What is the best performing 360mm radiator?

[Deleted member 24505]

Same with mine. Idle my PC is silent despite 7 fans, 2 rads and the pump, even gaming it is not as loud as a air cooled rig, but with much better cooling.

 

[ThrashZone]

Hi,
Manual fan controllers, I use as well
Mother boards suck at it so I give the cpu and assist a couple sp fans so it's up and down rpm doesn't bother me.

 

[Lei]

More surface area on the fins, the same way that tall heatsinks cool better than short heatsinks.

Note that this isn't linear scaling. A 60mm thick radiator won't provide twice as much cooling as a 30mm thick radiator.

I think EKWB has an analysis (with graphs) somewhere on their website that illustrates relative cooling performance between radiators of various thicknesses.

Very thick rads perform weaker if the fan speed is low.

rephrase: with lower fan speeds, thick rads may underperform thinner ones.

 

[Deleted member 24505]

Very thick rads perform weaker if the fan speed is low.

rephrase: with lower fan speeds, thick rads may underperform thinner ones.

I have thick rads 45/60 it is near silent idle with not much airflow, but fans ramp up with the temps.

 

[Lei]

Look at this page, there's an excel file. direct link to excel

shows Alphacool extra 45 dissipates less watts than standard 30, when rpm is 1000 (which I suppose the difference will be bigger at 700rpm)

I have thick rads 45/60 it is near silent idle with not much airflow, but fans ramp up with the temps.

 

[ThrashZone]

Hi,
I always try to do push/ pull fans on thick rads it just works better.

 

[Deleted member 24505]

Hi,
I always try to do push/ pull fans on thick rads it just works better.

I do have room to put fans on top of the 60 as it is on the bottom, see pic linc in specs.

I am happy with my temps, though could possibly improve them

 

[Lei]

I amicably disagree. I prefer more rads than paying for the fans.
but then you know I have my rad on a pizza box next to the desk not inside the chassis. my 560cm obelisk

Hi,
I always try to do push/ pull fans on thick rads it just works better.

 

[Deleted member 24505]

Look at this page, there's an excel file. direct link to excel

shows Alphacool extra 45 dissipates less watts than standard 30, when rpm is 1000 (which I suppose the difference will be bigger at 700rpm)

View attachment 245280

My fans are only on 1000rpm on idle though, they do ramp up at 50c which both the CPU and GPU are above gaming.

 

[ThrashZone]

Hi,
Fans work less hard so lower rpm works

Exterior solutions work to
I have 2 watercool mora3 360mm x 360mm but these have pipe design same as home air conditioners units zero restriction and cool pretty good.

 

[maxfly]

It depends on the loop and what the rads being used are. I rarely see my fans exceed 800rpms under any load (push only), with my Hwlabs sr2, gtx and gts 360s. I never want to hear my fans ramp up hence the the two 54mm rads (both excel at low rpms hehe). Alphacool xt45s aren't what I would use as an example of thick Alphacool rads, rather their ut60s
Some rads are specifically tuned for low fan speeds and quiet profiles and most every rad cools better with more more air going through them. The return on investment is usually negligible with push pull unless your talking about an outlier like the Hwl gtr. Imo they are one of the few rads worth spending the extra money on high h20 fans in push pull.

 

[Deleted member 24505]

It depends on the loop and what the rads being used are. I rarely see my fans exceed 800rpms under any load (push only), with my Hwlabs sr2, gtx and gts 360s. I never want to hear my fans ramp up hence the the two 54mm rads (both excel at low rpms hehe). Alphacool xt45s aren't what I would use as an example of thick Alphacool rads, rather their ut60s
Some rads are specifically tuned for low fan speeds and quiet profiles and most every rad cools better with more more air going through them. The return on investment is usually negligible with push pull unless your talking about an outlier like the Hwl gtr. Imo they are one of the few rads worth spending the extra money on high h20 fans in push pull.

Mine are both EK 360, XE and PE

 

[maxfly]

Mine are both EK 360, XE and PE

The xe series is one of my favorites. Very good performers. My 240pe on the other hand, I didn't have much luck with. It was my own fault, I mixed it up with a ce when I read a review one late night. Wrong tool for the job situation.

 

[Deleted member 24505]

The xe series is one of my favorites. Very good performers. My 240pe on the other hand, I didn't have much luck with. It was my own fault, I mixed it up with a ce when I read a review one late night. Wrong tool for the job situation.

I could maybe get away with just the XE push/pull, not sure. What dya think?

 

[ThrashZone]

I could maybe get away with just the XE push/pull, not sure. What dya think?

Hi,
Probably want that pe back if you upgrade gpu's.

 

[Deleted member 24505]

Hi,
Probably want that pe back if you upgrade gpu's.

Maybe so, guess i'll just leave my loop as it is.

 

[maxfly]

Maybe so, guess i'll just leave my loop as it is.

My motto is, If you have the room you might as well stick a rad in it! So yeah, I agree. More capacity is always nice to have juuust in case.

 

[GordonFreemanInTheFlesh]

My motto is, If you have the room you might as well stick a rad in it! So yeah, I agree. More capacity is always nice to have juuust in case.

What fans do you recommend for XSPC ultra thin rads?
I'm opting for either Typhoons or Scythe Wonder Snails once they become available.
Though I'm leaning more towards Gentle typhoons since they are mid range in terms of price and they are the highest performing120x120x25mm fans!

 

[Deleted member 24505]

I have just stuck another 3 fans on top of the 60mm EK XE to make it push/pull as apparently it will/might/could benefit from it. I will try some stuff and find out.

 

[zx128k]

EK Water Blocks EK-CoolStream XE 360 (Triple Fan) Radiator with push and pull fan's gets full up of dust very quickly. Also in my case I can just about fit the thing. The PVC hoses just about fit over the motherboard VRM heat sinks. The 10900k only hits 100c if the system is pulling 380 watts in Prime95 small ffts @ 5.1GHz and a high vcore. A 10900k in Prime 95 small ffts and 5GHz AVX with a FM3 load wont hit 90c with a 330 watt load.

 

[Deleted member 24505]

EK Water Blocks EK-CoolStream XE 360 (Triple Fan) Radiator with push and pull fan's gets full up of dust very quickly. Also in my case I can just about fit the thing. The PVC hoses just about fit over the motherboard VRM heat sinks. The 10900k only hits 100c if the system is pulling 380 watts in Prime95 small ffts @ 5.1GHz and a high vcore. A 10900k in Prime 95 small ffts and 5GHz AVX with a FM3 load wont hit 90c with a 330 watt load.

I have mine on bottom of the case, fans pushing in through it, took it off to clean it today and there was barely any dust in it.

 

[maxfly]

What fans do you recommend for XSPC ultra thin rads?
I'm opting for either Typhoons or Scythe Wonder Snails once they become available.
Though I'm leaning more towards Gentle typhoons since they are mid range in terms of price and they are the highest performing120x120x25mm fans!

It's up to your ears tbh. Try to find a good thorough review that gives results from lowest rpm/dba up to what you anticipate running them at the majority of the time. There's nothing worse than buying a case full of fans only to find that they are too loud at the speed you need to run them at.

 

[zx128k]

I have mine on bottom of the case, fans pushing in through it, took it off to clean it today and there was barely any dust in it.

Wow with my system there is always dust in the rad. I considered dust filters.

 

[cvaldes]

What fans do you recommend for XSPC ultra thin rads?
I'm opting for either Typhoons or Scythe Wonder Snails once they become available.
Though I'm leaning more towards Gentle typhoons since they are mid range in terms of price and they are the highest performing120x120x25mm fans!

PC fans are commodity components.

If you can afford a GPU that benefits from a custom cooling loop, you can afford to pay a few extra bucks for a higher quality fan.

As I've stated earlier, my go-to fan for radiator cooling is the Noctua NF-F12 PWM. Is this the "best" fan? I don't know. But much of the Internet thinks these are pretty good even if some think they are overpriced. That's fine because the fans the people claim are better are usually just a few bucks cheaper.

Noctua claims their lifespan is >150,000 hours. If you run your computer 24x7 that's 17.1 years. I don't need my fans to last 25, 20, 17.1 years. If I can get 10 years of useful service out of them, I'd say they don't owe me anything. And I don't run my gaming PC 24x7. To be honest, it is probably on maybe 1500 hours a year.

If I load up my case with six Noctua radiator fans, I'm okay paying $30-50 extra. Considering total cost of ownership over the useful lifetime of the build, that's a premium of probably one buck/euro per fan per year. There are ways to save a few bucks on a PC build but I'd rather have blissfully quiet fans.

 

[claes]

Phanteks T30 (30mm) > NF-A12 > GT > NF-F12, at least of those mentioned

XPG sells the Vento Pro which is a rebranded GT if availability is an issue, haven’t tried the wonder snail’s yet