Computer water coolers - install in the bottom?

[Neto]

If the case only accepts top and bottom mounting for water coolers, and the top location is already taken for the CPU cooler, would a GPU cooler be OK mounted in the floor of the case?

(Asking because the client for whom I'm building the system chose a case that only allows for two places to mount radiators of this size, in the top, and in the bottom. I suggested a case that had a side option, but he didn't go for it. I see concerns voiced about having the pump above the radiator, that it might run dry and shell out.)

If you DID mount one in the bottom, would you mount the fans to push down and out that way, or pull air in through from the bottom. Taking the dirt in too, and pushing the heat across all of the other components. But at least not working against the principle that heat rises.

Or, just settle for a Graphics card that just has fans?

[JohnH]

I would not do water cooling period. High likelihood of failure and needs regular maintenance.

What on earth do you need that left of graphics performance for?

[Neto]

I would not do water cooling period. High likelihood of failure and needs regular maintenance.

What on earth do you need that left ['heft'?] of graphics performance for?

It is for a customer who does complex drawings for computer controlled machines, such as a 5-axis router, and a lathe. There are program functions that are currently taking over 3 hours to complete with the computer equipment they have. So it comes down to increasing the productivity of their most skilled workers.

I told the business manager there that although I do not expect to see it in my remaining years, I would not be surprised if he sees the time when computers must have built-in A/C units to keep the processor and graphics systems cool enough to make use of the computing capacity of those components. Think about it: When we got our first computer (a Kaypro II, in 1984) the CPU had no cooler at all, or possibly only a small heatsink. Then the heatsinks got fans mounted on them, and have continued to grow in size. The system will throttle down the processor when it starts to get too hot, so adequate cooling is essential. But building this system is really challenging my ability to keep up with the industry, and I'm ready to get out of this business.

I will personally never have a need for anything like this. My main computer is an Intel DG41TX. That board was released in the first quarter of 2010. (I think I might have as much as 4 GB of RAM installed in it.) My older computer is a Dell running XP that I bought new in 2003 or 04. (I keep it because I have both programs and hardware that won't run on newer operating systems.)

[ken_sylvania]

I would not do water cooling period. High likelihood of failure and needs regular maintenance.

What on earth do you need that left ['heft'?] of graphics performance for?

It is for a customer who does complex drawings for computer controlled machines, such as a 5-axis router, and a lathe. There are program functions that are currently taking over 3 hours to complete with the computer equipment they have. So it comes down to increasing the productivity of their most skilled workers.

I told the business manager there that although I do not expect to see it in my remaining years, I would not be surprised if he sees the time when computers must have built-in A/C units to keep the processor and graphics systems cool enough to make use of the computing capacity of those components. Think about it: When we got our first computer (a Kaypro II, in 1984) the CPU had no cooler at all, or possibly only a small heatsink. Then the heatsinks got fans mounted on them, and have continued to grow in size. The system will throttle down the processor when it starts to get too hot, so adequate cooling is essential. But building this system is really challenging my ability to keep up with the industry, and I'm ready to get out of this business.

I will personally never have a need for anything like this. My main computer is an Intel DG41TX. That board was released in the first quarter of 2010. (I think I might have as much as 4 GB of RAM installed in it.) My older computer is a Dell running XP that I bought new in 2003 or 04. (I keep it because I have both programs and hardware that won't run on newer operating systems.)

What graphics card are you putting into that baby?

[Neto]

I would not do water cooling period. High likelihood of failure and needs regular maintenance.

What on earth do you need that left ['heft'?] of graphics performance for?

It is for a customer who does complex drawings for computer controlled machines, such as a 5-axis router, and a lathe. There are program functions that are currently taking over 3 hours to complete with the computer equipment they have. So it comes down to increasing the productivity of their most skilled workers.

I told the business manager there that although I do not expect to see it in my remaining years, I would not be surprised if he sees the time when computers must have built-in A/C units to keep the processor and graphics systems cool enough to make use of the computing capacity of those components. Think about it: When we got our first computer (a Kaypro II, in 1984) the CPU had no cooler at all, or possibly only a small heatsink. Then the heatsinks got fans mounted on them, and have continued to grow in size. The system will throttle down the processor when it starts to get too hot, so adequate cooling is essential. But building this system is really challenging my ability to keep up with the industry, and I'm ready to get out of this business.

