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Production Meshlicious Redesign - Vertical, 280AIO mainstream case

Eekaboo

Efficiency Noob
Oct 12, 2020
6
3
One question how long is risen cable in default edition or glass edition, and can we change it with something like this new

LOUQE Cobalt RC260 Twinax Gen4+ PCI-e 4.0​


I've seen one person use it in their build on reddit & mine is on the way by the end of the week.
 

Eekaboo

Efficiency Noob
Oct 12, 2020
6
3
Sorry for the double post.

The build with the Louqe Riser is here and I dont think it'll have much problems seeing how flexible the riser is even a bend is required.
 
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Qu1ckset

Cable-Tie Ninja
Feb 9, 2020
199
217
Well seems ek is releasing a EK-AIO Elite 280 D-RGB, id of probably bought this over the non elite version if it was out when I purchased the original EK-AIO 280 D-RGB even tho two of the fans on the elite version would be useless with the Meshlicious. I guess I'm a sucker for the black nickel Housing lol
 
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thelaughingman

SFF Guru
Jul 14, 2018
1,413
1,566
Well seems ek is releasing a EK-AIO Elite 280 D-RGB, id of probably bought this over the non elite version if it was out when I purchased the original EK-AIO 280 D-RGB even the two of the fans on the elite version would be useless with the Meshlicious. I guess I'm a sucker for the black nickel Housing lol
my educated guess is there's still a Basic 280 AIO at 105USD coming later haha
 
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Qu1ckset

Cable-Tie Ninja
Feb 9, 2020
199
217
Found another post instead of putting the case in 4slot mode, this guy just added standoffs.

 

Marvelm

Cable-Tie Ninja
Oct 20, 2017
232
106
Was browsing through Instagram and came across this very interesting build and he credited u/ghim7 , but ya he put the case in 4slot mode to leave room to hide the cables easily between the GPU and Spine. Very clever!

Link to Reddit Post



Hmm I wanted to do this but how did he mount the riser away from the spine when it literally mounts to the spine itself? Or did he just not mount it and the GPU is only secured near the IO and the riser is just hanging?
 

Qu1ckset

Cable-Tie Ninja
Feb 9, 2020
199
217
Hmm I wanted to do this but how did he mount the riser away from the spine when it literally mounts to the spine itself? Or did he just not mount it and the GPU is only secured near the IO and the riser is just hanging?
If you watch this video you can use he attaches standoffs to the spine to extend the riser mount kinda thing,
 

robojim

Airflow Optimizer
Jun 18, 2020
254
222
Well seems ek is releasing a EK-AIO Elite 280 D-RGB, id of probably bought this over the non elite version if it was out when I purchased the original EK-AIO 280 D-RGB even tho two of the fans on the elite version would be useless with the Meshlicious. I guess I'm a sucker for the black nickel Housing lol
Note that the pump is taller at 63mm and wouldn't fit on 4-slot mode
 

Qu1ckset

Cable-Tie Ninja
Feb 9, 2020
199
217
Seems they added a dual 120mm rad support brackets on ssupd download page, I don't remember seeing that last time I checked this page, I guess for people who want to use 2x AIO to cool both GPU and CPU lol


 

Onus

Caliper Novice
Jan 2, 2021
25
17
Seems they added a dual 120mm rad support brackets on ssupd download page, I don't remember seeing that last time I checked this page, I guess for people who want to use 2x AIO to cool both GPU and CPU lol


cooling a 300W GPU with an 120mm rad... just don't - insert linus gif -
 

Valantar

Shrink Ray Wielder
Jan 20, 2018
2,201
2,225
cooling a 300W GPU with an 120mm rad... just don't - insert linus gif -
Why not? GPUs are far easier to cool than CPUs due to their even heat output spread across a large die and coolers using direct-die contact. My 275W Fury X kept at 50-52C with the (thick, but still) 120mm rad from the stock AIO solution. It runs even cooler with my current custom setup of course, but that's hardly important for the GPU. CPUs concentrate their heat output in a tiny area and have an IHS in between it and the cooler, so keeping those cool is far more of a challenge.
 

Onus

Caliper Novice
Jan 2, 2021
25
17
Why not? GPUs are far easier to cool than CPUs due to their even heat output spread across a large die and coolers using direct-die contact. My 275W Fury X kept at 50-52C with the (thick, but still) 120mm rad from the stock AIO solution. It runs even cooler with my current custom setup of course, but that's hardly important for the GPU. CPUs concentrate their heat output in a tiny area and have an IHS in between it and the cooler, so keeping those cool is far more of a challenge.
tbh i didn't test it (Iam curious now @OT), but i doubt that a small 120mm radiator can cool better than a 2slot air cooler (or even 3slot) therefore an air solution should be quieter, this 120mm rad would be pushing not all the 300w away (a bit will be going away on other places in that cooling config) but doing the major part to cool the water down, due to the small size the rad should be real quick, pretty toasty too.

maybe your thick radiator is helping very much by combating this with more surface area and more water in it.

but yes "why not" is a fair question, somebody should test that. lol.
 

