Define R5 - optimal build

[Timmah!]

Hey there,

so i decided to build new case for my X99 build - Define R5 (no window). Can anyone recommend me, how to optimally put all the stuff inside in regard to airflow and noise? Obviously i would like to have both as good as possible, but arguably, both cant be perfect, so i gotta find some balance - so thats what i am seeking.

The whole thing is complicated by the Corsair H105 AiO to cool the CPU - without it, things would be pretty straightforward. I have hard time to decide where to mount it and how.

I have read it may have (or it may not, lot of contradictory info) clearance issue with mobo heatsink or RAM, if i put on top of the case. Even if it turns out possible (i hope yes for the sake of having alternative), i would need to open the upper moduvents, which would probably increase noise....

so then i have the alternative to mount it upfront - but would need to get rid of the HDD trays and i have 5 disks (3 SSDs and 2 HDDs) so i kinda need those... i know the cages are higly modable, you can change their position, but then i am not sure about their clearances with PSU and GPUs....

Finally, either way, upfront or top - how to set up airflow? Should i use the rad as intake, with fans moving the air through it from outside to the case or outtake, where the air from the case goes through it out? I assume either case i can mount the fans on either side of the rad depending on whether i want the fans to push the air to the rad or pull out of the rad? This whole thing is fairly confusing to me.

I am going to have 2 additional fans that come with the case and 2Noctua NH14s. So how do you think i should set it up?

Thx

 

[rchunter]

You should at least try it at the top that way you can keep your hard drive bays in place. If you don't like it you can always change it. When I had an r5 I had a kraken x61 at the top and it was fine. Also didn't need any extra case fans, the stock ones were plenty, but I wasn't running anything crazy like quad sli... ymmv.

 

[nerp]

You ordered one of the more easy to customize and work in cases on the market.

Top is fine for the rad. use push/pull to exhaust OUT of the case. Leave the front for intake. If you can't do push/pull, do push to reduce dust issues (not a huge issue). Tests show difference between push or pull is not really anything worth worrying about.

All clearance issues should be spelled out in the case documentation. There are also many good YouTube reviews of this case so watch some and you can get a lot of inside looks at the unit and figure out what your plan should be.

 

[Timmah!]

Thanks.

Seems to be really delicate thing and i want to do it as best as possible.

Top mount is still on the table, but i would not know if its possible i guess, until i try it myself. The case documentation says there is a place for 55mm thick rad, mine is 63 (H105). But i have seen people on the net who managed to install it there anyway...thats why the confusion.

Personally, i would probably prefer the front mount, as i said. But i would have to rid of all the cages. Was hoping i could move the smaller one to the centre of the case (should be ok for 2 HDDs and 1 SSD, with other 2 SSD going behind the mobo tray), but thats no go cause of the bottom GPU (taking 5th and 6th expansion slots) in the way.

So as i see it, bar the top mount, i am left with 2 other choices, not sure any of them is possible:

- either to put my HDDs into the optical drive cage - thus no optical drive for me anymore... apparently it should be doable. But i would need to fit 2 3,5inch HDDs and one 2,5inch SSD there - will there be enough space for all 3? Is there any alternative space in the case, where i could put the remaining SSD, if not? Could i literally screw it to the floor of the case, between the radiator and the PSU?

- or remove the smaller bottom HDD cage and mount radiator on the floor, next to the PSU. This kinda seems as the best option (not sure about the cooling performance), since i can get away with keeping the larger HDD cage for all my drives and keeping the top moduvents closed at the same time....but i am not sure, if the H105´s tubing, when mounted on the floor, will be long enough to reach to CPU, especially with 2 GPUs in the way.... any idea?

 

[Timmah!]

OK, i think i solved the problem, found this little contraption:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IV8yRaweFsU

its 5,25 to 3,5 adapter for optical drive bay, which fits 2 SSDs and one HDD. If i use 2, for both of my HDDs, i am set. I can even fit all of my SSDs there and no need for the behind the mobo tray positions.

So i am leaning toward this config:

Any comments, whether this is acceptable, regarding both the airflow and fan configuration, especially concering the rad (can i do push-pull like this?) would be appreciated.

 

[lehtv]

That's awfully little exhaust airflow for 350 watts worth of GPUs (assuming those are GTX 1070/1080 cards). Although the setup would work, as in everything's compatible and it won't crash, I don't think it's optimal. I would much rather put the radiator up top to help exhaust hot air, then put two 140mm fans in the front to take in cool air for the GPUs. In terms of noise, you should focus on cooling the GPUs as much as possible since they're the ones that get hot while gaming and consume several times more power than the CPU.