I will personally never have a need for anything like this. My main computer is an Intel DG41TX. That board was released in the first quarter of 2010. (I think I might have as much as 4 GB of RAM installed in it.) My older computer is a Dell running XP that I bought new in 2003 or 04. (I keep it because I have both programs and hardware that won't run on newer operating systems.)

What graphics card are you putting into that baby?

The CAD software tech recommended the NVIDIA 4080 chipset, but it was listed as 'out of stock', then in a couple days later as "discontinued". So doing more research, I found that NVIDIA had stopped manufacture of the 40 series ahead of the projected release for the 50 series. (First it was January 21st, then pushed out to the 30th, when it actually happened.)

I was on waiting lists, and was on the site ready to buy exactly at 9:00 AM EST, but they were already sold out everywhere. (I had seen in the tech news that people were camping out at the stores already the day before release time. Gamers.)

So still waiting to get a chance at one. The one with the separate water cooler is the MSI Suprim GeForce RTX 5080 16GB GDDR7 PCI Express 5.0 x16 Graphics Card RTX 5080 16G SUPRIM LIQUID.

Over heating has been a real problem at this Amish-owned business. (No A/C.) That's the main reason I'm favoring the one with the water cooler. (The PSU fan in one system froze up, and when I opened it up and looked at the fan, the plastic around the fan's bearing was melted, just enough for it to stick. I freed it up and oiled it, but they wanted me to replace the PSU anyway. That one is a pretty fast i7 with a fan-cooled 6 GB Graphics card in it. All of this stuff just makes a lot of heat.)

[JohnH]

The 5080 is a bit of overkill… a 3090 should do fine.

Edit: no AC is a definite problem particularly if the environment has heavy dust. You may want to get a system with a good dust filter. I work with a “gamer” and will ask him for recommendations.

[Neto]

The 5080 is a bit of overkill… a 3090 should do fine.

Edit: no AC is a definite problem particularly if the environment has heavy dust. You may want to get a system with a good dust filter. I work with a “gamer” and will ask him for recommendations.

I have learned not to go by what the software website gives as required or even recommended system specs. The first GPU i installed for a company (years ago) actually made the system slower than just using the on-board graphics. Later I compared the 'current' recommendations for another CAD program (as posted on their site) to a copy I had made 5 years before. They had not updated any of it.

So I told this customer to consult with the techs who work for the company that builds the hardware (in this case, a CNC lathe) for THEIR recommendations, and to go by what they say. So he did that, and in this case they suggested to get at least the 4080. Those were already out of stock, then a few days later listed as discontinued, so we went with the current replacement, the 5080. It may be a bit of over-kill for right now, but they also have a second 5-axis CNC router on the way from (I think) Italy, so this is building for the future. Amish-owned businesses don't replace equipment like this every 3 to 5 years, as some 'English' businesses might. They are still using word processors I built for them a bit over 14 years ago.

[Pelerin]

I haven’t done liquid cooling but I have looked into it and there are opinions. I think you want the pump on the bottom for the reason you stated. You mentioned two radiators—so both the GPU and CPU are liquid cooled? Are there two pumps? I think there’s sometimes an issue with noise in that configuration but there’s YouTube videos on how to deal with that.

You want to use the fact that heat rises to your favor. My instinct would be to put the GPU radiator to vent out top since that will be the most intensive. What you describe sounds GPU intensive and I’m not sure that the CPU would really need special cooling and I’d think just a CPU fan or an air cooled radiator should be ok but I could be wrong about their workload.

If you do also need liquid CPU cooling: I’d vent the bottom radiator outwards because of the heat but that might mess with the airflow a bit which ideally should have one flow direction across everything. Is there an intake fan on the bottom that can keep that supplied with cool air?

That said, you for sure want to make sure the case has (slightly) positive air pressure (more fan power drawing air in than out) especially because of the dust. Otherwise with negative pressure air and dust will be sucked into any little crack in the case rather than just through your filtered intake. That will probably be a bit of a challenge with two radiators venting. You can install Fan Control software (literally the name) and control each fan individually to maintain that and set the speed curves at different temperatures, etc. You need PWM fans for that which most fans you’d be looking at would be anyway (and most motherboards have a good number of PWM headers anymore).

Finally, you mentioned that the 4080s are “discontinued”. Nvidia doesn’t actually manufacture GPUs (except a few). They design them and then license the designs to manufacturers (MSI, Asus, etc.) and I’m pretty sure they keep making the older designs for a couple years to serve the downmarket.

