Push Or Pull?

[Optix]

I'm lazy. So very, very...zzzzzzzz. Huh? Right!

In a rare moment of inspiration, motivation and all other positive tion words I'm finally going to do something about my heatsink. Have a look at the picture below.

Now I have three options, all of which stem from the fact that there is very little room between the video card and the fan.

Option 1 - leave it as it is. My temperatures under full load at stock are just shy of 50 degress. Overclocked they push about 72 with 1.27v vcore but since I can't keep it stable at that speed it's a worst case scenerio.

Option 2 - rotate it 90 degrees so it exhausts the warm air out the rear of the case in the typical front to back format.

Option 3 - do nothing. Since the card is a 5770 temperatures rarely get above 70 degrees under heavy gaming with the fan at 80% meaning there is very little extra heat being thrown into the heatsink to affect CPU temperatures. Shooting straight up allows the air to be sucked out the top by that killer yet noisy 140mm fan.

Regardless of what I do I'll be swapping the fan out for a 120mm SilenX iXtrema, which can move more air at a lower db.

This brings me to the bonus round.

If I leave the heatsink orientation as it is should I put the fan on the top side of the heatsink to pull the air up or should I put it in the original location of the fan shown in the picture?

Thoughts? Comments? Cookies?

 

[Tharic-Nar]

Take your existing fan and mount it above to pull air through, since the gap is so tight you're restricting airflow. A 90 degree rotation will only change the airflow, but it might also be beneficial, since it appears you do not have an exhaust at the top of the case and are solely relying on the rear plate exhaust fan. If you can match the speeds of both the heatsink fan and exhaust fan (or have the exhaust fan faster), you'll prevent a positive pressure build up trapping heat.

Made a quick and dirty airflow diagram of what you have, might make it easier to see where the problems are.

 

[Psi*]

option 2. Have fan push the air thru the heatsink and out the rear of the case.

Definitely change from the current setup with the video card blocking air flow into the fan.

 

[b1lk1]

If you are changing things then most definitely option 2.

 

[Optix]

So far it looks like a 90 degree rotation is in order.

I will say that the top 140mm fan moves a shit ton of air, even at the lowest speed so that's why I was leaning towards at least moving the fan to the top of the heatsink. I had hoped it would suck up some of the air from the two front fans as well as some from the side fan on the panel that is removed.

The heatsink needs to be remounted anyway. I'm pretty sure my TIM application is botched since it was my first time installing a direct touch heat pipe unit. This may be normal but one core is usually about 7 degrees warmer than the other and in some cases it hits 12 degrees difference.

 

[x.clay]

I'd say try a 90 degree turn as well. My graphic cards have always been one of the hottest components in my case. If you touch the back of you graphics card it will usually feel pretty warm. I bet you'll see your temps drop if you rotate it so it isn't sucking air off the top of your graphics card.

 

[Optix]

Yep, yep. I'll probably do this once I mod the SilenX fan to fit the brackets for the Hyper 212+. Better orientation, better TIM application and a better fan should all help with temperatures.

Now if I could just get the danged thing stable!!!