Which is the best fan configuration for Lian Li O11 Dynamic XL??

[Waldorf]

@John Naylor
Blowing hot air inside the case is only helpful for lowest cpu temps, nothing else.

Once you add a dedicated gpu your hurting gpu temps and affect fps much more than having the cpu get 2C warmer.
And same if the gpu is water-cooled as well.
Unless everything setup for exhaust, your killing gpu boost clocks.
Completely ignoring that you will have higher temps for everything else incl vrms etc.

So unless you don't plan on gaming and only have load on the cpu, dumping heat outside the case is the way to go.

One reason why my 2080 hybrid is faster than any aircooled 2080s, incl the one i tried myself.

 

[JackCarver]

Blowing hot air inside the case is only helpful for lowest cpu temps, nothing else.

Agree, and that's what der8auer measured in this vid:

Look at CPU and VRM temps.

 

[skizzo]

1. The 1st law of water cooling is "never mix metals"... aka eliminate 99% of CLCs from consideration.

yes a good rule to always follow. good rule to not mix metals that have undesirable reactions with each other. mixing nickle and copper is done all the time. mixing copper and aluminum.....you're gonna have a bad time

The second law is "radiator fans always blow in.

Uhhh wut lolz?


I think you've taken some advice a little to literal or something. Many, many, many users of water cooled systems get great (if not best) results by having some fans intake, some fans exhaust. Usually going for balance is the most recommended. Not a blanket statement/rule like fans on radiators must always blow in (aka intake)

 

[TheoneandonlyMrK]

Agree, and that's what der8auer measured in this vid:

Look at CPU and VRM temps.

Which is exactly why I moved away from anything that does this , 24/7 @80%load(everything) saturates the loop with heat in this case , the case inards are a good 10° higher than external pumped heat makes it but hey wall of text beats all, didn't you know.


Servers run load 24/7. ?? What do they do there at cost to a defined TCO and efficiency rating.

They eject the heat from the rack as effectively as possible and never use warmed up air, simples.


On the Ops case see my first post, I stand by it, with his setup he already has optimal cooling with bottom and side pulling in and the roof pushing out IMHO.

Out, bye and fair well , hopefully.

 

[gregvandy88]

This is the fan setup i use, i know its not the Xl but similar still. With a deepcool 360 on top, fans blowing in and a sapphire nitro X 5700xt vertically mounted. Bottom fans intake, side fans exhaust, the aio set as intake and my temps top out in the 70s in gaming on the CPU, 60s on the GPU. With the top and bottom set to intake the side fans exhaust the hot air, my bottom and side fans are corsair LL120s and the deepcool 360 has the deepcool tf120s fans. I think its a good setup while keeping the side fans where you see the good side. Another option would be using ql120s as the backside looks great too

 

[Caring1]

The second law is "radiator fans always blow in.

Fans move air thru the radiation and the rate of heat removal is proportional to Delta T; so what does the math tell us ?

That you are opinionated and wrong!

 

[Waldorf]

@gregvandy88
its mixing the fresh air from below, with the heat from the cpu
much better to have the cpu rad on the side (blowing out), top as exhaust,
and that way air goes more or less in one direction only (bottom to top)
boost on RTX drops past 40C, so you would see maybe another 100 Mhz higher clock.

i would even try to mount another fan on the "rear" (zip/hot glue, enough options),
or at least tape it up, and have no false air going in/out.

i swapped cases, more or less just to go thru all setups possible (fan/rad position/airflow, air vs wc gpu).
running top/side/rear as exhaust, front/bottom as intake.
I did seal the gap between side panel and rad, so it wouldnt blow any cpu heat back inside the case (between outer panel/interior.
and even that case has a lot of airflow (three 140mm as intake) and virtually no heat to move (all rads dump heat outside the case),
it still made a big difference, compared to running cpu rad on top/side as case exhaust.

 

[Remonell]

QLs are calling your name......

it would look good in your color setup.... vs the Unicorn vomit going on here lol.
View attachment 144200

What is cooling your CPU? I only know those big CPU air coolers.

Hi All,

So I have had my O11 build now for about a month. But one thing that is ALWAYS SO hard to look at is the fans. I bought the Corsair White RGB ML120 Pro's and with my current setup, the bottom fans are intake, side fans are intake and the top (radiator fans) and rear fans are exhaust.

I have found after searching around that this is the same configuration that most people use for this case. However, I find that the backward facing is just killing the aesthetics of the fans. :-(

Has anyone got some suggestions for me? Take a look...

View attachment 144193

What are the sizes of your radiators and which ones are blowing air in and which ones out? Why didnt you get bigger radiators as O11 XL supports them I think. Also what kind of cooling system are you using for your CPU?

 

[oxrufiioxo]

What is cooling your CPU? I only know those big CPU air coolers.

