GPU cooling kit, what's the difference?

Thanks Ross, good to know :)

I've got about 50ish mm of clearance at the top of the case, the rad is 30mm, so hoping with fans it wont cause clearance issues with the Noctua d14 CPU cooler, otherwise I may have to run it with just one fan above the rad drawing air out of the case.
 
Ross, just getting on with this last night and started putting it all together but have a question for you seeing as you've done this already! I noticed on your picture that you have a rad at the front of the case, I cant quite tell from the pictures if this is the GPU or CPU rad, but are the fans pushing air through the rad and out of the case, or are they drawing air off the rad and back into the case? My issue is that I cannot put the rad at the top as it wont fit due to the CPU cooler tower, so where the rad will be mounted at the front was previous where I had fans pulling air into the case creating a direct flow of air toward the CPU tower then venting out the back via the 120mm exhaust fan, all in a perfect straight line. I'm really struggling to get my head around what to do here...

How hot do these rads actually get, if it's tepid at best, then I'll look to mount the fans back where they were at the front of the case and push air through the rad and towards the CPU tower if that makes sense?
 
KungFuSpaghetti said:
Ross, just getting on with this last night and started putting it all together but have a question for you seeing as you've done this already! I noticed on your picture that you have a rad at the front of the case, I cant quite tell from the pictures if this is the GPU or CPU rad, but are the fans pushing air through the rad and out of the case, or are they drawing air off the rad and back into the case? My issue is that I cannot put the rad at the top as it wont fit due to the CPU cooler tower, so where the rad will be mounted at the front was previous where I had fans pulling air into the case creating a direct flow of air toward the CPU tower then venting out the back via the 120mm exhaust fan, all in a perfect straight line. I'm really struggling to get my head around what to do here...

How hot do these rads actually get, if it's tepid at best, then I'll look to mount the fans back where they were at the front of the case and push air through the rad and towards the CPU tower if that makes sense?
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in my experience the air coming out of the rad got pretty toasty. Ended up with my cpu an extra 15c or so hotter with the gpu rad fans blowing air in case.

What I ended up doing was having my rear fans an intake blowing fresh air direct into the cpu cooler (I had a noctua d15 at the time) and my gpu rads blowing air direct out of the case. I had two gpus with the rads at the bottom and the front respectfully.
 
That's actually not a bad idea, I only have x1 120mm fan at the back and cant fit anymore or anything bigger, but could use that as an intake and have two top fans drawing air out too... would be quite a lot of negative pressure and would mean turning the CPU fan the other direction.
 
KungFuSpaghetti said:
That's actually not a bad idea, I only have x1 120mm fan at the back and cant fit anymore or anything bigger, but could use that as an intake and have two top fans drawing air out too... would be quite a lot of negative pressure and would mean turning the CPU fan the other direction.
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I wouldnt worry too much about having the top fans drawing air out. I didnt in my setup and had great temps
 
That's good to hear! With regards to my noctua d14, if I use the exhaust fan at the back as an intake, wondering what's easier. Turn the whole cpu cooler around or just try and take the fans out in situ and turn them around? Thinking the latter if it's possible otherwise means motherboard out job
 
KungFuSpaghetti said:
That's good to hear! With regards to my noctua d14, if I use the exhaust fan at the back as an intake, wondering what's easier. Turn the whole cpu cooler around or just try and take the fans out in situ and turn them around? Thinking the latter if it's possible otherwise means motherboard out job
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just turn the fans around. no need to turn the cooler around
 
Yeah I'll give that a go when I get home. Hopefully I'll have enough clearance between the exhaust fan, as I'll have to put one of the noctua fans at the opposite side. I may end up with case and noctua fans practically touching... Plus side it should get some nice cold air!
 
Well I'm slowly getting there, spent last night removing all fans and starting over. Now using the exhaust fan as an intake and directly in front of that is the first of the CPU Noctua fans all blowing air towards the GPU fans, which are set to push air through the rad and out the front. I've got a bottom fan now drawing air in underneath and two fans at the top of the case pulling air out. Next step is GPU disassembly then mount the bracket. I did offer it up to the card and none of the hole patterns match, but then it looks like the whole bracket is just held on with 4 screws from the retaining/mounting brackets... I'll read the instructions tonight and check some install videos out before I decide it might not fit! lol

I was also advised that where I've mounted the rad might need changing, as at the moment the rad is mounted vertically at the front of the case with hoses at the bottom, but was told these should be at the top? Not a big job to change if need be, it's just 8 screws and a case of turning the rad the other way up...
 
