Thin rad thoughts

[S_I_N]

Ok so I'm changing cases again, need something smaller a lighter than my monster core x9. For the x9 I bought 3 360mm 60mm thick alphacool xflow rads, great rads just a bit to big for my new case the Corsair Crystal 570X. One fits without modding but can't put a 240 into the roof due to the overall size of the xflow and limited wiggle room front to back without modding (even then it's doubtful), as well as limiting Rez/pump locations.

So been researching thin rads for the past two days and have come down to the Black Ice Nemesis 240GTS® Ultra Stealth U-Flow Low Profile Radiator and Black Ice Nemesis 360GTS® Ultra Stealth U-Flow Low Profile Radiator. I'll be using the 3 included sp120mm rgb fans that come with the case and I purchased another 3 pack. Looking to do front and top as I take with the rear the only exhaust basically for cosmetic reasons. As the fans look great when not viewed thru the back framing. Now the gts360 beat out the competition at 2 out if 3 fan speeds (only lost at 1850) but came in second on the 1850 speed.

I'll be cooling my 7700k OC to 5GHz @ 1.335 vcore and a EVGA GTX1080 FTW2 which I'll run stock most if not all the time. I'm pretty sure those rads should keep me at decent temps across the board but was wondering on what y'all thought. For instance currently while gaming I see 45cpu and 72gpu temps running a single 360mm 60mm thick rad gpu not on water yet. And keep in mind the xflow is a single pass rad where the water goes straight thru so less time fir cooling per some review sites. The gts's are twin pass so the water stays in the rad a tad bit longer.

Anywho your thoughts are welcomed and appreciated.

 

[Korreborg]

You can go to EKWB homepage and play with their custom-loop-configurator
I don't think the difference between the manufacturers is huge, so only see it as a guideline The two slim rads is:
SE240 is 224/253/278 watt at low,med,high fan speed.
SE360 is 335/376/413 watt

And your CPU + a 1080 is about 275 watt (320 watt with OC of CPU)
I would pick 2 rads, just to run dead silent

As to the single pass vs twin pass, i don't think it will make a huge difference. If the size of the inlet and outlet is the same in both cases, then the time in the rad will also be the same The water will just move at half speed through the pipes in the single pass rad.

 

[Korreborg]

*Temperatures are calculated based on assumptions that the system is based in an environment of 22°C and there's no overclocking option applied.

2 rads will also make it better in the summer. The temp is 26.8°C in my office right now :/

 

[S_I_N]

No xtreme rigs where I got 99% of my research done did show marginal temp difference between xflow rads vs uflow rads but there was a difference when flow was increased to 1.5gpm which I normally have about 1 if the middle speed (3) on a D5 is 1 lol. Pretty sure the 2 thin rads will preform very well especially when speed is kept under 1300rpm which is what I'm looking for nice and quiet. Dropped the bomb on the nemesis rads and a heat killer iv WB for my 1080 last night as it was last day for the dads day discount.

Plus I don't mind lowering my oc if needed as I see no real diff in 4.8@1.290 and 5.0@1.335 in performance.

 

[Tappindatass]

Nemesis from HWL performs well with fan speeds between 800 and 1200. Starts to lose ground with thicker rads and higher rpm fans.

They are good rads, but make sure to clean them well.

 

[S_I_N]

Yup that's the one main thing I got from the reviews is they're better at low speed which is perfect fir my wants. Oh and I've been water cooling the better part of two decades but just never used thin rads. I started water cooling way before it's what it has become today. We used heater cores from cars for rads. So I know well about flushing before using. I'm wondering if they are as bad as alphacool for crap left over.

 

[Avet]

Radiator surface is better than radiator thickness. So if you can pack 2x360x30 vs 2x240x60 it is better to go with slim 360s. For twin pass it shouldn't have much difference. You can argue coolant stays longer in radiator, but it slows your flow, which then reduces cooling ability, you can then ramp the pump up but you get more noise. In the end it doesn't make any noticeable difference.

Only thing to focus when building watercooled system is quality of blocks (they make huge difference), thermal paste/pads, and radiator surface. Fans don't even matter that much. Jay (jayz2cents) had airflow fans over radiator and it didn't made any difference at all. Radiator didn't have high fin count so there was no restriction to airflow, so basically high pressure fans make sense in low airflow cases with high fin count radiators. In any other case all the difference drops in margin of error.

 

[S_I_N]

That was my line of thinking also but never having used thin rads I was looking for others who have to I guess reassure me lol

 

[NeverBackDown]

Well if you have the choice between a 360 thick radiator and a 360 thin radiator, then obviously get the thick rad if you can fit it. Otherwise, it's always better to get a longer radiator than a shorter but fatter one(including the 80mm thick ones). More surface area means more heat dissipation.

 

[S_I_N]

Well a 60 mm in no prob but it limited pump mounting plus no way of getting a 240 on the roof. With the 30mm ones I should alleviate both those issues. I'll post pics once I get the refit done.

 

[Tappindatass]

Thin radiators is really all you need. Most of us overkill are cooling needs anyway. It's better to add a radiator then use 1 thick one.

 

[J-a-c-o-b]

I'm running a single EKWB SE 360 along with a D5, EK Supremacy cooling a i7 7700K and EKWB 1080TI Block (palit FE), and it does pretty well. Never actually temperature tested so will re edit this post if nobody posts after this.

 

[S_I_N]

I'm sure I'll be fine I can always drop my oc a tad because I dodnt see or feel much diff between 4.8 and 5.0 The parts will be here thursday hopefully the weekend will have the time to get em swapped out.

 

[S_I_N]

My whole loop will be a D5 mounted to a monsoon mmrs custom Rez xspc raystorm pro white the gts240 & 360 rads 5 sp120 mm rgb

 

[J-a-c-o-b]

I run a single 360mm rad (as above) and my 7700k doesn't go above 80 degress in games, that's with a 1080ti in the same loop, which hit 55 degrees, all after 40 mins, you'll probably be fine with an additional 240 in there.

 

[S_I_N]

Currently my CPU doesn't go over 45 in games

 

[S_I_N]

well shes up and running the thin rads are working great, as well as the heat killer iv wb I put on my evga 1080 ftw2 gamed about 4 hours last night and only saw 40c once most of time was 36-38c which drops the temps about 35c overall.

 

[Korreborg]

well shes up and running the thin rads are working great, as well as the heat killer iv wb I put on my evga 1080 ftw2 gamed about 4 hours last night and only saw 40c once most of time was 36-38c which drops the temps about 35c overall.

Nice. Looking forward to seeing what a 45mm 280 and a 26mm 240 rad can do

 

[Warchild]

I'm sure I'll be fine I can always drop my oc a tad because I dodnt see or feel much diff between 4.8 and 5.0 The parts will be here thursday hopefully the weekend will have the time to get em swapped out.

If it's purely for gaming, you don't really need to push it higher than 4.4. I don't see any benefit going higher than that unless you do alot of application work frequently, like encoding, rendering etc. Whenever i checked improvements, even in MMO games, there was very little difference if any at all with 4.4 and 4.7 for me (I couldnt get a higher stable clock than that)