 

[jimbob200521]

When I did mine recently, I removed all the hard drive and optical drive bays (I don't have any 3.5 storage, it's all in my server). I used the SSD mounts behind the motherboard tray to mount my SSD's; I like them a lot more there as it looks cleaner cable wise and hey, that's what the mounts are there for. I also have my radiator mounted on the top of the case towards the front (remember, no drive bays installed). I have two Corsair fans on there pulling air through it (easier to clean the rad in a pull vs push config). I also have two Fractal Design 140mm fans in the front of my case and one in the rear for exhaust. I'm going for positive air pressure here to reduce dust while still keeping my config quiet. So far, so good.

However, as this wouldn't work for you since you have two 3.5 drives, I would suggest you still put the radiator up top (never made sense to put them up front and dump heat into the case) and mount one of the 3.5 drive cages (there's two in there once you start removing them) that come with the case up top or in the middle of the front for your mechanical and extras SSD mounting. That still gives you two exhaust fans up top via the radiator, two 140 intake fans, one 140 exhaust fan, and if you choose, one at the bottom for even more fresh air.

Edit: To clarify case compatibility issues with radiators (and motherboards, to an extent): Fractal Design most likely lists a "limit" for radiator thickness to help ensure compatibility with all motherboards. Some motherboards would certainly allow a thicker rad to be used but some boards with taller heat sinks, extra connects, RAM slot location, etc would limit rad thickness. Further, to prove the compatibility point, the R5 case does not officially support E-ATX boards. My Asus Rampage IV Black Edition motherboard is not ATX, it's classified as E-ATX. Guess what? It's a tight fit, but it fits just fine. Turns out, it's not FULL E-ATX but it certainly is larger than standard ATX. Point is, you never know if things will work until you try them and that's probably the most fun thing about building computers. So many options you never know if something will work together with something else!

 

[Timmah!]

Thanks to both of you! So that makes 2 votes in favor for top mounted radiator.... i realize it may not make much sense to dump the heat from the rad into the case, but then again neither does pushing warm air from inside the case through the rad on its way out, when its used as outtake....

If i went with this version of the build (top mount), obviously i would remove one of the HDD cages, since i dont need both. Either use the bigger one for all my drives, or the smaller one for 3 of them and remaining 2 would go behind mobo....

@jimbo> is your config quiet enough under load? This is my primary concern, i dont want the computer to be too noisy. Then again, if the airflow is not good enough, cause i set it up not good enough, the components are gonna run hotter, thus forcing the fans to run at higher speeds and i wont really achieve anything. So perhaps it makes sense to open up the case bit more.

 

[jimbob200521]

Thanks to both of you! So that makes 2 votes in favor for top mounted radiator.... i realize it may not make much sense to dump the heat from the rad into the case, but then again neither does pushing warm air from inside the case through the rad on its way out, when its used as outtake....

Look at it like this: liquid cooling is about the transfer of thermal energy from the CPU to the liquid and then to the radiator which then exhausts it out of the case. From my experience and what I've learned over the years (without getting into a thermal sciences debate with anyone that knows more than I do which is probably just enough to be dangerous) the water flowing through the radiator is going to be able to dissipate (and in essence, function with little to no noticeable difference) nearly the same whether it has cool air from the front of the case vs moderately warm air that rises to the top of the front of the case. This has to do with how effectively water transfers energy to your radiator and the size of your radiator. Take my last system for example: I (due to case restraints) had my dual radiator mounted in the front of the case. In my current system reiteration (same components, different case) I have the radiator top mounted. Between the two setups, the CPU temp's were MAYBE a couple degrees different (but I also have OC'd the CPU another 200mhz in my R5 vs the previous case so take that for what it's worth). My point is based on your dual GPU setup you should focus your efforts more on keeping those cards fed with cool air than your CPU since when warm, your video cards will get much hotter and definitely get louder than your CPU cooler ever would.

Disclaimer: I know that feeding a radiator with the coolest air possible is the ideal setup but in this situation I believe that keeping the video cards fed with the coolest air possible is more important to the end goal of a quiet stable system than keeping the CPU a possible few degree's cooler (and in either case, way below it's max safe operating temp).

