Cosmos S - Replacing with Corsair 600t

snedie · 13 Jul 2011 at 10:38

So my Cosmos S just isnt satisfying my cooling needs at all. Basically my setup is as follows:

- Dual 5970 - Stock Coolers - No Overclock
- P55-GD80 Mainboard
- Core i5 @ 4.15Ghz - Water Cooled (Dual Rad, Closed loop, Forgot Name)
- 8GB RAM (Going to get dedicated cooler soon because they are getting hot as hell)
- 2x 500GB Sata Drives
- 3x 1TB Sata Drives
- 2x 48GB SSD's

My problem is the hard drives mainly as they completely block or warm the air coming from the front of the case and the 200mm side fan on the Cosmos is useless and moves less air than a lady bug.

So a guy I sub too on YT just uploaded a review of the Corsair 600T and it looks like quite a nice little case, little been the operative word here. Just curious to know if any one has tried dual 5970's (or any quadfire setup) in this case and has any opinions, worries or pro's to share about it.

My thinking is that the smaller case (with the much needed cable management features the cosmos lacks) will help to get air flowing in a more direct fashion and at a greater rate.

Many thanks guys

Marine-RX179 · 13 Jul 2011 at 10:50

snedie said:
So my Cosmos S just isnt satisfying my cooling needs at all. Basically my setup is as follows:

- Dual 5970 - Stock Coolers - No Overclock
- P55-GD80 Mainboard
- Core i5 @ 4.15Ghz - Water Cooled (Dual Rad, Closed loop, Forgot Name)
- 8GB RAM (Going to get dedicated cooler soon because they are getting hot as hell)
- 2x 500GB Sata Drives
- 3x 1TB Sata Drives
- 2x 48GB SSD's

My problem is the hard drives mainly as they completely block or warm the air coming from the front of the case and the 200mm side fan on the Cosmos is useless and moves less air than a lady bug.

So a guy I sub too on YT just uploaded a review of the Corsair 600T and it looks like quite a nice little case, little been the operative word here. Just curious to know if any one has tried dual 5970's (or any quadfire setup) in this case and has any opinions, worries or pro's to share about it.

Have you got a fan as intake at the bottom middle fan mount for your Cosmos S? It would bypass the drives and help a lot in bringing cool air into the main area of the PC. And yea...I can understand what you saying about the side-panel fan being useless. From my own experience I believe that the side-panel fan would be much better as exhaust than intake, as with it being intake it would seriously disrupt the airflow. With my side-panel fan switch from intake to exhaust, my MSI 5850 Twin FrozR's temp dropped by around 5C under load.

As for the Corsair 600T, it's default cooling is rather average:
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/cases/2010/09/23/corsair-graphite-600t-review/3

And as for Crossfiring a pair of 5970, base on what I read from the experience of members who have done it before was that the scaling is poor and no better than 5970+5870 Crossfire, shuttering, and serious driver problems. I believe most people here will tell you that "Quad-fire" (4 GPUs) is a bad idea.

snedie · 13 Jul 2011 at 10:51

Also looking at the Haf X

Admiral Huddy · 13 Jul 2011 at 10:54

Why so many HDDs? These will generate quite a bit of heat warming the air before it passes through.

You could also think about fitting a triple rad in the ceiling.

snedie · 13 Jul 2011 at 10:56

Marine-RX179 said:
Have you got a fan as intake at the bottom middle fan mount for your Cosmos S? It would help a lot in bringing cool air into the main area of the PC.

As for the Corsair 600T, it's default cooling is rather weak:
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/cases/2010/09/23/corsair-graphite-600t-review/3

And as for Crossfiring a 5970, base on what I read from the experience of members who have done it before was that the scaling is poor and no better than 5970+5870 Crossfire, shuttering, and serious driver problems. I believe more people here will tell you that "Quad-fire" (4 GPUs) is a bad idea.

Scaling at lower resolutions than 2560x1600 is poor, no doubt about that. But that's where the problem lies for most people in that they simply cannot afford to but either eyefinity screens at smaller resolutions or some of these larger screens retailing at the £1k mark. As for drivers there are a few issues here and there, stuttering been the main issue but it's only in certain titles and i'm pretty certain it's to do with AA and MSAO because as soon as you ditch either the stuttering just isn't an issue.

In the 4 months I've had dual 5970's, can't see I've ever regretted buying them.

Thanks for the info on cooling by the way. Also made me realise that mounting a dual rad inside the 600t is going to be an issue as the hard plastic tubes don't bend all that much and I'm always worried they get a stress fracture.

