Moved my radiator from top to front, temps dropped 8C

I always had my 240mm AIO up top exhausting heat. Read some forum post about doing a front intake mount instead, figured it was snake oil. Swapped it around on my lunch break yesterday, idle temps went from 38 to 30. Gaming load dropped from 72 to 64 in the same RDR2 session. Anyone else seen that big a difference just from changing airflow direction?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_dylan1d ago

My setup is a Lian Li O11 Dynamic and I saw almost the exact same drop when I flipped my AIO from top exhaust to side intake. The thing nobody talks about is how much GPU heat gets trapped in the case when the radiator is up top pulling all that hot air through. With front intake the radiator gets fresh air from outside instead of pre-heated case air. Did you check your GPU temps too? Mine dropped about 5C because the case wasnt holding all that extra heat anymore.

margaretf4019h ago

Had a buddy try the same swap on his 011 and he texted me all excited because his GPU dropped like 4 degrees too, and I was like yeah @the_dylan you're spot on with that hot air trapping thing. He was running a big air cooler before and switching to AIO side intake basically let his GPU breathe way better cause the case wasn't holding all that heat. It's one of those little tweaks that makes a huge difference but nobody really talks about it until you try it yourself.