Valantar

Shrink Ray Wielder
Jan 20, 2018
2,201
2,225
tbh i didn't test it (Iam curious now @OT), but i doubt that a small 120mm radiator can cool better than a 2slot air cooler (or even 3slot) therefore an air solution should be quieter, this 120mm rad would be pushing not all the 300w away (a bit will be going away on other places in that cooling config) but doing the major part to cool the water down, due to the small size the rad should be real quick, pretty toasty too.

maybe your thick radiator is helping very much by combating this with more surface area and more water in it.

but yes "why not" is a fair question, somebody should test that. lol.
Sorry, but you're questioning well established and well researched data here. In the case of my Fury X, the stock AIO cooled the GPU, VRAM and VRM, so every major heat-outputting component. Of course some of that heat sinks into the PCB and is dissipated through convection etc (there's metal-to-metal contact between every heat producing component and the voltage planes in the PCB, after all), but that amount is negligible - and the same is true for air coolers, after all.

An example: The Sapphire R9 Fury Tri-X OC is the cut-down variant of the full-fat Fury X with a beefy triple-slot triple-fan cooler that has a partial flow-through design (one fan blows straight through the cooler, another is partially open as well). Overall it has a very good cooler design, though some current designs might beat it due to having 6 rather than 5 heatpipes. This wouldn't be massive change though. TPU measured it at an average gaming power draw of 230W compared to their measurement of the Fury X (water cooled reference) at 246W. So how does it fare thermally? 72°C under load vs. 60 for the Fury X. TPU didn't measure fan speeds, but the Tri-X at those higher thermals (despite its lower power draw) produced the same (very low) amount of noise as the Fury X. So, a three-slot tripel-fan air cooler can't keep up with a single - admittedly somewhat thick, but still - 120mm radiator water cooler.

As for the radiator getting 'pretty toasty' - well, the GPU is at 50-52°C, so it's physically impossible for the water or radiator to be hotter than that (if it was, it would be warming the GPU to match). It's likely to be lower - see the part below about specific heat. CLCs/AIOs do tend to allow their liquid temperatures to go higher than many water cooling enthusiasts do (there's a lot of quasi-superstition about water temperatures in water cooling circles, and a lot of arbitrary lines drawn), but that's not a problem as long as the system is able to cool the components. Which they clearly are.

One thing you're clearly forgetting here: fan size. Most GPUs have ~90mm fans - some smaller, some larger. There's a tendency towards larger today, but they're still rarely above 100mm. They are also very, very thin - typically 10mm or less. That makes these fans pretty terrible overall. There's a reason why GPU deshrouding is so effective - larger fans are simply better.

Just compare a Noctua NF-A9x14 to an NF-A12x25 (I would choose a thinner fan if I could, but there aren't really any available - nobody makes case fans that thin, as they would be terrible): in an ideal, unrestricted scenario the A9 produces 50,5 m³/h of airflow at 2200rpm, while the A12 produces 84,5 m³/h. That's a 67% increase in airflow. And unlike the A9x14, the A12x25 is specifically geared towards static pressure, i.e. it is not particularly good at producing lots of airflow in an unrestricted environment, but rather aims to overcome restrictions such as radiators. As such, it can produce a static pressure (when completely restricted) of 2,34mmH₂O, vs. 1,64 for the A9 - and that's including that smaller fans have an inherent pressure advantage (due to there being less potential open space between the rim and hub, so less area for back-pressure to work on). Another interesting comparison is the A12x15, which is a more airflow-oriented design: at 1850rpm it can produce up to 94,2 m³/h, or 1,53mmH₂O.

Now, GPU fans often run up to 3000rpm or higher, but that's very noisy, and they do so as they can't move sufficient air otherwise - they're simply too small and thin. It's also worth mentioning that GPU air coolers are a very restrictive scenario (blowing through a relatively thick fin stack backed by a PCB, meaning the air needs to do a pretty sharp 90° turn to escape, which requires pressure to ensure flow), which is doubly disadvantageous for these very thin fans. And fitting a 120x25mm fan on a GPU isn't really feasible within stock PCIe slot measurements. That's why people deshroud.

In addition to this, water can soak up a lot more thermal energy than metal before its temperature rises (its specific heat is nearly 4x that of aluminium), meaning for water to increase in temperature by X degrees takes 4x the thermal energy as it would for aluminium to rise to the same temperature. So if you have water at 50°C and aluminium at 50°C, the former is holding 4x the thermal energy of the latter. Aluminium heatsinks thus have a far greater need to vent their heat (they can't hold it without getting really hot), meaning they reach thermal equilibrium with the heat source much faster and likely at a higher temperature. This is of course dependent on the water cooler having a decent flow rate, a decent cold plate and a decent radiator to dissipate its heat output, but due to the higher specific heat of water there is a lot more leeway.