@jimbo> is your config quiet enough under load? This is my primary concern, i dont want the computer to be too noisy. Then again, if the airflow is not good enough, cause i set it up not good enough, the components are gonna run hotter, thus forcing the fans to run at higher speeds and i wont really achieve anything. So perhaps it makes sense to open up the case bit more.

My case is as near to silent as it gets when I have the built-in fan controller set to it's medium setting (middle setting, I believe 7.x volts). In my setup, medium provides a good amount of airflow with minimal noise for daily desktop chores. If I go to low, you could probably hear a pin drop but I'd rather have a bit more airflow. Keep in mind, though, that I also have my server sitting next to it which does have a slight hum due to fans and HD's spinning so if there is any noise coming from the R5, it is easily drowned out by normal background noise. When I game or stress it, I turn it up to full speed and then you can hear a slight noise but (and this is really cool to me) it's not the noise of the fans exactly but rather the air movement through the case. The R5 really is a well built and designed case.

 

[Timmah!]

Look at it like this: liquid cooling is about the transfer of thermal energy from the CPU to the liquid and then to the radiator which then exhausts it out of the case. From my experience and what I've learned over the years (without getting into a thermal sciences debate with anyone that knows more than I do which is probably just enough to be dangerous) the water flowing through the radiator is going to be able to dissipate (and in essence, function with little to no noticeable difference) nearly the same whether it has cool air from the front of the case vs moderately warm air that rises to the top of the front of the case. This has to do with how effectively water transfers energy to your radiator and the size of your radiator. Take my last system for example: I (due to case restraints) had my dual radiator mounted in the front of the case. In my current system reiteration (same components, different case) I have the radiator top mounted. Between the two setups, the CPU temp's were MAYBE a couple degrees different (but I also have OC'd the CPU another 200mhz in my R5 vs the previous case so take that for what it's worth). My point is based on your dual GPU setup you should focus your efforts more on keeping those cards fed with cool air than your CPU since when warm, your video cards will get much hotter and definitely get louder than your CPU cooler ever would.

Disclaimer: I know that feeding a radiator with the coolest air possible is the ideal setup but in this situation I believe that keeping the video cards fed with the coolest air possible is more important to the end goal of a quiet stable system than keeping the CPU a possible few degree's cooler (and in either case, way below it's max safe operating temp).

I admit i probably need the cards to work at their highest possible clocks/speed moreso than the CPU, cause its them, who i am going to need for work. I bought the whole new rig basically primarily cause of them, cause on my old mobo they would need to sit next to each other, which was not an option to me - so i had to buy new mobo, and then obviously CPU, RAM, etc... as well.

Then again, you say in the bolded part that the air inside the case will be moderately warm compared to the "cool" air from outside the case.... is this really like that? I mean, dont the 2 cards (1080s at 2GHz) warm the air in the case quite significantly and definitely more than the air dumped through the radiator into the case would? What i want to say, with rad set as outtake, would they not influence CPU temps negatively way more than CPU ever would influence their temps with rad as intake? I have no idea how warm the air inside the case is in either case.

Lets say i listen to you though and go with the rad as exhaust - so far i was only entertaining the option of rad as outtake only in the top position and rad as intake in the front position....seems like the 2 go-to alternatives, reading around the web.... but how about using the rad as outtake in the front position? Then use the fan on the back of the case and 2 more on the floor between the PSU and the front of the case as intakes? Pretty much this, except rad as exhaust and back fan as intake, and not vice versa as on the picture.

How about that? This would allow me to keep all the top moduvents closed, while doing as you suggest, not dump more heat onto the GPUs....

 

[jimbob200521]

I admit i probably need the cards to work at their highest possible clocks/speed moreso than the CPU, cause its them, who i am going to need for work. I bought the whole new rig basically primarily cause of them, cause on my old mobo they would need to sit next to each other, which was not an option to me - so i had to buy new mobo, and then obviously CPU, RAM, etc... as well.

Then again, you say in the bolded part that the air inside the case will be moderately warm compared to the "cool" air from outside the case.... is this really like that? I mean, dont the 2 cards (1080s at 2GHz) warm the air in the case quite significantly and definitely more than the air dumped through the radiator into the case would? What i want to say, with rad set as outtake, would they not influence CPU temps negatively way more than CPU ever would influence their temps with rad as intake? I have no idea how warm the air inside the case is in either case.

