Help Me decide on a CPU Cooler?

Ghot · Sep 2, 2023

hdmi said:
The Define 7 has some fairly serious thermal design issues.

Ah... I see the problem. They're not use the top fans.
Testing a case with "only" the stock fans, isn't gonna give any great temps.

The air flow at the front of the case... IS a bit restricted. The top exhaust fans would definitely help with that.

And... you can also run three fans in the front. They're only using the stock, two fans.
I think if you're gonna review a case you should test ALL combinations of fans... then give the results.

H*ll, some cases come with one rear fan. I bet they'd have thermal issues too.

My Cooler Master case was the same way. There's air flow restrictions at the front.
It "needs" the top fans, and the hard drive fans.
I tested ALL fan combos, before I decided what fans I would run.

I just had a thought. Maybe I should paint this black and put it in the front of MY case.
I have plenty of room, and it would feed more air to the 110cfm Noctua fans on my Hyper 212 EVO.
I've had this thing for ages. Might as well give it a shot.

My case has 6x 5.25" bays. Plenty of room.

Ooh... I don't have to paint it. The box shows silver, but I must have ordered the black version.

I'll need a better fan. The one it came with is only 41 cfm. :/
But I have tons of fans at 70cfm ++

I only have one optical drive, so I have 5 free slots, and I only need three.
I'll probably use the ones with the yellow dots.
The top yellow dot, lines up with the top fan header. I can hide the wire behind that crosspiece.

I also have two unused motherboard fan headers.
The top one would probably be... neater looking.

I'm not sure that the 5.25" Lian Li fan thing, will work with those push button fasteners.
We'll have to see how that works out. Tomorrow.

HA!! I also have one open spot on my fan splitter blocks... so I can use that instead.
Yellow dot.

Well, I went to my box o' fans and found some brand new CM Blade Master 71cfm fans.
So I put one of them in the Lian Li fan thing, instead of the 41cfm fan.

hdmi · Sep 3, 2023

Ghot said:
Ah... I see the problem. They're not use the top fans.
Testing a case with "only" the stock fans, isn't gonna give any great temps.

The air flow at the front of the case... IS a bit restricted. The top exhaust fans would definitely help with that.

And... you can also run three fans in the front. They're only using the stock, two fans.
I think if you're gonna review a case you should test ALL combinations of fans... then give the results.

H*ll, some cases come with one rear fan. I bet they'd have thermal issues too.

My Cooler Master case was the same way. There's air flow restrictions at the front.
It "needs" the top fans, and the hard drive fans.
I tested ALL fan combos, before I decided what fans I would run.

I just had a thought. Maybe I should paint this black and put it in the front of MY case.
I have plenty of room, and it would feed more air to the 110cfm Noctua fans on my Hyper 212 EVO.
I've had this thing for ages. Might as well give it a shot.

View attachment 69757 View attachment 69762

My case has 6x 5.25" bays. Plenty of room.

Ooh... I don't have to paint it. The box shows silver, but I must have ordered the black version.

Nah. Adding the fans in the top of the Define 7 defeats the whole purpose of it having a noise blocking door on the front. That plus the fact that you don't need to add them to still be able to see that the dust filter is holding back the airflow waa-aaaa-aaaaaaay too much compared to other cases such as the Meshify 2, for example. With the Define 7, adding the top fans still doesn't change this fact. The purpose of adding fans in the top should be to make it perform similar to other, great performing cases that also have top fans and dust filters, not to compensate the blatant design flaw that it has in terms of the level of performance that it can deliver.

Ghot · Sep 3, 2023

hdmi said:
Adding the fans in the top of the Define 7 defeats the whole purpose of it having a noise blocking door

PWM fans... problem solved.

That Define 7 case will take 3x 140mm fans up top. 140mm fans are quiet, at the same cfm as 120mm fans.

FrozenCPU - fans <---- closed Apr 2023... but it's still a good reference site for fans.

SATA power - 10 fan splitter block

SATA power - 7 fan PWM splitter block

Dru2 · Sep 3, 2023

hdmi said:
The Define 7 has some fairly serious thermal design issues.

