Quick question, how large would my rads need to be to cope with passive cooling in a watercooled rig? Thinking about doing it for an always on media server/encoding rig that I'd like to get as quiet as possible. Will be used with an overclocked AMD 8320 and 7850 gfx (if I can get compatible cooling for the card)
Passive cooling
- Thread starter elroberto
- Start date
Probably need more res than rad. But if you have some big rads you could stick fans on and just use a fan controller or something to slow them so they're silent, even the smallest amount of airflow will stop water temps from rising out of control.
You could always test too, see what it's like after X hours with fans off/fans on low.
You could always test too, see what it's like after X hours with fans off/fans on low.
Phobya Xtreme Nova 1080 Radiator on stand, what l plan to do is make a 1x230mm fan grill[low rpm 230mm fan] so that its mounted in the middle of the rad in pull configuration for my next custom h2o build, good cooling/low noise, cheaper than buying two rads, easy to install and maintain.
Wasn’t there a build on here where the case was air tight except for the one fan so it had to move air over the rad. I can’t find it at the moment but hopefully someone knows the one I am on about.
I think fully passive could be a bit difficult but if you want to go that way then a few tips is to run large surface area rads, preferably low fpi and run them horizontally so that convection draws a small amount of air over them. You best option I would say though is to have a couple of fans running slowly (or 1 big fan) to draw some air over the rad. I have pondered in the past running a 1080 rad and using a 230mm fan to draw air over it but never something I have worked out exactly.
I think fully passive could be a bit difficult but if you want to go that way then a few tips is to run large surface area rads, preferably low fpi and run them horizontally so that convection draws a small amount of air over them. You best option I would say though is to have a couple of fans running slowly (or 1 big fan) to draw some air over the rad. I have pondered in the past running a 1080 rad and using a 230mm fan to draw air over it but never something I have worked out exactly.
Soldato
- Joined
- 31 May 2006
- Posts
- 7,564
- Location
- West London
that would be mine greboth 
120.3 as the extract with a single case fan as intake.
Cooled an oced 2500k and 460gtx without issue.
true passive rads are either radient panels or tubes with fins - used every type and the roof mounted PA was the best (smallest footprint and lowest temps)
120.3 as the extract with a single case fan as intake.
Cooled an oced 2500k and 460gtx without issue.
true passive rads are either radient panels or tubes with fins - used every type and the roof mounted PA was the best (smallest footprint and lowest temps)
Last edited:
Soldato
- Joined
- 30 Nov 2011
- Posts
- 11,528
Or a 1260 with 4 220mm fans on 500rpm... that's what I'm switching to this weekend, totally silent... my monitors are now the noisiest thing about my PC
I had a 2600K (4.8ghz) and a pair of 6950's (920/1375 I think) running on a single 1080, though I did have 4 x 700rpm 180mm fans on it.
CPU peaked around the high 50's and both GPUs were always below 50c.