Lets say i listen to you though and go with the rad as exhaust - so far i was only entertaining the option of rad as outtake only in the top position and rad as intake in the front position....seems like the 2 go-to alternatives, reading around the web.... but how about using the rad as outtake in the front position? Then use the fan on the back of the case and 2 more on the floor between the PSU and the front of the case as intakes? Pretty much this, except rad as exhaust and back fan as intake, and not vice versa as on the picture.

How about that? This would allow me to keep all the top moduvents closed, while doing as you suggest, not dump more heat onto the GPUs....

Very unconventional setup, having air go the opposite way. Except now, you have warm air coming out the front of your case in your general direction as well as unfiltered air coming in the back. This "reverse" setup could also have some adverse effects. First, (assuming you have stock coolers on the GPU's) they will be trying to pull air from towards the front of the case and out the back so that would go against the general airflow. If you have aftermarket coolers that dump heat inside the case, you would pretty much be directly putting the hot air from the GPU's into the CPU radiator more than you would the other ways. The difference between top and front mount is very minimal. One will give you slightly better GPU temps (top mount) while the other will give you slightly better CPU temps (front mount). If you're unsure, install it one way, run it for a week, then switch and see which way you like better.

One other option (if you have long enough hoses) is bottom mount used as an exhaust. Then it could draw cool air in from the front as the front fans blow across it, your GPU's would still get cool unheated air, and life could be good. But, I doubt that your hoses are long enough and rear exhaust goes against the laws of physics (hot air rises).

 

[Timmah!]

OK then, i will stick to conventional setups I was considering the bottom position, might have mentioned it in one of my OP possibly, but i dont believe the hoses would be long enough. I am just going by the pictures from the web, all the stuff still in the boxes to try it out.

Anyway, despite your arguments are convincing and really appreciated, i guess i still kinda prefer the front mount intake over the top exhaust....at worst, i may eventually switch it, if it proves not to be a good solution, exactly as you suggest. One important thing in my decision is the fact, i am going to use my cards for archviz rendering, thus at the time they are going to be at max load, the CPU will not (unlike gaming in SLI situation, i am not gonna SLI, dont even have SLI bridge and single 1080 will be for time being plenty enough for all the games on my current 1200p display) - so in situation, where i will usually care about the temps of my cards the most, heat dissipated from the rad wont make it worse.

I think i am just going to make minor change to that diagram i posted, i am gonna put 2 fans on the floor of the case, not just one, bringing air in alongside the rad, and then add another exhaust fan on the side panel moduvent alongside the pre-installed fan on the back. So in the end it will be the rad in either push or pull config as intake with just its 2 default fans, another 2 fans as intake on the floor, and 2 fans as exhausts in the back and side. I have my case on the left side, so the side moduvent is on the side of the case turned away from me, which should help with the possible noise.

One last thing, i just found this video on utube and it kinda reinforces my assumption the GPU heats the air substantially more than CPU rad

Not sure how credible JayZ is, when it comes to this stuff.

 

[jimbob200521]

OK then, i will stick to conventional setups I was considering the bottom position, might have mentioned it in one of my OP possibly, but i dont believe the hoses would be long enough. I am just going by the pictures from the web, all the stuff still in the boxes to try it out.

Anyway, despite your arguments are convincing and really appreciated, i guess i still kinda prefer the front mount intake over the top exhaust....at worst, i may eventually switch it, if it proves not to be a good solution, exactly as you suggest. One important thing in my decision is the fact, i am going to use my cards for archviz rendering, thus at the time they are going to be at max load, the CPU will not (unlike gaming in SLI situation, i am not gonna SLI, dont even have SLI bridge and single 1080 will be for time being plenty enough for all the games on my current 1200p display) - so in situation, where i will usually care about the temps of my cards the most, heat dissipated from the rad wont make it worse.

I think i am just going to make minor change to that diagram i posted, i am gonna put 2 fans on the floor of the case, not just one, bringing air in alongside the rad, and then add another exhaust fan on the side panel moduvent alongside the pre-installed fan on the back. So in the end it will be the rad in either push or pull config as intake with just its 2 default fans, another 2 fans as intake on the floor, and 2 fans as exhausts in the back and side. I have my case on the left side, so the side moduvent is on the side of the case turned away from me, which should help with the possible noise.

One last thing, i just found this video on utube and it kinda reinforces my assumption the GPU heats the air substantially more than CPU rad

Not sure how credible JayZ is, when it comes to this stuff.

