Corsair H115i Pro- wasted on Ryzen 1600?

so i picked up a used H115i a couple months ago with the intention of mounting it on my Vega 64. I'm moderately competent at machining and fabricating and building weird custom cooling solutions isn't out of character, but nonetheless I'm getting hesitant because (1.) i'm terrified of breaking my HBM or interposer (2.) my apartment is tiny and ridiculously hot already so i won't be able to really push the card hard (like 300W+ with LC BIOS hard) until winter and (3.) I'm already content with my current clocks, temps, and acoustics on the stock blower with undervolt. (1450Mhz actual @ 950mV, 120-180W ingame, ~65C with fan curve)

All that said, now I have this nice AIO without a use- would it be a waste to put it on my lil' R5 1600? Currently has a Hyper 212 Black RGB and load temps are in the low 40's @ stock clocks so it's not exactly undercooled, but would I going to see better overclocking with the AIO? I've been focusing on getting the GPU tuned so I haven't touched the CPU but I do plan on overclocking that as well.

Now that you're made it through my ramble, thoughts?

You have plenty of headroom with that Hyper 212. In fact, I would think about selling that h115i and 1600 and upgrading to a R5 3600.

Celeryman said:

You have plenty of headroom with that Hyper 212. In fact, I would think about selling that h115i and 1600 and upgrading to a R5 3600.

Click to expand...

I’d say the same.

thanks for the feedback! the R5 3600 does look like a very nice upgrade. unfortunately even with selling the h115i and 1600 any further hardware purchases would be a stretch right now (esp. since i imagine i'll want new ram, on 2666 rn) but that looks like something to plan for in the autumn

no it wont be a waste, put it on.

I have a b450m-hdv.
It was a fun exercise in resource allocation.

You'd consider a splitter for more intake if you noticed your gpu temps rising if the Vega didn't like eating prewarmed air.
Mine didn't, the 1080ti doesn't seem to care.
In my case I needed exhaust with the 1080ti, intake with the Vega.
Play with it, my worst case was 60c on both 2600 with an h115i and Vega 56 with a 120aio +g12 gaming, ambient at 100f. Any imbalance in airflow or intake temp will show up very quickly.
Cooler days load is high 40c low 50c.
If your 1600 sits at stock clocks you still impact fresh air intake, people always discount that when using aios.
There will be impact using the preset Corsair curves, tune a curve accordingly.

When you cool your Vega you'd want to experiment with controlling your GPU fan off the gpu header itself since the Mobo only has 3 fan headers. I bought a mini VGA to pwm adapter + a Noctua 92mm. It saved occupying a fan header that'd slave case fans to a GPU curve. Case fans are slaves to the 3-pin via splitter. Oh, set a custom fan curve in Afterburner when you get around to aio cooling the Vega. You can buy a G12 bracket or fabricate something. The reference blower fan is suboptimal.

Dual aio is what I've been running for a few years.
Next step will be a loop but I change builds too often to make that ever seem worthwhile.
I should go get an x570 board just to plant a chipset block + CPU block and freeze my build for a while.

so, a quick spin up to 4Ghz @ 1.375v on the CPU reveals temps getting up to 80* on the 212 under 100% load, and spikes into the 70's under moderate realistic load… some of that is the crappy airflow in my case which i am about to address, but nonetheless that sounds like reason to just keep the damn AIO. i only spent $40 on it so it's not exactly a massive investment.

somebrains said:

I have a b450m-hdv.
It was a fun exercise in resource allocation.

You'd consider a splitter for more intake if you noticed your gpu temps rising if the Vega didn't like eating prewarmed air.
Mine didn't, the 1080ti doesn't seem to care.
In my case I needed exhaust with the 1080ti, intake with the Vega.
Play with it, my worst case was 60c on both 2600 with an h115i and Vega 56 with a 120aio +g12 gaming, ambient at 100f. Any imbalance in airflow or intake temp will show up very quickly.
Cooler days load is high 40c low 50c.
If your 1600 sits at stock clocks you still impact fresh air intake, people always discount that when using aios.
There will be impact using the preset Corsair curves, tune a curve accordingly.

When you cool your Vega you'd want to experiment with controlling your GPU fan off the gpu header itself since the Mobo only has 3 fan headers. I bought a mini VGA to pwm adapter + a Noctua 92mm. It saved occupying a fan header that'd slave case fans to a GPU curve. Case fans are slaves to the 3-pin via splitter. Oh, set a custom fan curve in Afterburner when you get around to aio cooling the Vega. You can buy a G12 bracket or fabricate something. The reference blower fan is suboptimal.

Dual aio is what I've been running for a few years.
Next step will be a loop but I change builds too often to make that ever seem worthwhile.
I should go get an x570 board just to plant a chipset block + CPU block and freeze my build for a while.

Click to expand...

excellent response! thanks for going into detail.
i agree with the need for fresh airflow into the GPU- that was one of my prime concerns. my plan is to relocate the disk cage to the open space in front of the mobo & above the GPU and drill holes for a bottom-mounted fan roughly where it was, which will line right up with the Vega's intake. i found in my parts bucket a 92mm 4-lead fan with rather high static pressure that should provide some interesting results pushing air directly into the card via a plenum i'll throw together from scrap. I may still eventually go AIO or custom water on the Vega but i'm finding my undervolt so satisfactory that I don't really see the need that I expected when I was first gathering parts for the build.

as for the CPU... I believe I've settled on entirely doing away with the decorative front panel that restricts airflow so much (wtf, coolermaster) and mounting the rad on the outside of the case for maxi aesthetic (and airflow). Got the machine all pulled apart last night, gonna be a fun build day today

Exhaust capability has to be accounted for as well as rad intake capacity.
In your case a competent air cooler is starved and/or recirculating warmed air.