Any thoughts on the Haf X?

snedie · 13 Jul 2011 at 11:00

Admiral Huddy said:
Why so many HDDs? These will generate quite a bit of heat warming the air before it passes through.

You could also think about fitting a triple rad in the ceiling.

I was thinking to create a closed box inside the case for the HDD's where the warm air is drawn upwards and back out the front via a 120mm fan. Your definitely right though, these HDD's are generating a lot of heat. In a couple weeks I might see about buying a small case and getting a micro-atx board and using it for storage (Got around 200 blu rays loaded onto here, always getting more of amazon haha).

NathWraith · 13 Jul 2011 at 11:03

I would suggest the HAF X over the 600T for aitcooling. the 600T is good but not a patch on the HAF X. Plus the HAF X has a better scope for watercooling if you so choose that route!

snedie · 13 Jul 2011 at 11:15

NathWraith said:
I would suggest the HAF X over the 600T for aitcooling. the 600T is good but not a patch on the HAF X. Plus the HAF X has a better scope for watercooling if you so choose that route!

Water has been at the back of my mind for some time now but the cost has always put me off. However, I start my seasonal farm work on Monday so money might not be so much of a problem.

My main worry is that I've never even see a water build up close and building one on a £2k machine is rather daunting to say the least. But, people manage it so I guess it cant be all that hard can it

Socrates470BC · 13 Jul 2011 at 11:19

snedie said:
...the Corsair 600T and it looks like quite a nice little case, little been the operative word here.

If size and cost are not an issue, and your main concern is cooling, then the HAF X is definitely worth considering.

Being a large case it is easy to work with and keep tidy, plenty of room for HDDs, and good cooling options. Because of its size you may need to get an extension lead for the 8-pin MOBO/PSU connection.

I have been researching this case for myself and at the moment I am tending towards the HAF X over the 800D mainly because of the cooling ability of the HAF X.

Hot swap is another bonus on both the HAF X and the 800D.

kallisto316 · 13 Jul 2011 at 13:05

I just built a new rig into the 600T White, I have added the side panel with two fan blowing onto my SLI setup and Vram area. Temps are 28 - 30 degrees idle and 62 - 65 degrees load for an i5 2500K @ 4.5Ghz stock volts cooled with an H60 push pull with Gentle Typhoons AP15's (not in image below). 2 x 560ti run at 38 - 40 idle and 65 - 70 under load, thats with the fan controller on minimum.

It's pretty quite also as my fans are set on silent / custom setting to not to ramp up the speed. So you could go with this case if you budget for a couple of good fans for the mesh side panel.

Hope that helps you.. oh and it's is a damn nice case to look at and build but maybe if airflow is paramount the Silverstone Raven might be a contender.

adam_castell · 13 Jul 2011 at 13:08

i have a 600T, not as many HDD's im mine and only a single GFX card..... but i have no temperature problems at all, i have even put resistors in series with the main fans to run them slower.

snedie · 13 Jul 2011 at 16:09

Just completely rebuilt my rig and went over everything with an air compressor and spread those HDD's out a little bit (3x 1TB in one active cool bay, 2x SSD + 1x 500GB in second active cool bay and 1x 500GB in a 5.25 conversion mount). Also put in a fan in the lower intake hoping it might help matters a little.

Unfortunately my BIOS went on the Fritz yesterday and lost all my OC settings so testing temps is a little hard right now, but judging by the 5970 temps things are looking up (down to 63c from 70c @ idle).

I would just jump right into water but the price of a single 5970 block is nearly as much as a new case :mad:

snedie · 13 Jul 2011 at 16:13

Socrates470BC said:
If size and cost are not an issue, and your main concern is cooling, then the HAF X is definitely worth considering.

Being a large case it is easy to work with and keep tidy, plenty of room for HDDs, and good cooling options. Because of its size you may need to get an extension lead for the 8-pin MOBO/PSU connection.

I have been researching this case for myself and at the moment I am tending towards the HAF X over the 800D mainly because of the cooling ability of the HAF X.

Hot swap is another bonus on both the HAF X and the 800D.

Cooling and PCI slots are my main targets as I'd like to cram in a GTX280 for PhysX (Yes I know the P55-GD80 PCI-E lanes are slow as heck, but ran it for a month without a hitch before

). Cooling with that kind of setup though is obviously going to have issues of it's own and water might be a genuine consideration for me at that point.