O11D vs O11DXL

mikehhhhhhh · 20 Jan 2021 at 10:31

I currently have a Fractal Define C which fits everything I need and does a fantastic job of keeping noise down, but feels a bit tight with the 3090 and also leaves me concerned regarding heat with the amount of heat the 3090 throws out.

Untitled by mikehhhhhhh, on Flickr

I was thinking that something like an O11D with more space will allow for better cooling, I also think they look cool.

I'm wondering from those that have them, whether I need to jump to the XL to get what I want from it?

mikehhhhhhh · 20 Jan 2021 at 18:00

I've just measured, and it seems there is about 21mm spare between the side of the card. Measuring how the corsair 12pin cable sits naturally, it leaves me about 1-2mm spare.

I really like the idea of having a rear fan as part of my motivation was to include better cooling for the graphics card with bottom fans.

My dilema is that I already ordered a dynamic before I saw any replies to the thread, based on the XL not fitting between the legs of my desk. It's not too much drama to send it back, I guess.

mikehhhhhhh · 20 Jan 2021 at 21:35

Steedie said:
Just to add, I've got an O11D Razer, with a 3090FE. The cable is 3-4mm away from touching the glass, so if you had a card wider than the FE (if there even is one?) then it wouldn't fit

Thanks, that helps.

Feeling much better about it knowing the cable won’t be touching the glass.

mikehhhhhhh · 21 Jan 2021 at 19:32

Thanks for all the advice. My O11D arrived today and I was pleased to find there is no concern with cables pressing against glass.

One massive disappointment was the orientation of my fancy RGB intake fans. I'd never even considered the orientation of them, I just assumed they'd be orientated for intake.

Untitled by mikehhhhhhh, on Flickr

mikehhhhhhh · 21 Jan 2021 at 20:06

I think that's the longest a case build has ever taken me.

Probably took 1.5 hours all in, as I tried to keep all the cables managed on the backside nicely.

I've got to pull it all back apart tomorrow, I've decided to grab a couple of 140mm fans and a Corsair Commander Pro to run everything, as I ran out of chassis fan headers on the motherboard.

Hopefully it doesn't look too odd having different sized fans on the bottom. I figured it was better to maximise airflow to the graphics card with 2x140 rather than 3x120s with the third not doing much.

Be sure to drop some pics of your build when you do it - looking forward to seeing it!

mikehhhhhhh · 21 Jan 2021 at 20:25

I think I’d like to add custom water cooling at some point.

I’ll wait until the gpu block is out and I can buy it all together and have it shipped quickly, though. I only do things impulsively

mikehhhhhhh · 23 Jan 2021 at 17:52

Viirus said:
Currently running an O11D with 360mm aio top mounted with side/bottom as intake fans.

Would it be worth while side mounting the aio? The 5800x is quite toasty.

I thought about it, but I think there's headroom in the cooling for the CPU but the GPU is very much thermally limited, which is evident by the improvement in performance that came with the improvement to airflow.

Aidanx16 said:
Damn that’s close!

Unfortunately it looks like the custom cables I plan to get would definitely not fit that so XL it is for me!

one thing you might want to experiment with is making the fans go on the opposite side of the case (inside the main area) to see if that looks any better with the lighting. Might have an effect on thermals too.

when I had my O11D I tried both orientations and ended up keeping them inside the main larger area as it just looked more appealing.

Do you have any pictures? I just liked the idea of keeping them out of the main case space.

mikehhhhhhh · 24 Jan 2021 at 13:59

Looks great!