At the 23-minute mark he gives his personal opinion about doors on cases, and I'll agree when I say I broke the door on my Antec P182 case leaving it open. Just as he said, my knee hit it and, and that was that. And why I'll never buy another case with a door on it.

hdmi · Sep 3, 2023

Dru2 said:
At the 23-minute mark he gives his personal opinion about doors on cases, and I'll agree when I say I broke the door on my Antec P182 case leaving it open. Just as he said, my knee hit it and, and that was that. And why I'll never buy another case with a door on it.

I actually kind of like the idea of a door that helps to reduce the part of fan noise that is coming from the front of the case and that, therefore, tends to be aimed more directly at your ears and also tends to be coming from a closer distance compared to all the other fans. But for that to work with the Define 7 you'd have to find a way to also reduce the part of the noise that is coming from the top, if your plan is to mount fans in the top. Usually what that means is you'd have to put the Define 7 within fairly close distance of the ceiling of your room and use a stepladder. That is, when basically all you had to do to arrive at a similar level of both temperature and noise during a typical/average gaming session was just lower the rpm of the fans with the door open and the dust filter removed. What that factually means is, it isn't designed with typical gaming in mind. At least not if you're going to rule out liquid cooling, it's not. The performance will suffer, and will suffer a lot if choosing the type of hardware components that have the potential to generate a lot of extra heat.

The Meshify 2 XL doesn't have any such problems. It has no door that has to be always left open excepting only under those rare circumstances when it isn't a completely useless feature. Neither the mesh nor the dust filter on it will restrict airflow so heavily that this causes the CPU temperature under load to be worsened by much more than just a degree or two. Compared to all other mesh cases that I know of, that's what makes it great and impressive. By contrast, the Define 7 gives mediocre performance for non-liquid (air)cooled gaming on hardware above mainstream.

Ghot · Sep 3, 2023

Dru2 said:
At the 23-minute mark he gives his personal opinion about doors on cases, and I'll agree when I say I broke the door on my Antec P182 case leaving it open. Just as he said, my knee hit it and, and that was that. And why I'll never buy another case with a door on it.

I don't like cases with those "clips" that you have to "pry" open on the front.
I'd rather have a door or neither.

Well, from post #181, I put the Lian Li fan holder in.
It doesn't make much difference, so it's coming back out.

So it seems that as I assumed earlier, the heat sink itself doesn't have the "fin volume", to make use of the 110cfm Noctua fans.

Dru2 · Sep 3, 2023

Ghot said:
I don't like cases with those "clips" that you have to "pry" open on the front.
I'd rather have a door or neither.

Thus, we all have different tastes as do prefer the front panel (below) as opposed to a door.

But that's me

Dru2 · Sep 3, 2023

@hdmi

hdmi said:
I actually kind of like the idea of a door that helps to reduce the part of fan noise that is coming from the front of the case and that, therefore, tends to be aimed more directly at your ears and also tends to be coming from a closer distance compared to all the other fans.
.....

My case has no door, and it's still extremely quiet. It's all in how you tune your fans.

As my system is a perfect example - if you tune your fan speeds properly, you get the best of both world - good cooling and a quiet PC. It also helps that you have an air efficient case. I only run three case fans - two front 230mm fans, and a rear Corsair 140mm fan. The Corsair AIO (mounted at the top) has two 140mm Corsair fans, and they run in quiet mode. My power supply fan also quiet. And I don't overclock.

With that, I guarantee if you were sitting next to my PC, you wouldn't hear fans. The only time you'd hear them is gaming, and those would be the GPU fans. The main reason I require a quiet system is my PC is also my audiophile hub....

At the end of the day, it's all about tuning your fans. Nothing magical, just balance.

As for doors, to each their own. I've been there, done that. Don't want to do it again. That's me.

JAM83 · Sep 3, 2023

My case has a door on it. Thought about taking it off, but it has my Atlanta Braves 2021 World Series Champions Sticker on it. . LOL

JAM83 · Sep 3, 2023

@Ghot I just noticed in my case, that I will not be about to mount the new fan and have it take the hot air and blow it out the back. . Clamp thing that holds the heatsink to the board is up and down, so I assume I will want to mount and have the fans at the top of the case to take the hot air out, correct?

bobkn · Sep 3, 2023

JAM83 said:
@Ghot I just noticed in my case, that I will not be about to mount the new fan and have it take the hot air and blow it out the back. . Clamp thing that holds the heatsink to the board is up and down, so I assume I will want to mount and have the fans at the top of the case to take the hot air out, correct?

