H220 Upgrade coming soon

[F41LH34D]

So as some of you may know I have been trying very hard to get better at overclocking my system and especially to run 4.7GHz stable. The community at the RealBench thread really helped me improve and a couple weeks ago I got to my limit. Mind you that I am currently using a NH-D14 for CPU cooling.
Now to further improve my score and thus maximize system performance it would be easiest to buy faster RAM. However, they are ususally much taller and wouldn't fit under the huge aircooler. So I figured, I will buy a closed Water loop. I know many of you will try and tell me to go custom, but I am just not very good with picking parts and installing everything. Also Custom will cost me more (though of course it looks beautiful 🙂 ).
I am hoping that maybe some time in January I will have spend some cash on faster memory, maybe Dominators (?). Bear in mind i still need 32Gb.

Anyways, the H220 is announced to come to Germany in October so maybe i will wait or just buy it from a french retailer 😄 (any French folks here?)
First thing i wanted to do to the swiftech, is to change the stock fans for 2 NF-F12. Then add 2 more for a full puss/pull setup like this one http://www.overclock.net/t/1139896/case-for-h100-push-pull (first image)

The big question is, should i pull air out of the case as a top exhaust with warmer air but potentially better overall pressure, or draw in ambient air from the top.

I have a HAF-932, so maybe If i go with option 2, I will only have 1 140mm at the rear to exhause air. Would maybe flipping the 230mm fan on the side panel be a good idea?
I am a little lost :S

thanks in advance guys!

~Failhead

[fbm211]

I had the h220.Its now sitting in its box till I get around to sending it back for a pump replacement.
It worked great though. I've heard they are going to come out with a 320 version.
I had mine pulling air into the case and had the added benefit of keeping the top video card cooler than the bottom.
I ran it push pull with noctua fans pulling and the helix fans pushing.

[F41LH34D]

well the 320 wont fit into my case unfortunately, plus i think it would be a little overkill without any GPU or RAM waterblocks

[chrisnyc75]

I haven't used the H220 specifically, but speaking from experience with the H80i (more or less the same thing) I found very little difference between running it in exhaust vs intake, and that's with 2 EVGA ACX-cooler graphics cards exhausting warm air inside my system. Reversing the H80i to intake cooled my cpu temperature by a couple of degrees, but nothing substantial. But I also have very good airflow in my case, which ultimately means either way I run it I'm pretty much at max airflow efficiency.

IMO, the thing to keep in mind is that either way you need to have a solid plan for airflow design. If you have the H220 in exhaust, then you need to make sure you have ample cool air being pulled INTO your case elsewhere in order to supply the radiator with not-too-warm air; if you have the H220 in intake, then you need to make sure you have a clear path for warm air exhaust elsewhere or you'll wind up with a positive pressure buildup of warm air inside your case. It's really "six of one, half dozen of the other".

If you're going to run it in exhaust, you should probably have every other fan in the case pulling air INTO the chassis. If you're going to run it in intake, you should probably reverse the side & rear fans to exhaust. Play around with it, you won't do any damage to your system if it gets a little warm for brief periods while you're testing to find the best airflow design.

[Myk_SilentShado]

While everything mentioned above is sound advice and going an AIO is a good way to drop your temps and push your OC further, don't forget mate you will hit another wall in your OC, all the faster RAM in the world won't make a difference once you hit it, because your new enemy is going to be throttling due to the VRM's/MOSFETS running hot....so I would suggest that while you're planning your layout, try and find a way to mount a fan over your VRM's to help keep them cool and see yourself get higher OC's in the process 😉

[F41LH34D]

thanks for reminding me of the VRM. I dont have the 2 mini fans installed right now but that would probably be an option when i have the H220 installed to cool the Mosfets/vrm below the thermal armor.