Upgrade advice - help keep me sensible!

Gone with Arctic MX-4 in the end, as it seemed to get good reviews. I ordered a Ryzen 5 3600 - I think this comes with the smaller Stealth cooler, so I'll probably re-use the larger Spire one that came with the 2600X.
 
...apparently Doom requires more RAM in order to max out the texture quality settings. He has 2x8GB atm - not sure I want to spend 150 quid on 2x16GB DDR4s just for that! He has it on the highest settings for everything else and Ultra for textures and it is running super smooth on his system. Looks amazing. I thought the 1660 Super might struggle but no. Cool. :)
 
MissChief said:
Spire is better than the Stealth so that's a good choice.
Click to expand...

How hot should the 3600 be running? I must admit I haven't really kept an eye on CPU temps in the past but I was surprised that the 3600 seems to be running up to mid 70s (centigrade) after a gaming session. I'm wondering if I should be using a better cooler. Mind you, I'm already using a better heatsink than the one supplied with the 3600 as standard. It is quite a small case with not a huge amount of air in there and the room was quite warm at the time.
 
/\/\/\ Its about right for an R5 3600 under load. (its what I get with mine) a small case does airflow no good at all and to CPU temperatures. Do you know the make & model of the case or take a photo, upload it & post a link to said photo here? that way suggestions can be made to get the CPU to run cooler. Cheapest way would be to add more case fans and tuck away any cables inside the case that would improve airflow, in order to do that the make & model of the case would have to be known.
 
OK, Buy these fans:

My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £21.55 (includes shipping: £4.66)
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Replace the 80mm fan at the back, install that as intake (Air going in)
Front 120mm fan also intake
Side 120mm fan Exhaust (Air going out)
There are arrows on the frame of each fan, which wlll tell you which way the air is going through the fan, Generally the fan has the air going in the unsupported side & out the supported side. You can daisy chain all three fans together. plug them in to a 4 pin header on the board (theres only one apart from the CPU fan header & that the chassis fan header). Set the fan speed to PWM in the motherboard bios if you can, that should be Qfan control (Push the F6 key, I'm not certain if the Chassis fan header is PWM though, the manual isnt specific) if you can enable auto PWM for the chassis fan header, fan speed for all 3 fans should adjust to either CPU or internal temperature.
 
Wow - super helpful post...thanks!

It would really be good to have decent airflow through the box. One thing - I see from the manual that a front fan can be fitted but at the moment the whole front of the box is covered with a solid plastic panel. I guess this unscrews or pops off to reveal the grill beneath (?). Getting in to install that front fan will be a bit of a mission...might have to pull out the hard drive and graphics card to get access. Good time to upgrade the hard drive! The M.2 slot is under the graphics card - maybe it's destiny! :)
 
Sorry to hassle but...regarding this front fan - I can't see any way of removing that front plastic panel, without taking off the whole front, switches, CD tray and all. There is a small grill around the side and a gap underneath...do you think the idea is that this is sufficient to allow air flow through the front of the box? I've put a query in with the people I bought it from but not heard anything yet. I might drop an email to aerocool.
 
Still got the manual for the case? if you havent the link for it is here:

https://aerocool.io/product/cs-100/

Short version - pull off the front panel from the bottom, if you have a CD drive installed you need to take that out 1st. You can access the grill screws from the front & the Case fan screws to that.
 
Thanks - surprisingly I do still have the manual in fact :). Although it is literally just that one page in the PDF. It kind of looks like the whole front bezel comes away and would have to be replaced again once the fan was fitted, covering it with the solid plastic panel again, right? If that is right, I'm wondering why you wouldnt fit the fan from inside the case without removing the front section at all. There's probably an important reason that I am missing.
 
I was thinking about also upgrading to an AMD Prism or Max...I had a look in the motherboard box that came with my PC but those AM4 cooler clip brackets seem to be missing. Could anyone point me at a source where I can buy some? I see a few on ebay etc but I'm not sure if they are knock-offs that might not fit properly.
 
Grimley said:
Replace the 80mm fan at the back, install that as intake (Air going in)
Front 120mm fan also intake
Side 120mm fan Exhaust (Air going out)
Click to expand...

Finally got the fans (took a while for stock to come in) but I'm, wondering about the air flow...the side fan would be directly above the CPU cooler fan, so if I set up that one as an exhaust, it would be sucking air in the opposite direction from the CPU cooler, right? Would it be better for me to have the side fan as an intake, blowing directly onto the CPU fan and then have the front as an intake and the back as exhaust? The front intake is going to be of limited use since it's mostly covered in the CS100 case.
 
Ideally you want Positive Air pressure inside the case, otherwise air will find its way in through any gaps in the case & that includes dust, which is not good for PC components (just so a search for excess dust in a PC case & you'll see why ;)). So you need to have 2 fans as intake & 1 fan as exhaust. Now I don't have any experience with fitting any PC components inside your case, so I wouldn't know exactly what would be the best fan configuration as regards internal case temperatures. Best thing to do is 'experiment' with the fans you now have. Again you want the exhaust fan to be as near to the top as possible, as the air at the top of the case will be hotter than at the bottom (theoretically)
 
All fans installed and whirring away...I was a bit concerned that the power cable for the graphics card was very close to the fan but it couldn't be moved and in the end it seems ok...it's not making a constant FRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR sound anyway, as if the fan blades are hitting anything!

I daisy-chained them together, so I assume the PC just thinks there is a single fan and will adjust them all to the same speed based on temps? In the bios, I set it to the standard profile in the Qfan control.

It'll be interesting to see how the CPU temps are now...
 
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