That was a picture I pulled off the internet for a comparison I didn't have the case at the time...... This is how I have mine setup

newer version of my cooler

iCUE H150i RGB PRO XT Liquid CPU Cooler

The CORSAIR iCUE H150i RGB PRO XT is an all-in-one liquid CPU cooler built for both low noise operation and extreme CPU cooling, with a 360mm radiator, three CORSAIR ML120 PWM fans, and 16 RGB LEDs.

www.corsair.com

 

[Remonell]

This was a picture I pulled off the internet for a comparison I didn't have the case at the time...... This is how I have mine setup
View attachment 158885

newer version of my cooler

iCUE H150i RGB PRO XT Liquid CPU Cooler

The CORSAIR iCUE H150i RGB PRO XT is an all-in-one liquid CPU cooler built for both low noise operation and extreme CPU cooling, with a 360mm radiator, three CORSAIR ML120 PWM fans, and 16 RGB LEDs.

www.corsair.com

Thanks for the quick reply. The CPU cooler looks interesting. Do I need other parts to make it work? Like a separate liquid pump or anything like that?

On the LianLi website https://www.lian-li.com/pc-o11d-rog/ it says that you can use 1x120mm radiator for the back and 360mm or 280mm radiators for the bottom. But your back radiator looks pretty much the same size than your bottom ones. How come?

You can probably tell that I am a noob when it comes to that. I need a bigger case and just ordered the O11 XL. I wish I wouldn't have to deal with picking and placing radiators myself :/ But I couldnt find a huge case with prebuilt radiators etc.

 

[oxrufiioxo]

No it's an Aio everything you need for it to work comes with it.

I only have the 1x 360 radiator in the top.

 

[Waldorf]

@Remonell
especially for ryzen having a bigger rad wont improve temps much, as heat transfer from cpu to water is the limiting factor.
running the same setup with a 240 rad and heavily throttled silent fans (500 rpm) mounted on the side (no warm case air going thru it)
got me the same temps i now have with 280 sitting in the top (re-breathing warmer case air).

Part of the reason why you wont see big differences between custom and (CLC) like AIO in reviews,
as anything coming with a block below 100$, will "limit" transfer..

 

[JustBenching]

If you have the radiator as intake the CPU temps will be way better but...everything else will suffer. I don't really suggest that unless you don't have a high end GPU. The best visual / temps setup for the o11 is the radiator as outtake on the side

 

[Azula9999]

1. The 1st law of water cooling is "never mix metals"... aka eliminate 99% of CLCs from consideration. The second law is "radiator fans always blow in.

Yes you have to let go of that day in 8th grade earth science when we were by chance paying attention when teacher taught us "hot air rises" ... while there is a gentle rise in an indisturbed environment, that axiom does not apply when the air in your case is doing a 100% changeover every 0.5 to 1.5 seconds. This is simple math:

Ambient Air: 23C
Inside Case Air: 28C
Coolant Temp: 33C

Fans move air thru the radiation and the rate of heat removal is proportional to Delta T; so what does the math tell us ?

33 - 23 = 10
33 - 28 = 5

So 23C air will remove 2 x as much heat from the loop as inside the case air. I just picked those numbers to make the math easy, but no matter what happens, inside case air will always be warmer than outside air. The automatic reaction to this statement well what about all the other stuff, why make the other components hotter ?

a) if you are concerned about this products, why don't they have water blocks on them ?
b) Which components are we concerned about ? I see nothing in MoBo (30 watts) , RAM (5 watts) , HD (10 watts) , whatever manuals about the dangers / performance impacts of 28C air .

If I'm wrong ... why the people who design, market, support and try to sell these products advise their customers to install fane]s this way ? Is it really feasible that they don't want to show their products in the best possible light ?

View attachment 144201


I'm not quite sure of your set up... is this correct

Top = (3) Radiator Fans Blowing Out
Side = (3) Radiator Fans Blowing Out
Front = (3) Fans Blowing In w/ Filters
Bottom = (3) Fans Blowing in W/ Filters
Rear = (1) Fan Blowing Out

Other things to understand :

a) The specs you see on the web site... say 80 cfm at 1.2 SP actually mean:

You will see 80 cfm a@ 0 SP
Yu will see 0 cfm at 1.2 SP

The realty is you will see about 38 - 42 cfm at about 0.6 SP

b) Radiator have a varying effect on air flow depending on the density of the fins. We 'll assume low - medium fpi rads with an insignificant reduction in air flow.

c) Filters have a very significant effect on air flow ... which can range up to 30% when "moderately clogged with dust. Lets say your anal about cleaning and use 80%

Let's call an unrestricted fan (rear) = 1 "Equivalent Fan" (EF)

Top = (3) Radiator Fans Blowing Out = 3 fans = 3.0 EF Out
Side = (3) Radiator Fans Blowing Out = 3 fans = 3.0 EF Out
Front = (3) Fans Blowing In w/ Filters = 3 fans x 80% = 2.4 EF In
Bottom = (3) Fans Blowing in w/ Filters 3 fans x 80% = 2.4 EF In
Rear = (1) Fan Blowing Out = 1 x 100% EF Out

Thats's the equivalent of 7.0 fans blowing out and 4.8 Fans blowing in ... leaving you with about 2.2 worth of fans coming in from unfiltered openings in your case. Looking at your box ... that would be that big wide open grille area adjacent to you GFX card as well as the vented slot covers. Is the PSU backside top or backside bottom mounted ? If it's bottom, you have your 850 watt PSU and 330 watt GFX card exhausting hot air out behind the case out and 90 % of the equivalent fan flow fans worth of negative pressure sucking it right back in.

