigger on motherboard or other PWM controller.

Ahh PWM curves all make sense now. I have them on seperate headers still though, least I can see both the RPM's now. Oh and also, they are both 3 pin fans, not 4, so voltage regulated and not PWM?

LuckyBenski · 8 Jun 2018 at 18:56

C6ckneyGeezer said:
Ahh PWM curves all make sense now. I have them on seperate headers still though, least I can see both the RPM's now. Oh and also, they are both 3 pin fans, not 4, so voltage regulated and not PWM?

If your speeds are changing and they're only 3-pin fans, it must be voltage regulated.

C6ckneyGeezer · 8 Jun 2018 at 19:16

LuckyBenski said:
If your speeds are changing and they're only 3-pin fans, it must be voltage regulated.

Yep defo 3 pin. I have them all at full speed anyways, my rig is a good 6 ft away so I can hardly hear it tbf.

doyll · 8 Jun 2018 at 19:29

C6ckneyGeezer said:
I can mount ome of them internal, but the other one won't fit due to the drive bays being in the way. Shame I still can't push for 5Ghz, I need 1.360v to stay stable and get 90*c in Prime under stress testing. Bit hot for me...

Ahh PWM curves all make sense now. I have them on seperate headers still though, least I can see both the RPM's now. Oh and also, they are both 3 pin fans, not 4, so voltage regulated and not PWM?

As stated speed controlled 3-pin is variable voltage. But keep in mind 4-pin PWM fan on 3-pin or 4-pin header that is variable voltage controlled will still change speed .. while a 3-pin fan on 4-pin PWM controlled fan header will only run at full speed.

JediFragger · 9 Jun 2018 at 03:33

D14 is still great, I run my 8700k@5Ghz with a D15 and a single silent 140mm fan, perfection itself and a pretty much silent rig (got an InWin 301 with 2x120mm Noiseblockers sitting under my Ti feeding it cool air, keeps the rpm's down) :cool:

doyll · 9 Jun 2018 at 11:54

I wonder where on 'mainboard' the temp sensor is. II can't see how it could be measuring air temp going into cooler. Low cost way to measure air temp is at bottom of link below. First part is basic guilde to case airflow and how to optimise it.
https://forums.overclockers.co.uk/t...-i-put-my-temp-sensor.18564223/#post-26159770

C6ckneyGeezer · 9 Jun 2018 at 14:18

JediFragger said:
D14 is still great, I run my 8700k@5Ghz with a D15 and a single silent 140mm fan, perfection itself and a pretty much silent rig (got an InWin 301 with 2x120mm Noiseblockers sitting under my Ti feeding it cool air, keeps the rpm's down)

What voltage and temps you running? Temp after Prime Small FFT's for a while? Non AVX, so 26.6. When I added the extra 120mm fan it made no real difference in noise, yet helped temps quite a bit. So trying the extra fan on your cooler may be worth a shot!

doyll said:
I wonder where on 'mainboard' the temp sensor is. II can't see how it could be measuring air temp going into cooler. Low cost way to measure air temp is at bottom of link below. First part is basic guilde to case airflow and how to optimise it.
https://forums.overclockers.co.uk/t...-i-put-my-temp-sensor.18564223/#post-26159770

Going on this image from Asus showing sensor location, I would assume; 1) VRM 2) CPU 3) PCH which leaves 4 or 5? So either one would be getting a good dose of ambient temp air from front intake fans.

doyll · 9 Jun 2018 at 15:15

C6ckneyGeezer said:
Going on this image from Asus showing sensor location, I would assume; 1) VRM 2) CPU 3) PCH which leaves 4 or 5? So either one would be getting a good dose of ambient temp air from front intake fans.

I would be surprised if air temp measured at middle of fan pushing air into cooler is the same as air around those sensors is, especially if GPU is working hard. But as long as things are staying cool I wouldn't worry too much.