I'm pretty sure that's incorrect. https://www.bhphotovideo.com/lit_files/613203.pdf

JAM83 · Sep 3, 2023

bobkn said:
I'm pretty sure that's incorrect. https://www.bhphotovideo.com/lit_files/613203.pdf

Here's a picture. That's my stock fan. The bracket clamp thing goes up and down and not side to side. . So, i'm not sure which way to put the fan directions.

Ghot · Sep 3, 2023

JAM83 said:
@Ghot I just noticed in my case, that I will not be about to mount the new fan and have it take the hot air and blow it out the back. . Clamp thing that holds the heatsink to the board is up and down, so I assume I will want to mount and have the fans at the top of the case to take the hot air out, correct?

You need to install the "back plate" first.

Under or to the sides of the stock cooler, there will be two plastic brackety things screwed to the motherboard.
You need to remove them, and install the CPU cooler backplate (to the back of the motherboard).

THEN, you can install the new CPU cooler.

Without the motherboard backplate, just bumping the huge CPU cooler, would rip the CPU out of the socket.

Read the directions that @bobkn posted. Many times. Then go to work..
Make sure the Hyper 212 EVO that someone gave you has all the needed parts.

Note: In your case... there should be a hole in the back of the motherboard tray, which will allow you to do the backplate, without needing to take the motherboard out of the computer.

JAM83 · Sep 3, 2023

Ghot said:
You need to install the "back plate" first.

Under or to the sides of the stock cooler, there will be two plastic brackety things screwed to the motherboard.
You need to remove them, and install the CPU cooler backplate (to the back of the motherboard).

THEN, you can install the new CPU cooler.

Without the motherboard backplate, just bumping the huge CPU cooler, would rip the CPU out of the socket.

Read the directions that @bobkn posted. Many times. Then go to work..
Make sure the Hyper 212 EVO that someone gave you has all the needed parts.

Note: In your case... there should be a hole in the back of the motherboard tray, which will allow you to do the backplate, without needing to take the motherboard out of the computer.

Then I have no idea. . I'm pretty sure there is a back plate already on the back of the Motherboard. How else would I currently have my current fan clamped?

JAM83 · Sep 3, 2023

@Ghot This is what is holding in my current fan and it's also what I was given to the Hyper 212 EVO:

JAM83 · Sep 3, 2023

If i need the following, then I do not have it

JAM83 · Sep 3, 2023

I guess i'm screwed. . Can't do anything without the backplate or mounting bracket.

JAM83 · Sep 3, 2023

Ghot said:
You need to install the "back plate" first.

Under or to the sides of the stock cooler, there will be two plastic brackety things screwed to the motherboard.
You need to remove them, and install the CPU cooler backplate (to the back of the motherboard).

THEN, you can install the new CPU cooler.

Without the motherboard backplate, just bumping the huge CPU cooler, would rip the CPU out of the socket.

Read the directions that @bobkn posted. Many times. Then go to work..
Make sure the Hyper 212 EVO that someone gave you has all the needed parts.

Note: In your case... there should be a hole in the back of the motherboard tray, which will allow you to do the backplate, without needing to take the motherboard out of the computer.

View attachment 69853

Yeah i don't have the EVO backplate

Ghot · Sep 3, 2023

JAM83 said:
If i need the following, then I do not have it View attachment 69854

Then you need to buy the mounting "kit".

Or even better... send the Noctua fans back, and just get this instead...

Get this one...

This one is like the original, but with two fans. And it's 82.9cfm

JAM83 · Sep 3, 2023

Ghot said:
Then you need to buy the mounting "kit".

Or even better... send the Noctua fans back, and just get this instead...

Get this one...

This one is like the original, but with two fans. And it's 82.9cfm

That's what mine will look like exactly when I have the 2 fans mounted to it. . The heatsink is EXACTLY like that in the pictures.