Intel's Liquid Cooler

PiXiL

PiXiL

Member
Hi PCS,

I'm installing an Intel Liquid Cooler into a NZXT Phantom Enthusiast case and I was wondering whether it would be better to place the radiator and fan over the NZXT 120mm fan for a push/pull set-up or to remove the NZXT fan and mount the intel cooler to the case instead for just a push set-up (I'll be doing this by default); how do you configure it for your customers?

Warm regards.
 
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El Wayneo

Silver Level Poster
With any all in one water cooler, push/push is going to drop temps by maybe 1 - 3 degrees, as it'clear the dead air away from the Radiator quicker.

Make sure you install the fans so they pull air infrom outside the case as otherwise it'll be pushing warm air from inside the case into the Radiator and make the temps higher.
 
PiXiL

PiXiL

Member
Just thinking thought about it... wouldn't it be silly to do it over the NZXT case fan as it's at a lower RPM than the intel one?
 
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El Wayneo

Silver Level Poster
Put the intel one first and then the Nzxt on the back then, it will keep the socket area cooler on the motherboard anyway, which ever way round you put them and i doubt either fan first would affect temps really.
 
PiXiL

PiXiL

Member
So basically,

(Outside the case) >>air>>[Intel Fan] [Radiator] [NZXT Fan]>>air>> (Inside the case)


Wouldn't doing this be better than blowing hot air inside the case:

(Outside the case) <<air<<[NZXT Fan] [Radiator] [Intel Fan]<<air<< (Inside the case)

Or,
(Outside the case) <<air<<[Radiator] [Intel Fan]<<air<< (Inside the case)
 
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El Wayneo

Silver Level Poster
Not really, every manufacturer of an all in one water cooler recommends you set it up to use the air outside as whats the hottest it gets in the UK??

it'll be a far bit warmer inside a PC case, with a GPU and the air from the CPU socket and harddrives and RAM.
 
PiXiL

PiXiL

Member
Fair point! I guess that the top fans are supposed to draw the heat out that gets stuck inside the case from the radiator then?

Hang on, I think I get you now:

(Outside the case) >>air>>[Intel Fan] [Radiator]^^air^^ (Inside the case)
 
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Karnor00

Bright Spark
The air outside your case will be cooler than the air inside your case. So pulling air from outside the case, over the radiator and then expelling it into the case will help improve CPU cooling. On the flipside however it will be pushing hot air into the case, which could have an impact on other components.

The alternative is to pull hot air from inside the case over the radiator and then push it out of the case. This will lead to higher CPU temperatures, but you won't be heating up other components in the case.

You also need to consider the air flow of the case as a whole. If you set up your system with, say, a fan at the bottom pulling air in with top fans pushing air out, then it won't work very well if you suddenly change the top fan to pull air in as well (because you would have all the fans pulling air in leading to terrible air flow). Mainly you just need to apply a bit of common sense to make sure the overall fan setup is sensible (i.e. some fans pulling air in, some pulling air out).

Finally, operating fans in a push/pull configuration takes up more space and is noisier (twice as many fans). But it generally improves cooling by about 10-20%. Whether this is worthwhile depends on how you value space/noise compared to cooling performance.
 
tom_gr7

tom_gr7

Life Serving
When you create a push pull config, both the fans must the be the same. Without going into detail, say if stronger fan was pushing in more air than weaker rear fan, then you are going to have a small amount of air trapped inside ya rad.

Also both the fans need to be PWM 4 fans, and connected to the same cpu fan header on the mobo, via a pwm y cable, such as this this allows the cpu to control the speeds of the fans at exactly the same speed.

I'd have the push pull setup exhausting out from the case, so you dont end up throwing hot air into the pc.

karnor00 has got it spot on above :)
 
PiXiL

PiXiL

Member
Thanks guys, these are the perfect answers that I was looking for. I think I'll go with the Intel fan blowing through the radiator and exhausting the air out of the case; like you've said heating up the motherboard and RAM probably isn't worth the several degrees Celsius benefit on the CPU, as well as the fact that I need another fan for the dual option due to the RPM.

I've given you all rep for answering, many thanks! :sailor:
 
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El Wayneo

Silver Level Poster
I guess the people that build these are wrong then.

And sorry but lol at the both fans need to be the same, i must've made about 20 watercooled Rigs in my time and frequent some enthusiast forums and never heard that.

Yes it would be better to have two the same but to say that air will be trapped in the RAD, how does that happen, you realise that its fins on a radiator?? where does the air get trapped? it just gets blown through.
 
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tom_gr7

tom_gr7

Life Serving
El Wayneo said:
Yes it would be better to have two the same but to say that air will be trapped in the RAD, how does that happen, you realise that its fins on a radiator?? where does the air get trapped? it just gets blown through.
Click to expand...

I said "trapped" to keep it simple without going into alot of detail.

It would create turbulence, if you add a 120mm viper fan (89cfm) on the front of a rad then on the rear say a standard 120mm fan, (60cfm) then the viper fan is pushing 29cubic feet per minute more air into the rad than the standard fan can pull out of the rad, that air is trapped inside the rad. The extra air cant go anywhere until the standard fan removes it, but then that air has been replaced by the stronger viper fan.

Ideally you want two equal fans to work together rather than one stronger one and a weaker one.
 
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