If ya look at the case web site the diagram they advise appears he best option here:

http://www.lian-li.com/pc-o11-air

Top = (3) Fans Blowing Out = 3 fans x 100% = 3.0 EF Out
Side = (3) Radiator Fans Blowing In w/ Filters = 3 fans x 80% = 2.4 EF In
Front = (3) Radiator Fans Blowing In w/ Filters = 3 fans 80% = 2.4 EF In
Bottom = (3) Fans Blowing in w/ Filters 3 fans x 80% = 24 EF In
Rear = (1) Fan Blowing Out = 1 x EF Out

That's the equivalent of 7.2 fans blowing in and 4.0 Fans blowing out ... leaving you with:

a) strong positive case pressure
b) no hot air and dust being sucked in thru the grille / slot covers and 2.8 EFs worth of air being pushed out
c) Add that 2nd rear fan if ya like.to make it 7.2 in and 5.0 out.

Remember that grille and slot covers are an important part of case air flow design ... you don't need to have a gan pushing out every cfm of air being pushed in...

a) Does your kitchen exhaust fan have a matching intake fan ?
b) Does your attic exhaust fan have a matching intake fan ?
c) Does the window you put in a bedroom at night during summer to circulate in cool night air and a matching fan in the other winwor ? ... Or does blowing air out 1 window ineveitable result in air being sucked in thru the other ?
d) Your engine compartment gas a fan (or 2) bringing air into the engine compartment ... is there another one somewhere to get it our ?

To my view the case manufactuere's diagram is the best option. The Kraken wont allow you to comply with the 1st rule of water cooling, but you can certainly comply with the second

Your mind is exceptionally amazing, wish you were my boyfriend.

 

[Caring1]

Your mind is exceptionally amazing, wish you were my boyfriend.

I wish he was too, then perhaps we wouldn't have to keep rereading the bull about radiator fans "have" to blow in all the time.

 

[Pugheaven]

I have all my Rads exhausting on my system simply because I don't want hot air in the case around M2 drives etc... so my x79 system is like this in my Lian Li Midi... so my top 240mm is exhausting as is the bottom 240mm and there is now a 360mm on the back of the case (mobo side) which is also exhausting and I'm well happy with my temps... would I want cold air blasting in? Arguably yes but with that is a load of dust and crap, I'd prefer the natural pull of these fans pulling from the rear of the case naturally and it seems to work nicely on a massivly clocked Xeon ruinning 4.6ghz 24/7 and 5700XT running 1200/1900 24/7 which is probably the hottest card you can currently buy due to AMD not giving a stuff about temps hahaha.

... the order for the cooling is: Distro Plate > Pump > 240mm Rad > GPU > 360mm Rad > 240mm Rad > CPU > Distro Plate.

 

[jamesbong]

QLs are calling your name......

it would look good in your color setup.... vs the Unicorn vomit going on here lol.
View attachment 144200

What vertical GPU mount do you use? I wasn't able to find one that worked with fans on the bottom. Looks great with the QLs! I am about to upgrade from my LLs.

 

[Almighty1337]

I also settled on the more performant option, fans are getting prettier on the back these days so you can probably get a nice kit for cheap without paying 500+ dollars for 10 corsair fans

mines still a work in progress, waiting on optimus gpu block for this one to release, got the radiators ready... and need to get better cable management (extensions and braided kit)

 

[SBnemesys]

Having played around with the fan setup and testing thermals, I get best cooling with 3x intake top (radiator), 3x intake bottom, 3x exhaust side. The cpu is getting fresh, cool air. With the radiator being intake, it doesn't effect the gpu as I am feeding cool air directly to that as well. The ram and vrm run just fine as well. 6 intake (top/bottom), 3 exhaust (side). If you worry about the vrm, you can also set a 120 fan on the back as about exhaust.

 

[DeathtoGnomes]

Which is the best fan configuration for Lian Li O11 Dynamic XL??​

If I said boat anchor, I'd get slapped around by Lian Li fans, but I wont.

but I'll do as I wish as ever with no need to explain my logic to you.

You could have just said "lets agree to disagree" instead of telling us to F-off.

--

Having played around with the fan setup and testing thermals, I get best cooling with 3x intake top (radiator), 3x intake bottom, 3x exhaust side. The cpu is getting fresh, cool air. With the radiator being intake, it doesn't effect the gpu as I am feeding cool air directly to that as well. The ram and vrm run just fine as well. 6 intake (top/bottom), 3 exhaust (side). If you worry about the vrm, you can also set a 120 fan on the back as about exhaust.

with that many fans its like directing traffic so top intake works for you and your dust collection bin. There are better configurations.