Unusual radiator placement in inverted case

Evil_Monkey · 2 May 2016 at 21:21

I'm looking to water cool a Corsair 600C with a custom loop covering the CPU, mobo & GPU's. The case is inverted with the PSU at the top where the largest radiators are usually placed.

In this case radiators can only be placed on the front, bottom & rear. The largest being the bottom (360mm), then front (280mm) and finally rear at only 140mm.

In an ideal world what would be the best radiator/loop setup to use?

All suggestions welcome.

pastymuncher · 3 May 2016 at 11:56

Just had a look at some pictures of the case and I guess the best (but not ideal) setup would be the front 280mm as a intake and the bottom 360mm as a exhaust.

That seem's to be a poorly designed case to me, especially if air cooling. The rear exhaust is down the bottom so won't be particularly effective and they seem to rely on the psu to get rid of the heat which will not be good for the psu. I suppose it would be ok if you had blower style coolers on the gpu's but the vast majority these days dump the heat into the case which is going to make the psu fan work hard.

Smffy · 3 May 2016 at 14:26

pastymuncher said:
Just had a look at some pictures of the case and I guess the best (but not ideal) setup would be the front 280mm as a intake and the bottom 360mm as a exhaust.

That seem's to be a poorly designed case to me, especially if air cooling. The rear exhaust is down the bottom so won't be particularly effective and they seem to rely on the psu to get rid of the heat which will not be good for the psu. I suppose it would be ok if you had blower style coolers on the gpu's but the vast majority these days dump the heat into the case which is going to make the psu fan work hard.

What if you had both front and bottom as intake (probably low RPM) and a higher pressure rear 140mm fan exhaust? Not sure whether that would force more cool air in and out the case with that weird design or not... considering you would be forcing a lot of air in it would then exit via the PSU and rear.

Not ideal though is it... Bottom exiting air wouldn't exactly be leaving very willingly.

pastymuncher · 3 May 2016 at 16:51

In that configuration I can't see the psu lasting long. Five intake fans and only a single 140mm (which is at the bottom rear of the case) plus the psu fan exhausting. Being at the top the psu is going to be the thing shifting the hot air.

Even my suggestion isn't brilliant as like you say, it will be shoving hot air under the case.

I suppose a better way would be to have the bottom 360mm rad set as a intake and the front 280mm rad as a exhaust which should make life easier on the psu. It just appears to be a really poorly thought out case.

Aberfala · 3 May 2016 at 21:50

I've just finished rebuilding my system into 600Q last week so your timing is spot on.

I have a 280 in the front and a 240 in the bottom both as intakes with just the single 140 fan as exhaust and temps are fine. There's yet been enough heat generated to make the fan on my AX1200 PSU spin up.

The fans on the 280 and 140 are Noctua 2000rpm IPP's running around 1100rpm and the fans on the 240 are Corsair AP120's running around 1100rpm.

My 6700K is run at stock so doesn't generate much heat but my GTX 980ti is overclocked and running at 1.2v so hotter than average.

Evil_Monkey · 4 May 2016 at 00:04

Smffy said:
What if you had both front and bottom as intake (probably low RPM) and a higher pressure rear 140mm fan exhaust?

Yes, my first thoughts were along these lines also, it's just a shame the rear exhaust is so low...

pastymuncher said:
It just appears to be a really poorly thought out case.

It's certainly a case with compromises. Unfortunately my case has to be on my left so there really aren't many viable options better than this. A shame.

Mikey C said:
I've just finished rebuilding my system into 600Q last week so your timing is spot on.

I have a 280 in the front and a 240 in the bottom both as intakes with just the single 140 fan as exhaust and temps are fine. There's yet been enough heat generated to make the fan on my AX1200 PSU spin up.

The fans on the 280 and 140 are Noctua 2000rpm IPP's running around 1100rpm and the fans on the 240 are Corsair AP120's running around 1100rpm.

My 6700K is run at stock so doesn't generate much heat but my GTX 980ti is overclocked and running at 1.2v so hotter than average.

Amazing, I've found sod all on Google. Glad to have bumped into you.

