Push/Pull Fans on 360mm Radiator?

Lumpus

Limp Gawd
Joined
Sep 2, 2005
Messages
432
I'm thinking about a side mounted 360mm radiator strictly for a GPU w/c loop and I'm a bit concerned about available space for adding 6 120mm fans to it.

Does anyone have any thoughts or experience on these push/pull fan options, one way or the other?
  1. slim fans on a regular thickness radiator
  2. regular fans on a slim radiator
  3. slim fans + radiator for maximum clearance (how was the cooling?)
 
I've done a 240 with push/pull

it helped, but if I had to chose between a thicker rad and push/pull I'd chose the thicker rad as that provides better performance with no added noise or power requirement

Odds are with a 360 just on a GPU you aren't going to be stressing that radiator at all, even with just a single set of fans, and the second set wouldn't drop your loop temp by very much.
 
Sounds reasonable.
I'm leaning towards the Black Ice Nemesis 360GTS Radiator (copper) and that should cool nicely with Corsair ML's or Noctua 120's anyway.
 
Two scenarios I've used and truly benefited from Push Pull which I'll list at the end of my comments.
Let me say first I've used 25mm thick fans which is standard radiator fan thickness. I have never seen a high static pressure radiator fan necessary for proper performance on a rad in a slim profile. If you are going to use a slim profile fan push/pull would be necessary to achive any real performance in which case you'd be better off with a standard 25mm thick with High Static pressure designed for a radiator in pull only
Space is always your first consideration, but where space is not an issue push/pull always increases performance.
Under 40mm thick rads push pull has no substantial gain to be had but again better all be it minuscule than push or pull only.
Typical users aren't going to see huge benefits, but if you are pushing high vcore and cooling CPU and GPUs that are overclocked too you will need to pull out all the trricks push/pull being one of them.

Scenario 1) 360 Monsta Rad had the most notible perfomance gain using a push/pull config.
Scenario 2) 360 60mm thick rad where low noise was the objective yet maintaning performance.

In there lies what makes push pull worth your while
 
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