Thin high FPI push pull or thick low fpi pull or push.

OK I got a good question for you guys wondering that your thoughts are.
If you were to be water cooling a upper mid rang/lower top end CPU around 100w tdp and a higher end gpu around say 250w tdp in a case with poor/choked off air flow. Would you get a thin high FPI rad and with a push pull setup or a much thinker rad with a lower FPI with the same fans in ether pull or push?

This is a tricky one for me.
Id say going push pull would over come the low air flow, but the higher FPI in a case with poor air flow seems like a bad idea. But with a thicker rad you'd lose breathing room.
Its a toss up for me.



Note: This is a hypothetical question

It's all about surface area.

Multiply FPI by thickness - larger number wins.

Brian_B said:

It's all about surface area.

Multiply FPI by thickness - larger number wins.

Click to expand...

Not always. Did you read the OP? This is for a case with poor choked air flow.
Fans play a roll in it too. A super high FPI rad might not do so well with 800rpm fans but a the same rad with low FPI might fair better.
When you toss in a case with chocked off air flow things get more complex.
Or that is my thoughts.

dany man said:

Not always. Did you read the OP? This is for a case with poor choked air flow.
Fans play a roll in it too.

Click to expand...

Unless your trying to use such a high FPI that you can't push air through at all (I don't know of any that do this, but I suppose if your trying to repurpose an industrial component), for the same fan config (did you read your own OP? You said same fans in push/pull) - surface area trumps.

Brian_B said:

Unless your trying to use such a high FPI that you can't push air through at all (I don't know of any that do this, but I suppose if your trying to repurpose an industrial component), for the same fan config (did you read your own OP? You said same fans in push/pull) - surface area trumps.

Click to expand...

push pull vs fans on one side. And the thicker rad might end up being shoved up against something chocking off the air even more.
Say its a 25mm thick vs 65mm thick. and with the 65mm thick rad might leave you with 1mm of gap for the fans to breath, wile the 25mm thick rad with say 25mm thick fans leave you with around 15mm of breathing room for the fans.

Also the rad for the thermaltake kandalf lcs was extremely high FPI
https://www.overclockersclub.com/vimages/tt_kandalf/11.jpg
A few older rads had some crazy high FPI. I haven't seen anything new over I believe 26fpi and even then anything over 20fpi seems to be rare.

But I do agree with you, surface area wins in most every case. I'm just proposing a odd case for fun of a discussion.

You don't really have to make this compromise anymore. There are thin radiators with low- and mid-FPI configs that perform extremely well even in low-RPM, push-only configs such as the Nemesis GTS series (at 30mm thick, 16 FPI) and the XSPC TX series (20mm thick(!), 22 FPI). These radiators in this setup are able to achieve a ~12C temperature delta with (admittedly very good) fans at 1200 RPM with a ~500W load for 360mm size radiators (source: https://www.techpowerup.com/review/bitspower-leviathan-sf360/5.html).

BrotherMichigan said:

You don't really have to make this compromise anymore. There are thin radiators with low- and mid-FPI configs that perform extremely well even in low-RPM, push-only configs such as the Nemesis GTS series (at 30mm thick, 16 FPI) and the XSPC TX series (20mm thick(!), 22 FPI). These radiators in this setup are able to achieve a ~12C temperature delta with (admittedly very good) fans at 1200 RPM with a ~500W load for 360mm size radiators (source: https://www.techpowerup.com/review/bitspower-leviathan-sf360/5.html).

Click to expand...

I agree, are rad choices are far better today then in the past.

My thoughts are that I wouldn't buy or use a case with poor/choked airflow (again.) Had a Phanteks Evolv ATX for a while, and while a beautiful case, it sucked for airflow.

It took me an embarrassing amount of time to realize the ridiculousness of stuffing a high-performance cooling system in a case that can't breathe.

I base my rad choices on getting two things, performance and available space. I start with the thickest rad I can fit while not going push/pull. And as the post above mentioned, start with a proper case. Shoehorning a loop into a tiny case looks cool but is a waste of effort. Been there done that too.