Recommend fans for Corsair H100 or replacement cooler (3930k cpu)

[Lil'John]

General overview of my system:
CPU and MB: 3930k w/ mild overclock on ASUS RIVE
GPU : two Gigabyte G1 970s in SLI
HD : one 240G Intel 530 SSD and one 1TB HD (no more intended)

I'm swapping my system from one case(tower) to another(HTPC). The new case is a SilverStone GD08:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

The bad news is the front outputs prevent me from using the H100 cooler as it sits. I can go vertical with some cutting.

One route I'm looking at is getting some 120mm to 92mm(80mm) fan adapters such as:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B002C7IQ1O/...=IQVOOVRMMXE3T

I'm also considering replacing the cpu cooler. But noting has jumped out at me.

Two questions:
1) What is a good quality 92mm or 80mm fan? I'm looking for quiet and long lasting.
2) What would you replace the H100 cooler with? I briefly considered full water cooling but no RIVE blocks are available:'(

 

[lehtv]

Since you're only running a mild OC, the H100 might be a bit overkill to begin with. I wouldn't go with the fan replacement idea, I'd sell the H100 and buy a heatsink based cooler. New high quality fans with adapters would cost a good part of a new HSF... while selling the H100 would cover some of the costs of a new HSF.

It looks like the case supports coolers up to 138mm tall. 120mm HSF's tend to be at least 150mm tall, and many 92mm HSF's are also over 140mm tall, so that basically leaves you with top flow coolers (which would also help with distributing air around other components).

I'd probably get a Noctua C14 (needs LGA2011 mounting kit), assuming it's not too wide to hit other parts of the case. Height with fan = 130 mm, leaving just 8mm clearance to the ceiling, but you can also use it in the low profile mode with just the lower fan installed.

 

[Lil'John]

lehtv,
Thank you for the feedback.

From my handling of the SilverStone GD08 and the H100, it appears the H100 radiator will mount perfectly under the hard drive cage. The 120mm fans is what will fail because of the front outputs(USB, audio out) They come over the fan maybe 1/4" or so.

Before I found that blockage, the plan was to cut upward into the hard drive cage so the fans will fit. I believe that this plan will work if I go with the "120mm to 92mm/80mm" fan adapters.

As noted, I have only two hard drives(2.5") and that is all I will ever have. I have another computer setup to be my media center with several TB drives

Another alternative is instead of mounting the H100 at the front of the case, I could do it to the side of the MB and mount the fans outside the case. Not ideal and probably ugly as sin

I won't say I'm stuck on using the H100 but I don't see getting a reasonable price if I sold it. The adapters are only ~$20 for a pair. The only thing left is to find a quality quiet fan... something I was going to do with the H100 anyways

While I'm currently at a mild overclock, I have considered something a little more aggressive.

The use of the machine includes:
Gaming
Casual web browsing and "office" work
DVD backup (work done on this machine, content transferred to media machine)
CUDA/Open CL programming

 

[monkeydelmagico]

A pair of 970's in that case is going to get loud and throttle.

Noctura NH C12p is probably the best CPU cooler for that layout

 

[lehtv]

The problem with using 120mm->92mm adapters on heat sinks and radiators is that the fan blades no longer spin close to the rad which greatly decreases their cooling efficiency. Radiator fans are meant to have high static pressure, but they can only make use of that pressure if it's applied directly onto the heat source. Adapters are more useful for case fans where static pressure doesn't matter.

So, not only are 92mm worse at cooling than 120mm fans to begin with, but when you put an adapter in the middle, you make them doubly worse. And the whole shebang takes more space than it used to. Noctua C14 will probably perform better and quieter than H100 with 92mm fans.

A pair of 970's in that case is going to get loud and throttle.

Definitely, especially as they're cards that blow hot air into the case. EVGA blower coolers would probably work much better in a cramped case like this.

 

[SithSolo1]

I've got a Noctua C12p SE14 in my M1 and I've been very pleased with it. I don't think cooling is much worse but it sits lower than the C14 w/ top fan and has more ram clearance than the C14 w/ bottom fan.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B003JME1CO/?tag=pcpapi-20

Price difference is only $5 between the two but the C14 does come with a 2nd fan you could possibly use somewhere else.

 

[Lil'John]

A pair of 970's in that case is going to get loud and throttle.

Currently, I am running a full open air case. The pair of 970's is probably the quietest part of the whole setup D:

The fans on the H100 are working hard but also the stock VRM fan of the RIVE. Both are very annoying. I suspect the issue with the H100 fans is the CPU heat sink is in need of redoing(old thermal paste)

 

[hunkeelin]

replace your stupid h100 stock fan with any aftermarket static pressure fan and you'll be able to see a signifant decrease in temp and noise =). Also, oc to at least 1+ ghz for fun. What's the point of getting an enthausiats grade platform for "mild oc"

 

[BonzaiDuck]

I won't mince words. I'll always buy a fan with higher top CFM/RPM than most folks, but it has to be quiet over a wide range with less than top-end as an upper bound.