Are you water cooling and if so do you have any images? Specifically with regards to reservoir/tube placement.

Aberfala · 4 May 2016 at 06:48

Evil_Monkey said:
Amazing, I've found sod all on Google. Glad to have bumped into you.

Are you water cooling and if so do you have any images? Specifically with regards to reservoir/tube placement.

Here's a picture I just took, it's not the best quality but I hope it gives you an idea of what's possible.

I'm also using a bay res which you can't see although you can see the tubes going to it at the top.

All in all I'm very happy with the build as it's cool and quiet even after a few hours gaming.

BTW just thought I should add in case you'd not noticed that my motherboard is Micro ATX as that could affect the scale as you look at the picture. This is purely because that's what my previous build needed, there's no reason why an ATX board wouldn't fit fine.

Also in case you wonder about the the bottom rad placement with the ports towards the front as this needs more tubing. This is because with the ports at the back only 2 screw holes were visible.

VKleita · 4 May 2016 at 09:00

That pretty amazing Mikey, I like what you have done.

Good to show that even in a tiny case like that , can look neat and be effective

Aberfala · 4 May 2016 at 09:15

VKleita said:
That pretty amazing Mikey, I like what you have done.

Good to show that even in a tiny case like that , can look neat and be effective

Thanks, it was a pain finding a case the right size to fit under my desk as despite being 800mm deep I can only fit a max 540mm deep case under it due to a panel at the back.

The 600Q is great as it's taller and wider than cases that deep usually are so has a bit of extra space to fit the watercooling kit.

While the inverse arrangement won't suit everyone I doubt there are many cases that would fit 2 60mm deep rads with plenty of room to spare.

Evil_Monkey · 5 May 2016 at 00:28

Mikey C said:
All in all I'm very happy with the build as it's cool and quiet even after a few hours gaming.

Fantastic, that pretty much answers my question with regards to rad placement.

I was hoping to fit a visable reservoir but given the lack of room alongside the front rad the bay reservoir option is looking appealing.

I'm also looking at hardline tubing so being able to see the runs like this is very useful.

Aberfala · 5 May 2016 at 05:51

Evil_Monkey said:
Fantastic, that pretty much answers my question with regards to rad placement.

I was hoping to fit a visable reservoir but given the lack of room alongside the front rad the bay reservoir option is looking appealing.

I'm also looking at hardline tubing so being able to see the runs like this is very useful.

You should be able to fit a small tube res where I currently have the pump, I hope so at least as I'm making just such a change to the build in the next few days.

I'll let you know how it goes.

Evil_Monkey · 5 May 2016 at 13:57

Mikey C said:
I'll let you know how it goes.

That would be great. It's not a disaster either way, I simply think that cosmetically it looks more appealing. Particularly if the liquid is coloured.

Aberfala · 5 May 2016 at 17:58

Here you go it's currently leak testing.

Reason for the changes is after moving from a bay res to a tube res I no longer had any way to check easily flow or water level. I invested in a flow meter and a res with a built in pressure sensor that can be used to monitor fluid levels.

I'm not sure if this is how it'll be long term, I may invest in a separate pressure sensor so that I can use a combined pump and res as that'll fit nicely where the res is currently and avoid the pump covering the bottom fan intake, exhaust area. I suppose I'll see how the temps are tomorrow once it's done leak testing.

Evil_Monkey · 29 Jul 2016 at 12:36

Mikey, quick question... how do you drain your water cooling loop?

The radiators are at the bottom which looks to make draining a nightmare.

Aberfala · 29 Jul 2016 at 19:03

Evil_Monkey said:
Mikey, quick question... how do you drain your water cooling loop?

The radiators are at the bottom which looks to make draining a nightmare.

I unscrew the res and empty it directly from the top of the res. It's easy that way as I can move the case to deal with airblocks etc just by pointing the res down into a bowl. I've used this method for years and find it just as easy as using a drain port.

Evil_Monkey · 9 Aug 2016 at 14:53

Update as I'm not too far off getting this ready.

Everything minus the graphics card and tubing: