CPU Blower or dual fan, reliability, noise, dust, etc.....?

[RAAM]

I have searched and not found just what I am looking for. It seems older blower GPUs were very loud but good at getting heat out. I am building Fractal Ridge and want very low noise and going to make custom filters and ducting to keep things clean, cool and as quite as I can. It seems a dual fan GPU as going to run AIO for the CPU, 20 series up to 3080, depending on the best deal I can find, I do not really need even a 3080.

So, are there any quiet Blowers in the 2060 to 3080 range or should I just skip that idea and go dual fan?

Thanks
Rick

 

[RAAM]

OK, not much response so I did more digging and have come up with I think is the best solution. 3060 ti, etc, Founders Edition. Blows air from one fan out the rear like a blower GPU and the other fan blows through and out the side of the case vent holes.

After a lot of measuring, seeing what needs trimmed a bit, etc I can use 80mm BeQuiet case fans, three on top and three on the front which will take a bit of fitment but no worries, I have taken brand new cars apart and rebuilt a lot of it, lightened, etc...this will be an easy project.

And I will add filters and or ducting as needed to make this a highly vented blow through case, etc. Of course I will do careful testing to ensure everything gets cooled properly.

 

[Phuncz]

You'd want a blower fan GPU cooling if the card is in a badly ventilated location. You want a traditional fan GPU cooling if the card is in a well ventilated location.
But basically one fan needing to do the work of two or more fans is going to be louder to compensate for the volume of air, but also the increase in pressure (move air through the entire heatsink).é

 

[RAAM]

Thank you. I have thought this through a great deal and researched the various ways to do this and think I have it figured out. I was going to go the blower route and I still might but will have at least a 240mm radiator and fans right by it with approx 10mm to 15mm gap between them. If I go blower route I will have a divider between the cooler and GPU to blow ducted air toward each so they both get plenty of air. I still think the blower fan is going to be too loud at times though I will not really be stressing this system much as just not much of a gamer.

Performance and budget I would rather stay with a 20 series card as will do all I need but they are not made as below so looking at them now.

The 30 series Founders Edition RTX cards cost more and more performance than I need, and there are a couple of variations but they all more or less pull air from inside one side with the fan near the mounting bracket and blow it out the bracket so probably 60-70% of the heat, as closer to the processor, etc, blows out the case.

The other fan is pulling air from one side of the car and blowing out the other, the ones I like blow it to the side that would be near the case wall. I can still put in a divider/duct, to insure cooler air from outside the case is pulling into that side of the cards cooling fins, which are further from the processor and main circuits so less heat, maybe 30-40% is dealt with there by design, just a rough estimate based on pictures of the cards I have seen.

I want this to stay clean inside and we get quite a bit of dust here from winds, living in high desert(very beautiful mountain view and we like windows open as well as our doggy loves to roll in the dirt...I am going to use multiple 80mm fans, flow flow, open flow, duct flow, as needed to keep things nice and cool and clean inside.

This is major fun stuff to me, especially since no longer doing such big projects as rebuilding cars from street to race cars or street/race, a few street/race/audio competition.

I have the benefit of being retired so lots of time to work on stuff though weather is changing and I have another 1,000 hours or so left on totally remodeling our full time RV to get back to, keeps me in great shape at just 71, soon 72...

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I put the lower half of the Ridge together last night, up and running with a little LP 4gb graphics card so the upper half looks barren! All wiring routed cleanly, so will the upper half be when done, I will post a few pics of it here when I get there.

I still am waiting on the right deal on the graphics and cooling setup and one more NVMe card.

So, 20 series blower if stay in budget, 30 series founders editition if I decide to spend a bit more but they will both be supplemented with multiple, likely 3 front and 3 top 80mm quiet fans, filters, ducts, etc...all those fans will not have to work hard so will not be that loud I am sure and of course I can adjust the speeds as needed per area, even per fan if I must.

Have a great day!
Rick

 

[RAAM]

If I end up with a blower card I will sound deaden part of the interior of the case as well as the sides of the desk this will be under and the wall behind it. I spend around 25 years in the sound deadening business so this is a must do anyway and will do so even with a FE card, probably to the same level.

 

[Phuncz]

A few remarks: with ducting you can also use traditional axial fans but it will require fans with a lot of static pressure.
Take a look at this video for instance for some ideas:

Or like this:

Secondly, about sound-deadening: in SFF cases, there's little benefit to it as most cases are just swiss cheese and the noise is coming from turbulence and fans, not from resonating frequencies. You'll get more mileage out of finely tuning performance, selecting better cooling, optimizing air movement (be mindful of fan's distance to shrouds, typical noise generators).

 

[RAAM]

Thank you very much I will check out that video right away!

I do not have a 3d printer, maybe next year when I get the final remodeling done on our RV, will have at least 2,000 hours invested into it by then. It would be cool to print parts for this! For now I can use some ABS sheet or pexi, I have both and heat tape to bend it. I also have aluminum and steel thin sheet metal and a small brake to bend corners and angles.