My latest fan infatuation is the 2,000 and 3,000 RPM models of the Noctua iPPC model-line. So far, I've only bought them as 120mm fans and I'm not even sure they have 140mm size, but I'll go back and look.

Underscoring this -- my bottom-line -- is the time spent adjusting "fan-curves" in the motherboard proprietary software, which to me seemed less troublesome than booting to BIOS and making the adjustments there so I could test them after boot-time in Windows. The software lets you do it in one Windows session, fixes the BIOS parameters to your "custom" settings, and allows you to do it visually by dynamically adjusting line-segments and inflection points in "RPM%-Celsius" space.

Once you set your BIOS speed, voltages and other OC factors, you'll never run the 3K iPPC or a GT AP-30 at their top speeds again. Or maybe you might with the Noctua, which really tops out at 2,850 RPM within the +/- 10% tolerance spec. As for the 4,250 RPM Gentle Typhoon -- rest in peace. I haven't found any -- anywhere, recently. The 3-pin variety was all ready for a simple wire-and-solder mod without disassembly, containing the PWM circuitry in a disabled state for 3-pin operation.

I would find it hard to think of ANY heat exchange device, heatsink or radiator, that would further benefit from CFM of 3,400 RPM, unless the enthusiast is trying to ventilate a larger radiator with fans covering somewhat less area than fins. You can almost muffle anything other than air-turbulent white-noise to as high as 3,600 -- maybe more with attention.

Of course, that's what MY ears tell me. I haven't measured anything with a decibel-meter . . . I tried to record the sound at distances of 2', 4' and 6', but my cell-phone didn't pick it up so that you could hear it on playback.

 

[Lil'John]

hunkeelin, tinkering with max overclock is one of my goals this year while I wait to see what Broadwell-E is going to bring()

I'm leery of the "2lb top mount" style air fans. It just feels like it would cause a lot of stress on the motherboard.

Let me see if I can dig up a good picture of the main interference I am dealing with.

FULL WATER COOL
I've been thinking of full water cool. The biggest thing that has stopped me lately is the full MB set for the RIVE is unavailable(should have bought a long time ago). This means I would not get the PCH and VRM blocks. Pictures show the RIVBE is not compatible.

I could get the CPU block only but the RIVE has a PCH fan that is at times annoying.

Any thoughts going down this route?

 

[BonzaiDuck]

hunkeelin, tinkering with max overclock is one of my goals this year while I wait to see what Broadwell-E is going to bring()

I'm leery of the "2lb top mount" style air fans. It just feels like it would cause a lot of stress on the motherboard.

Let me see if I can dig up a good picture of the main interference I am dealing with.

FULL WATER COOL
I've been thinking of full water cool. The biggest thing that has stopped me lately is the full MB set for the RIVE is unavailable(should have bought a long time ago). This means I would not get the PCH and VRM blocks. Pictures show the RIVBE is not compatible.

I could get the CPU block only but the RIVE has a PCH fan that is at times annoying.

Any thoughts going down this route?

I'd think almost all the fans that could be matched to the H100 radiator would weigh in at 7 oz each, unless you pick 120x38mm 250-gram units.

And I don't see "stress on the motherboard," despite my guess that 1A per fan-port is an intended or spec limit. Look at the Swiftech 8W-PWM-SPL splitter device. Full thermal PWM control from a single mobo port, up to eight devices powered directly from the PSU. Ten-dollah! Ten-dollah!

 

[Lil'John]

And I don't see "stress on the motherboard," <snip some electrical stuff>

I'm actually referring to physical stress on the motherboard. Those big honking air cpu coolers appear to put a lot of leveraging stress at the mounting points.

It just concerns my overly analytic mind.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

I'm actually referring to physical stress on the motherboard. Those big honking air cpu coolers appear to put a lot of leveraging stress at the mounting points.

It just concerns my overly analytic mind.

Well . . . with time on my hands, I can comment on that. There ARE some heavy heatpipe coolers, exemplified by "all-copper" TRUE and earlier models.

However, as to the weight, I think this is a myth. The issue isn't WEIGHT per se, but torque -- the distance of a center of gravity from the mounting point. A good part of the weight of a heatpipe cooler is in the base -- therefore less torque by itself. If you add the typical 7oz fan to a cooler, the weight of it centers at 3" or 4" or so away from the mounting points, increasing torque.

I can't see where that issue is relevant to an H100 radiator, though . . . No matter how or where you hang that radiator, the fans will be bolted close to it. There was a time I'd consider a 120x38mm fan for some application, but for such a radiator, I'd either go with 120x25 or 140x25. 7 oz fans, bolted to a rigid structure like a radiator. I'd be more concerned with efforts to isolate fan-vibration from radiator and case metal.

 

[Lil'John]

<snip>However, as to the weight, I think this is a myth. The issue isn't WEIGHT per se, but torque<snip>

I can't see where that issue is relevant to an H100 radiator,<snip>

Good point about weight vs torque. I was more interested in the torque caused on the motherboard by all the various aftermarket tall air versions of a cpu cooler like the Noctua C14.

You are correct... neither weight nor torque is relevant to a H100 radiator