AIO + Vega Liquid rad placement

Twyst · 18 Aug 2017 at 00:14

I just took delivery of a Carbide 400 Case and a Kraken X62 AIO. I have the AIO front mounted with the fans as pull. I moved the case 140mm fan to the top at 90 degress next to the existing 120mm exhaust fan - both push air out.

My question is this: Soon (I hope!!!) to be getting a Vega64 Liquid card ..... where should I place it's radiator? I can add it to the top, but that could create negative pressure. Or maybe replace the exhaust fan with it?

Another option would be to move the X62 to the top as exhaust and front mount the Vega rad along with the 140mm fan .... the benefit of this would maybe to add another fan if space allows?

This is my first water cooling, so ideas welcome!

pastymuncher · 18 Aug 2017 at 09:41

Hi and welcome to the forums.

With the heat that thing is going to be putting out I would have the radiator set to exhaust so the rear exhaust fan position would be good.

Twyst · 18 Aug 2017 at 10:59

Thanks for the welcome

I just had an idea to mount Vega's rad on the existing exhaust fan in push -> rad -> pull. Hopefully enough clearance to the CPU block.

Would that still result in negative pressure? Any way of testing it?

pastymuncher · 18 Aug 2017 at 19:19

If it's replacing a fan that is already there then I guess with push/pull it will be sucking a bit more air than a single fan would but would depend on the speed/amount of air the AIO on the front is pulling into the case plus the same with the 140mm in the roof. With push/pull you ideally want the fans to be identical both sides of the rad.

Twyst · 18 Aug 2017 at 19:44

Well, the fans won't be identical, nor controlled from the same source. One would be a CPU controlled fan from system temperature and the other controlled by the Vega unit.
Unusure if this is a good idea, nor if done which fan should push or which should pull.

pastymuncher · 19 Aug 2017 at 14:13

Not a good idea. You want identical fans running at the same speed and controlled by the gpu. Controlling one of the fans by cpu temp would be pointless as it has nothing to do with gpu temps at all. You would be better off removing the rear exhaust fan altogether and replacing it with the radiator and it's fan in either push or pull mode exhausting out of the case.

AmateurExpert · 19 Aug 2017 at 20:48

If you can't control both fans to be similar spec and speed, you won't (usually) get the full benefit of having both. There's nothing wrong with a bit of experimentation if you're so inclined though; there can be use cases where it doesn't matter.

That radiator will put out a lot of heat so my first preference would be to mount it exhausting out of one of the rear/top positions, and a 140mm fan as a nearby intake. I don't think that would be too imbalanced in terms of intake (3) vs exhaust (1) fans as you have a few other vacant vents.

If you want ultimate GPU temps you can also mount the AIO as a rear intake, but I'd want two 140mm fans exhausting from the top. I guess you might also have a couple of fan mount positions on your side panel, but I'm not familiar with your case so I don't know internal clearances, and usually fans in side panels are noisier than otherwise.