By sound deadening I was meaning more in the realm of Ensolite foam on most flat surfaces and maybe a few bits of egg crate foam as well. I have a lot of my old product called RAAMmat though likely not much place to really use in this case but I will do a little just because...and it will do a little at least. I am also going to seal up everything except where I want air to flow in and out of the case including making fan shrouds as needed.
Rick

 

[RAAM]

All my fans will have pretty high static pressure due to the small size of the case, I appreciated your help on this

Edit: I meant to say my water cooler fans will have high static pressure, the GPU will have what it does as well as the PS which is its own system and I am going to direct a 120mm fan at the CPU/MB area.

The 5 or 6 80mm case fans I am not sure if they need it as will be open to the case, nothing to blow through but I want them to provide enough air , combined with the one over the water cooler block, for the GPU and AIO, which all all be blowing are out of the case.

Then I will seal the rear openings around the GPU and leave the ones near the MB open as well as the bottom of the case at least at first until testing is being done.

 

[RAAM]

I looked more into the 3060 TI and 3070, both founders editions, I realize now a bit of a hybrid for cooling. One fan blows out the back but also into the case. The other fan blows out the side and into the case but opposite of the what is the main fan.

I can open up the case for the rear fan to allow the air our more easily and seal around it. Then open up the mounting bracket a bit more to allow more out there(probably gain little and weaken it so likely leave it alone.

Then work out some sort of divider so the AIO does not draw to much air from being pulled into the main fan on the GPU.

Hot air into the case will be far less than an open design and more than a blower style but should be quieter than either one I imagine. The rest of the case fans I plan and sealed off openings as needed, open ones as well, should take care of the rest of the heat pretty easily.

Goal is a very quiet, well filtered and properly cooled system, I am going to get there one way or another

Rick

 

[RAAM]

RTX 3060 ti FE on the way here. I am considering blocking all air out except the side and bracket area and ducting air from front and or top of case using part of the six 80mm fans I am getting ready to install to see if I can control air in an out of the case/card effectively. I can just use tape and thin plastic sheets for testing so pretty easy. I would then block off nearly all the perforations on the side panels except where I need air flow like behind the AIO radiator.

 

[RAAM]

I did not look close enough at the last image posted, I like the custom duct/fan setup on the GPU! I wish the Fractal riser setup could be altered to put the card on the other side of the case so I could do something similar.

 

[RAAM]

A lot of work, fun stuff, later I have decided to go air cooled for now.
Two 140mm filtered fans, nylon filters, blowing at the 3060 TI graphics card.
Three 80mm top fans blowing up and out.
Three 80mm front fans, filtered when the filters arrive, blowing into case towards GPU and above PS towards MB area,
I had to lower the PS 1/4" to fit the three front fans, very tight fit, fun project.
120mm Silverstone slim fan on LP cooler, highest flowing and static pressure I could find and very quiet.
GPU fans
PS fan
12 fans but barely hear them unless running a 2k benchmark and mainly it is the GPU fans, sometimes the CPU but only on one file, not sure why yet, still tweaking the GPU, RAM, etc, B series Bios so not much to do with the CPU but it runs in the higher 40's yo mid 50c on all but one test, so far.
The PS and CPU fans will be filtered as well and when all dialed in the case will be pressurized so all incoming air is filtered, getting close to that, just waiting on the 80mm filters.

If I stay with air cooled I will be looking into a bit more GPU, maybe triple fan 3070ti, 3080, etc but the wattage concern me with a 600 watt PS and the heat. I really am fine now as likely can run any 2k program easily at at least 79 FPS not fully tweaked and everything at highest settings.

 

[RAAM]

Having fun with MSI Afterburner, might be maxed out, new RAM due on Monday, might see a bit of a gain but no worries if not.
Been using Heaven for bench marking it, will try others again to see how it does.
1440P
Everything at max, etc
.875mv
+1200 memory clock
1860 mhz
Power limit 100, temp 83, when I tried maxed out as suggested by several sites, got hot and lower scores.
94.3 FPS
2376 score (I guess that is pretty decent, not really sure)
69 degrees
Fans never got loud on any component.
Fan curve set at zero until 30c, then ramp up to full speed at 80c.

 

[RAAM]

I am still tuning for Superpostion, will try a few things and just found out I did not have resizable bar fully enabled which did not make a difference on Heaven but on superpostion I just scored 16087 on 1440P and high settings. The record I just looked at is 15063 using the same graphics card but at 1080P Extreme...hmmm, going to run that next

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DANG, what the heck is 1080P Extreme? Shader quality ehh! My score went down to 7227. I supposed I would need more tuning running 1080P to get it to run better. I did run it at 1440P Extreme before I got more into tuning the card, I will go run it now to see what happens, I hope it still scores decently!

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Running right now, looks like going to be low score again....I have mostly used High instead of Extreme and honestly it looks far far better that way and hugely better frame rates as well as runs a few degrees cooler at around 69c/

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I know I am mostly talking to myself on this forum but sure do appreciate the comments and likes I do get

Wow, 4338 score, ouch!