[Neto]

I haven’t done liquid cooling but I have looked into it and there are opinions. I think you want the pump on the bottom for the reason you stated. You mentioned two radiators—so both the GPU and CPU are liquid cooled? Are there two pumps? I think there’s sometimes an issue with noise in that configuration but there’s YouTube videos on how to deal with that.

You want to use the fact that heat rises to your favor. My instinct would be to put the GPU radiator to vent out top since that will be the most intensive. What you describe sounds GPU intensive and I’m not sure that the CPU would really need special cooling and I’d think just a CPU fan or an air cooled radiator should be ok but I could be wrong about their workload.

If you do also need liquid CPU cooling: I’d vent the bottom radiator outwards because of the heat but that might mess with the airflow a bit which ideally should have one flow direction across everything. Is there an intake fan on the bottom that can keep that supplied with cool air?

That said, you for sure want to make sure the case has (slightly) positive air pressure (more fan power drawing air in than out) especially because of the dust. Otherwise with negative pressure air and dust will be sucked into any little crack in the case rather than just through your filtered intake. That will probably be a bit of a challenge with two radiators venting. You can install Fan Control software (literally the name) and control each fan individually to maintain that and set the speed curves at different temperatures, etc. You need PWM fans for that which most fans you’d be looking at would be anyway (and most motherboards have a good number of PWM headers anymore).

Finally, you mentioned that the 4080s are “discontinued”. Nvidia doesn’t actually manufacture GPUs (except a few). They design them and then license the designs to manufacturers (MSI, Asus, etc.) and I’m pretty sure they keep making the older designs for a couple years to serve the downmarket.

We were FINALLY able to source the 5080 Graphics card, the one with the water cooler. (The business owner actually purchased it himself. I was waiting for an alert from my normal suppliers, who generally have better pricing. He got it from Amazon, and paid a couple hundred more.)

Anyway, I installed it a few days ago, and fired it up for the first time this afternoon. Installed the Graphics drivers, but the CPU water cooler fans never came on. The CPU temp went up to around 45 degrees Celcius, which is hot enough that I thought the fans should be running. The GPU cooler fans (also water cooled) came on, but only very briefly.

I have built a lot of computers, but I readily admit that this one challenged me, especially with getting all of the fans connected correctly. Or at least that is my concern, since the CPU cooler fans never came on at all. I assembled everything except for installing the graphics card months ago, and it's a bit foggy in my (aging) mind. So, is there some way I can force the fans to run, to be sure they are properly connected and configured? (Some on-line sources say that temperature range is normal, but it seems a bit high to me.)

The complete system description:
Motherboard: MSI Z790 GAMING PLUS WIFI LGA 1700 Intel Z790 SATA 6Gb/s ATX DDR5 256 GB MAX, PCI-E x16 slot Wi-Fi 6E 2.5Gbps LAN 4x M.2

CPU – Intel Core i7-14700KF - Core i7 14th Gen 20-Core (8P+12E) LGA 1700 125W No Integrated Graphics – Max Memory: 192 GB, BX8071514700KF

Heatsink, CPU Cooler: be quiet! Light Loop 360mm White CPU liquid cooler, 3x Light Wings LX 120mm PWM high-speed ARGB fan, extreme high cooling performance BW023

RAM DDR5: 96 GB Total. G.SKILL Ripjaws M5 RGB Series (2x48GB) 288-Pin RAM DDR5 5600 (PC5 44800)

SSD (Primary drive) 1 TB Western Digital Black SN850X Gaming NVMe M.2 2280 PCI-Express 4.0 x4 3D NAND, internal SSD WDBBDL0010BNC-WRSN

SSD (Secondary Drive) 2 TB Western Digital Black SN850X NVMe M.2 2280 PCI-Express 4.0 x4 3D NAND, internal SSD WDBB9H0020BNC-WRSN

case – be quiet! 600 DX (360 water cooler locations top & bottom only) [I recommended a different one, but the customer thought it was too large.]

PSU – Cooler Master MWE Gold V2 850W 80 PLUS Gold Modular.

EDIT:
Graphics card: MSI GeForce RTX 5080 16G SUPRIM LIQUID SOC

[Pelerin]

Try Fan Control. At the very least you’ll be able to see that the fans are installed properly if they’re detected and you can turn them on and off the make sure they work. Then if you want you can get into the weeds and set custom fan speeds by temperature if you want.

45° sounds fine to me, especially if that’s under full workload. I’m guessing that the default fan settings are probably set to not come on at that temperature, especially since one of the reasons for liquid cooling to to cut fan noise.