Silverstone Fortress FT02 and custom GPU coolers

[moriz]

does anyone have experience with this case and custom coolers, like Asus's DCII, MSI's Twin Frozr, and Gigabyte's Windforce X3? i heard that the vertical video card mount can cause issues with some heatpipe designs.

 

[moriz]

Damn, nobody? I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one with this case...

 

[PCTC2]

I have the FT02 and I used a GTX260 with a Thermalright TRAD2-GTX just fine.The only issue is for a second card. A second card in some situations will block the use of deeper 5.25" devices (some Blu-ray drives, W/C Reservoirs, etc).

 

[moriz]

I have the FT02 and I used a GTX260 with a Thermalright TRAD2-GTX just fine.The only issue is for a second card. A second card in some situations will block the use of deeper 5.25" devices (some Blu-ray drives, W/C Reservoirs, etc).

That's odd, since that style of cooler is the exact kind that silverstone flagged as working poorly, since the pipes form an upside down U.

 

[_Rick_]

I'm running an MSI Hawk in my FT03, and that doesn't appear to perform worse than other Hawks from other people, according to most forum posts I've seen.

The real question is, whether a blower isn't aero-thermodynamically more efficient in a vertical installation.

 

[chedrz]

From what I've read on the matter (I'm looking at picking up an FT02 for a build soon), a cooler such as the Thermalright TRAD2 won't work as efficiently in the case since the heat source sits higher than the cooling end of the heatsink. That doesn't mean it won't work at all, but it does mean that some heat will be trapped at the bend (the "U", if you want to look at it that way) of the heat pipes themselves. Heat rises, so it doesn't want to sink back down into the cooling portion of the heatsink after it has reached the bend of the pipe.

Here's a detailed article on what's going on that's in more scientific terms than what I'm describing.

http://en.expreview.com/2010/11/15/90°-rotationhow-to-install-heatpipe-cooler/11843.html/6

 

[PCTC2]

I actually have my GTX260 with TRAD2 GTX in a Corsair 800D and the temperatures are worse compared to the FT02, so I think the sheer amount of air moving made up for the heat pipe orientation. However, true heat pipes can work in any orientation due to the wicking properties of the metal w/ liquid on the inside.

Also, heat doesn't actually "rise". Heat seems to rise because temperature is the average kinetic energy of the atom's states. The higher the temperature, generally, the lower the density, and lower density material rises in higher density medium. Thus, "heat rises".

 

[frostedflakes]

What kind of load are you putting on the card PCTC2? Try running something like Furmark and see how it does. I had a 6950 DirectCU II that would overheat in the vertical orientation in an FT02. Simply rotating the case 90 degrees so that it then sat on its face and the video card was in the conventional horizontal orientation caused the card to go from running at 100C+ in Furmark to about 80C I think. There's no denying that some heatpipe coolers don't work well in the FT02, the results are clear as day in the EXPreview article chedrz linked to. Not everybody will have problems, though, if you don't stress the card too hard it might not be an issue. For example with my 6950 it didn't overheat at stock speeds while running Furmark, only when the card was overclocked did the cooler seem to become overwhelmed in the vertical orientation and not be able to pull heat away from the GPU faster than it was generating it. Also if you just game on it overheating might not be an issue, gaming won't produce nearly as much heat as loads like Furmark.

The issue doesn't have to do with heat rising. The problem is that with certain cooler designs, after the working fluid condenses at the cool end of the heatpipe, it has a much greater distance it has to work against gravity to return to the hot end in the vertical orientation than it would in the conventional horizontal orientation. That's my understanding at least.

Twin Frozr is your best bet IMO OP, both the DC II and Windforce coolers have heatpipes that run the length of the card, which seems to hurt performance more in the vertical orientation. The Twin Frozr cooler performs just as good in the EXPreview article in the vertical orientation, though. I've also used an MSI 5770 Hawk in an FT02 and it seemed to work fine, even when overclocked/overvolted and running a heavy load like Furmark or Bitcoin mining.

 

[PCTC2]

I test most temperatures with FurMark. It's now about 5C hotter in the 800D due to ventilation issues.