I forgot you had the non-side panel version! That being said, I would recommend you put that side vent fan as an intake. In an idea situation, you want your case to have positive air pressure. This not only helps keep dust down but also keep the air fresh from the outside as opposed to stagnant and recycled from the inside. It'll also blow fresh air pretty much straight on your video cards

An any case, good luck with your build and I hope to see some pics!

BTW, jayztwocents is pretty credible from what I've been able to tell.

 

[jimbob200521]

PS now that I'm finally home, here are a few pics of my current setup. Sorry about quality, lighting sucks. Also, please ignore the fan that's not hooked up on the bottom; that was an experiment that didn't pan out, turned out to be too loud. It will be removed when my new fan arrives later this week and gets installed.

 

[Aikouka]

so then i have the alternative to mount it upfront - but would need to get rid of the HDD trays and i have 5 disks (3 SSDs and 2 HDDs) so i kinda need those... i know the cages are higly modable, you can change their position, but then i am not sure about their clearances with PSU and GPUs....

Be a bit wary about how you move these around. I'm a pretty big fan of the Define R5 (I own 3 of them), but it has one pretty big flaw relating to the hard drive cages. When I built mine, I removed the middle drive cage and left the bottom 3x 3.5" and the top 2x 5.25" cages, and all was fine... until I started getting an awful vibration noise. It turns out that by removing the middle drive cage, the vibrations from the hard drives go into the bottom of the case, which vibrates the PSU air filter. You can fix this by simply removing the filter, which I did in my main desktop, or putting the middle drive cage back, which I did in another machine.

One trick that you can do with the solid sidepanel R5 is that you can use a magnetic air filter on the side panel and put a fan on there. The only negative is that you'll want to use a fan extension cable, because the last thing you'll want to do is have to plug the fan cable back into the motherboard every time you remove the side panel! That filter will get really dirty too, so be wary of that.

 

[Timmah!]

PS now that I'm finally home, here are a few pics of my current setup. Sorry about quality, lighting sucks. Also, please ignore the fan that's not hooked up on the bottom; that was an experiment that didn't pan out, turned out to be too loud. It will be removed when my new fan arrives later this week and gets installed.

Thank you Jimbo for your advices and these pics. Very nice rig, lot of space in there. I quite like the LED on the RAM modules too, almost regret i did not order something like that myself....but since i have windowless case, i guess there was no need for it anyway. BTW, talking about LEDs, what color is the power LED on the case? Its not RGB by any chance? I would like to have it white instead of blue.

@Aikosuka> Thaks for the heads up. I plan to remove all the HDD cages and put my drives into the optical drive bay. We shall see how it goes, including vibrations. Hopefully, its gonna work just fine.
Regarding side fan and filter, thats how i run it on my current R2. I have there Noctua fan, which has quite a long cable, so no need to unplug the fan from mobo, when i remove the side panel.

 

[jimbob200521]

Thank you Jimbo for your advices and these pics. Very nice rig, lot of space in there. I quite like the LED on the RAM modules too, almost regret i did not order something like that myself....but since i have windowless case, i guess there was no need for it anyway. BTW, talking about LEDs, what color is the power LED on the case? Its not RGB by any chance? I would like to have it white instead of blue.

@Aikosuka> Thaks for the heads up. I plan to remove all the HDD cages and put my drives into the optical drive bay. We shall see how it goes, including vibrations. Hopefully, its gonna work just fine.
Regarding side fan and filter, thats how i run it on my current R2. I have there Noctua fan, which has quite a long cable, so no need to unplug the fan from mobo, when i remove the side panel.

I believe the power LED on your case would be blue. That being said, I specifically ordered the blackout edition of the R5 so mine is white.

 

[Timmah!]

I believe the power LED on your case would be blue. That being said, I specifically ordered the blackout edition of the R5 so mine is white.

Thanks, i found some vid on utube with the case powered on and seems to be blue indeed. However i am surprised the blackout edition is white LED? Seemed to be blue on Hardware Canucks review vid too... blackout is the all black version, right?

 

[jimbob200521]

Thanks, i found some vid on utube with the case powered on and seems to be blue indeed. However i am surprised the blackout edition is white LED? Seemed to be blue on Hardware Canucks review vid too... blackout is the all black version, right?

The Blackout Edition basically has black fans and black PCI covers as well as the different colored Power LED. Otherwise, same case.

 

[Timmah!]

Ah, i see. so there are actually 2 black versions of the case? One standard with white accents and another all black? Too bad white one has not the white diode...