So, to sum up, water cooling a GPU vs. CPU has the advantage of direct die contact and much more evenly spread heat (allowing for GPU cold plates to do their job much more easily). Water cooling a GPU vs. air cooling a GPU has the advantage of larger and better designed fans with far higher airflow - I wouldn't be surprised if a single good-quality 120mm radiator fan at ~2000rpm with a relatively standard AIO radiator produced more airflow than three typical small GPU fans through their heatsink at the same rpm - and the much higher specific heat of water meaning the system has much more time to dissipate said heat before it loses its ability to keep the GPU cool.
 
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robojim

Airflow Optimizer
Jun 18, 2020
254
222
I imagine a GPU waterblock connected to a 120 or 140mm rad would definitely be enough for most GPUs barring a 3090 with stupid power limits.
 

Valantar

Shrink Ray Wielder
Jan 20, 2018
2,201
2,225
I imagine a GPU waterblock connected to a 120 or 140mm rad would definitely be enough for most GPUs barring a 3090 with stupid power limits.
If that's all it's cooling and you don't insist on running your fans at <1000rpm or that your coolant can never exceed something stupidly low like 30°C, it really is. In my custom loop with a single 240mm EK PE (38mm) rad alongside a 5800X, the Fury X (which sits after the CPU in the loop, and should as such theoretically be heated by it) runs much, much cooler than the CPU, and typically only exceeds 45°C in very long gaming sessions.
 

kersk

Cable Smoosher
Jan 22, 2021
11
10
So a small update:

While the fan RGB was actually pretty nice looking, I just replaced the EK Vardar fans on my EK 280 AIO. One of the fans was already failing after just a few days of use with loud clicking noises as it would intermittently get off center and start hitting the cross bar every time it ramped up. They were also absurdly loud and really annoying any time they changed RPM. I swapped in some noctua chromax NF-A14's and they are SO much quieter and have a much smoother noise. Highly recommended.

I also got some phantek lux halo's which let you add RGB to any fan. I'm on the fence about these. They actually look pretty decent, but they are thicker than I expected and I'm not sure if I want to lose the extra space between my mobo and the radiator just for front RGB. Still thinking about it.

As for additional fans, I saw someone had put a 90mm fan up top in that little groove and I tried this with a NF-A9x14 and it fits great there. They also mentioned using superglue + magnets to mount it to the top mesh and I'm absolutely going to do the same, I think the extra airflow would help.

I also saw someone else put 60mm fans on the back near the short GPU IO area and I tried that as well. You can fit 2 there pretty easily but I'm going to hold off on that for now just b/c the airflow seems limited and mounting is kind of awkward there. (and honestly b/c I only have some brown noctuas on hand that I really don't want to break my color scheme just for the minor airflow boost).

I'm also considering putting a slim fan on the bottom half of the radiator for a semi-push/pull config. It seems like no one makes a decent slim 140mm fan, so I'll try jury rigging a 120mm there. I'll order a fan to try that out.
 
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kami_sama

Trash Compacter
Dec 15, 2019
49
19
So a small update:

While the fan RGB was actually pretty nice looking, I just replaced the EK Vardar fans on my EK 280 AIO. One of the fans was already failing after just a few days of use with loud clicking noises as it would intermittently get off center and start hitting the cross bar every time it ramped up. They were also absurdly loud and really annoying any time they changed RPM. I swapped in some noctua chromax NF-A14's and they are SO much quieter and have a much smoother noise. Highly recommended.

I also got some phantek lux halo's which let you add RGB to any fan. I'm on the fence about these. They actually look pretty decent, but they are thicker than I expected and I'm not sure if I want to lose the extra space between my mobo and the radiator just for front RGB. Still thinking about it.

As for additional fans, I saw someone had put a 90mm fan up top in that little groove and I tried this with a NF-A9x14 and it fits great there. They also mentioned using superglue + magnets to mount it to the top mesh and I'm absolutely going to do the same, I think the extra airflow would help.

I also saw someone else put 60mm fans on the back near the short GPU IO area and I tried that as well. You can fit 2 there pretty easily but I'm going to hold off on that for now just b/c the airflow seems limited and mounting is kind of awkward there. (and honestly b/c I only have some brown noctuas on hand that I really don't want to break my color scheme just for the minor airflow boost).

I'm also considering putting a slim fan on the bottom half of the radiator for a semi-push/pull config. It seems like no one makes a decent slim 140mm fan, so I'll try jury rigging a 120mm there. I'll order a fan to try that out.
That's disappointing. You had the fans on the outside then?
I plan on putting them inside (better tube and cable routing) so I hope I don't have issues with them.
Also, would love vrm and ssd temps comparison with the extra fans.