Radiator combination question

[Smoked Brisket]

I currently have a mountain mods case with a hardware labs nemesis gtx 360 and gtx 240 installed on a single loop. I bought a Lian Li pc-08 white case to try my first hard line build. I planned on using the 2 Hardware Labs radiators in the new build, the are both white and look great imo. After looking at some builds on the internet I see that everyone is using low profile rads for the 240's in the pc-08. It looks like my 240 gtx will not fit in the allocated space above the motherboard with fans installed. Can I combine a 240gts with a 360 gtx without significant impact on the loop or pump?

 

[VanGoghComplex]

It's my understanding that radiators, in general, are very low-restriction by design. Even if your new rads are more restrictive than your old ones, you'd have to already be sitting on the cusp of the minimum effective flow rate in your system for it to make a drastic impact on your temperatures.

Good luck on your first hardline build! A tip: Legos make excellent mock-up tools. XD

 

[Smoked Brisket]

It's my understanding that radiators, in general, are very low-restriction by design. Even if your new rads are more restrictive than your old ones, you'd have to already be sitting on the cusp of the minimum effective flow rate in your system for it to make a drastic impact on your temperatures.

Good luck on your first hardline build! A tip: Legos make excellent mock-up tools. XD

Thx for the quick response. I think I get what you are saying with the legos. Will try that.

 

[thesmokingman]

Fundamentally you do want similar rads with similar performance to reduce differences in flow speed thru the loop. The GTS rad has quite a bit more restriction per GPM. At 1 GPM it drops almost 1psi where the GTX drops only 1/3 psi. In most cases there's nothing to do, but avoid plumbing a block right after the GTS rad if you can. All things equal just apply more pump power to it.

 

[Pabaisa]

As I found out last weekend – even a weak pump is more than enough for even the most restrictive loops. I'm running D5 and phobya dc12-220 in series (for safety) and as I found out even phobya dc12-220 was enough for my pretty big loop. I always test my loop with D5 connected to separate power supply and I forgot to turn it on after I was done testing for leaks so only dc12-220 (very weak pump) was working but even with 3x360mm, 200mm, 2x420mm + cpu block+ full cover gpu block the temperature was very much in normal range for both cpu and gpu (as in what I would expect when both pumps are working).

 

[thesmokingman]

As I found out last weekend – even a weak pump is more than enough for even the most restrictive loops. I'm running D5 and phobya dc12-220 in series (for safety) and as I found out even phobya dc12-220 was enough for my pretty big loop. I always test my loop with D5 connected to separate power supply and I forgot to turn it on after I was done testing for leaks so only dc12-220 (very weak pump) was working but even with 3x360mm, 200mm, 2x420mm + cpu block+ full cover gpu block the temperature was very much in normal range for both cpu and gpu (as in what I would expect when both pumps are working).

That's just not true at all. There's a history of testing that shows pump power affects flow rate. There is a minimum flow rate to achieve maximal cooling and that is around 1.5gpm. Your loop is ridiculously over spec'd on rads that's why you hardly see a change even when your flow rate is but a trickle. Lmao, you have 2120mm of rad surface area for two blocks.