I'm using a Fractal Define C with no front panel.

My gpu butts up to my front rad/fans creating a hot zone towards the PSU side.

There's a small gap around the gpu I'm overcoming the trapped air with a pair of 140mm exhausts. Aio sits front and back intaking air from outside of my Define C.
It's fine for now, hot summer days I'm getting basically what a good air-cooled build generates on a 70f ambient day.

I will be buying something like a PC-O11 case in the future when I buy components that create more heat. I'm at environment limit.

I enjoy resource limited exercises like this bc you get lots of experience for smart upgrades. You can't run everything at default when you don't have as much to work with.

the 212 is definitely not getting enough fresh air with the stock setup. the front vents on the masterbox are fecking tiny so i went with a single 120mm fan originally, blowing on the GPU. exhaust is ok, it's blowing directly into the rear 120mm fan.

i got the cpu rad and intake fan for gpu mounted this afternoon, i'll put the system back together tonight and see how it goes. i took the term "hacking" rather literally and my case kinda looks like ass now but with the rad and filters mounted my chop job isn't noticeable from the outside and airflow should be vastly improved. i also love the opportunity provided by making do with what's on hand. fun times

Totally forgot, the cheaper Noctua 92mm redux at a static 30% cools Vegas and 1080tis no problem.

Like absolutely cold to the touch, doesn't feel like it's even pushing 160 frames.

I just set it to a static 30% in Afterburner when I'm gaming.....and use a different computer when I'm not.

H115i has been running on the 1600 for a bit over a week now... really glad I did end up putting it on. Yes, it is MASSIVE overkill at stock with temps barely touching 50* under full synthetic load at 30*+ ambient but I don't run at stock The chip seems use-stable (as in it works for the heaviest of my real-world loads with zero issue; I have no idea if it would pass five hundred thousand hours of Prime95 FFTs and I don't care) at 4.05Ghz all-core @ 1.375v and wow am I glad to have the extra cooling with the OC. Temps under regular load are in the 50's-60's, peaking a little over 70* at max 12T synthetic CPUz stress load and that's with the fans in a suboptimal pulling config due to how I modded my case to fit the rad. Rather pleased with how that turned out.

The Vega on the other hand needs more love. My ridiculous double-stage-compressor setup is working good thermally- putting the 92mm axial fan at the top of the intake so it's only about 1" from the GPUs radial blower as opposed ~6" down at the bottom of the intake dropped temps and is enough to still keep the core held at ~65C @ ~180W despite hotter weather + moving the computer from under the desk to atop increasing the intake temp by a good ~7-8* over when I measured the stock cooling also holding at the same. The fan speeds are linked via adding a splitter to just the PWM line on the GPUs internal blower and taking that out to the axial stage which is powered separately. But wow is it loud. First stage @ ~2850RPM, second stage @ ~3450RPM to hold the core at 65C moving outrageous amounts of air makes for a spectacle but it might be too much for even me, lol.

Sooooo… with that in mind, I am going to go AIO with the GPU after all. But as I'm still mortified by the idea of damaging my card I'm gonna go the route of modding a G12 instead of totally custom fabricating something. Off to Microcenter this morning, we'll see if I end up with the X42 or X62 for the cooler... obviously the extra size of the X62 would be nice but adding a second 280mm rad to a case that was only made to handle a single 240mm is gonna involve a lot of cutting. I did look at the Alphacool Eiswolf monoblock AIO units and they are very nice but availability and price are a turn-off.

wow am I all over the place... the train ride to MC gave me enough time to convince myself that my original plan of DIY'ing a mount using an Intel x-bracket isn't actually any worse than hacking up a G12. so instead I got another Corsair- a H100i this time- and saved 40-60 bux under the NZXT solution. One less util running in the background too, and the Corsair pumpheads/blocks are so much slimmer that I think I stand a chance of incorporating the original shroud somehow

I'll start a new thread with pix when the thing is all put together

A 92mm fan with an adjusted curve does wonders.
Nvidia curves kick in really late, past 40c. Just goosing 20% at 30c keeps them from spiking when they decide to boost.
AIO cools your gpu core, rest of your gpu can get pretty toasty stock.
I like to push mine within reason, whatever is a steady 55c ish max is where I’ll back down when Intaking air.
It’s easy to lose some boost exhausting warmed case air.

I’ve also stopped desktop showcasing builds bc it’s a trip how much hot air is 3’ high vs on the floor.

H115i on my 2600 let’s me create stupid amounts of heat 4.2-4.3 all core @ 1.45v
I just backed down to 3.9ghz all core for temp reasons, and some games noticeably prefer auto boost for stability.

My takeaway with cpus after the 7700k is that oc is an exercise.
Keeping your gpu cool so it can maintain boost rock steady for 8hr gaming sessions at whatever it’s max does way more for you.