KungFuSpaghetti said:
Well I'm slowly getting there, spent last night removing all fans and starting over. Now using the exhaust fan as an intake and directly in front of that is the first of the CPU Noctua fans all blowing air towards the GPU fans, which are set to push air through the rad and out the front. I've got a bottom fan now drawing air in underneath and two fans at the top of the case pulling air out. Next step is GPU disassembly then mount the bracket. I did offer it up to the card and none of the hole patterns match, but then it looks like the whole bracket is just held on with 4 screws from the retaining/mounting brackets... I'll read the instructions tonight and check some install videos out before I decide it might not fit! lol

I was also advised that where I've mounted the rad might need changing, as at the moment the rad is mounted vertically at the front of the case with hoses at the bottom, but was told these should be at the top? Not a big job to change if need be, it's just 8 screws and a case of turning the rad the other way up...
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im not familiar with your case but an idea would be to mount the rad at the bottom of the case. I know it would mean more work but it means you can have cool air coming into the front blowing down through the rad. It gives you a lot more air for your cpu before.

Just remember to have your rad fans blowing air out of your case.
 
I've got a Fractal design define C, which I can only mount the rad at the top or the front as it's 240mm. Sadly the Noctua d14 takes up too much space to mount at the top, so at the moment I've just mounted the rad at the front of the case, with the x2 120mm fans pushing air through the rad and out of the front. I've mounted the rad so the pipes are at the bottom, but work colleague told me these should be at the top??

CPU should be okay I think, as the front of the case cannot be great for getting air in anyway, as it has a dust filter, mesh and a funny intake angle to overcome, so rear exhaust fan is now going to be the intake as I've turned it around. If you look at the link, there's not much in the way of air intakes at the front anyway, just those thin strips down the edge... http://www.fractal-design.com/home/product/cases/define-series/define-c
 
So I've now managed to get the kit fitted and installed, however one thing that concerns me is that there are x2 memory chips to the left of the GPU and 3 above it, none of which are in the path of the fan on the Kraken G12, so only 3 of the RAM modules and all of the VRMs are under the fan getting any air... is this something that I should be concerned about, or are these RAM modules okay to run without any heatsinks??
 
KungFuSpaghetti said:
So I've now managed to get the kit fitted and installed, however one thing that concerns me is that there are x2 memory chips to the left of the GPU and 3 above it, none of which are in the path of the fan on the Kraken G12, so only 3 of the RAM modules and all of the VRMs are under the fan getting any air... is this something that I should be concerned about, or are these RAM modules okay to run without any heatsinks??
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I've assembled a G12 to a 980Ti recently, and after a large amount of research, I decided to apply some thermal conductive adhesive tape and some copper memory heat sinks. I did this to the chips dotted around the processor chips (cooled passively) and the memory chips on the right hand side of the board (cooled by the fan air flow).

This has worked absolutely fine, no issues whatsoever. TBH, you prob don't need to do as much as I have, but it gave me peace of mind.

The heat sinks are available at a multitude of places, including the usual "online auction sites". Packs were <£10 each. The thermal adhesive tape was called AK-TT 12-80 Akasa CPU Thermal Adhesive Tape, and is more a pad than a tape.

Image Link: https://image.ibb.co/ngqpsR/3_CD3_DD7_C_FDCF_4_C2_B_8_AA6_A0867922_B1_A0.jpg

3_CD3_DD7_C_FDCF_4_C2_B_8_AA6_A0867922_B1_A0.jpg
 
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Can't see the pic for some reason, but I've just ordered some aluminium VGA heatsinks with sticky backed 3m stuff on them and thought I may as well get the Phanteks PWM hub at the same time as I've got nowhere near enough fan headers on the board and don't want to run splitters all over the show! Like you, my thinking is why risk it on such an expensive component!
 
KungFuSpaghetti said:
Can't see the pic for some reason, but I've just ordered some aluminium VGA heatsinks with sticky backed 3m stuff on them and thought I may as well get the Phanteks PWM hub at the same time as I've got nowhere near enough fan headers on the board and don't want to run splitters all over the show! Like you, my thinking is why risk it on such an expensive component!
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Have edited with an image link :-)

(https://image.ibb.co/ngqpsR/3_CD3_DD7_C_FDCF_4_C2_B_8_AA6_A0867922_B1_A0.jpg)
 
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