Evolv ATX TG Air Flow Tip

[mdzcpa]

Although I knew there were some modest cooling challenges to the Evolv ATX chassis I could not resist using the case for my latest build. The Evolv ATX TG was just too aesthetically gorgeous to pass up. I knew going in that mounting my H115i up top would lead to some heat build up that I've seen posted about on the net. I've also seen plenty of suggestions here on this forum to address those concerns. Some very good ideas I believe.

But I am stubborn. I really did not want to shim the front panel out, nor rest the top of the case on its clips, nor cut into the case in any manner. All of those are very good tips to improve airflow, but I want to resist altering the case's outstanding good looks in any way. So, although some of those existing tips would indeed result in better temps than what I am proposing, I thought I would mention a very simple tip that helped drop my temps a few degrees in the top of the case.

As a variation to the existing tip about blocking the unused open spaces on the radiator tray to prevent hot air from recycling back down, I decided to experiment a little. I placed my 280mm radiator in the center of the tray leaving equal space "open" both in front and behind the ends of the radiator. I then blocked off the front opening so hot air could not circulate down from that area. Instead of also blocking off the rear opening, I left it open and instead moved my rear 140mm exhaust fan up as high as possible in the existing mounting location. My remaining air flow set up is comprised of 2 x 140mm intake fans.

By leaving the opening at the rear of the radiator and mounting the fan high in the rear mount, this allows some hot air to indeed drop down the rear opening (as the top unmodified cannot vent all the air pushed up by the AIO cooler as we know) but then flow immediately out via the rear exhaust fan. Sounds simple but it worked well. This setup improved my loaded CPU temps by almost 5c over blocking both openings, or shifting the radiator full frontward or backward and blocking the one remaining opening. The improvement comes from evacuating some of the heat that builds up in the top directly out the back, AND by reducing some back pressure against the radiator fans cause by blocking all the unused radiator tray openings. The top still gets warm, but its definitely cooler running.

Although I am not running as cool as I would using all the other tips noted above, this air flow set up produces my best temperatures while leaving all case panels in original position. I thought this might be good to share here.

[doyll]

Thanks for sharing you results. Airflow is a fickled witch and often does things we have not predicted. I can understand why moving radiator all the way forward with a full fan area at the back did not give as good or better results than mounting radiator in middle and blocking front. The maximum airflow area between tray and top of case is about the same as area you have in back for airflow to move down and out back exhaust fan.

You might try removing PCIe slot covers and see if that also lowers your temperatures. Even though they are vented covers they are blcoking about 2/3 of area available when they are removed, so removing them may give better front to back airflow.

[mdzcpa]

Indeed airflow is fickle and sensitive to suble changes in flow and pressure. Putting the radiator full forward and leaving the rear space open does not result in the in same airflow. The rear space is too large and fails to channel the hot air directly in front of the rear exhaust fan allowing some hot air to simply recirculate. Also not running the rear fan at the upper most positioning results in the same issue of not having maximum amount of the hot air evacuated.

The best way to keep the hot air from recirculating is to block all the openings in the radiator tray, but doing so results in too much back pressure on the radiator and tremendous heat soak in the top of the case. The solution is to evacuate some of that hot air up there and improve air velocity through the radiator.

Mileage may vary, but I'm seeing a 4c drop in full loaded temps with this set up. That makes this case not only sweet looking but livable temp wise. Good luck to everyone!

[doyll]

What is the difference in temps with top set on top of it's latches versus being latched on? I'm guessing similar to 4c you got by flowing some of heated air down behind radiator and out the back ??

[mdzcpa]

You are correct. I just tried this today after reading your message. After about 1 hour of stress testing to heat everything up, I rested the lid on the clips. Over the next 15 minutes my loaded CPU temp dropped 3c and levelled off. So I'm suspecting both approaches yield very similar results. I am currently doing both now (resting lid on clips and leaving radiator centered and exhausting some hot air through the rear) and will post results soon.

I think I need to be less anal about lifting that lid LOL. I don't know why it bothers me to do that, but it does. I feel like we have to run the case differently then intended and it bugs me. But, I may run both the exhausting and the rested lid if this works out well. I am anticipating a 7-8c drop over leaving the lid down in place and blocking the all the holes in the tray. That's real close to the 10c achieved by removing the case lid altogether (something I would never do permanently and likely just get a new case before that step).

[doyll]

Like other CLCs the H115i is an aluminum radiator with quite dense core and fin count requiring a high performance fan to move air through them. The SP140L fan is rated 2000rpm, 104.65cfm, 40db(A) with free airflow and 3.99mmH2O pressure when air stops moving. Even with these so called high performance fans making lots of noise (look at TY-143 airflow to noise in last chart) they do not do much better than top tier air coolers .. and a 280mm CLC is moving twice as much air as an air cooler (2x 140mm side by side move twice as much air as 2x 140mm stacked if here is no resistance .. but 2x 140mm stacked have much higher pressure rating so in the end this helps).

Here is CoolingTechnique testing of H115i fan and TY-143 fan
http://www.coolingtechnique.com/rece...i.html?start=9
http://www.coolingtechnique.com/rece...e.html?start=4

P/Q graphs show now much better the TY-143 performs.
http://www.coolingtechnique.com/rece...i.html?start=9


Now to muddy the waters even more, here are air cooling and CLC temp comparisons up to 300W to show how little difference there is below say 180w between top air and CLCs

.. except the CLCs are much noisier.


Which is why I'm using air on 6 out of 7 of my systems.

Sorry for getting so long winded and off-topic.

[mdzcpa]

Thanks for the info. Yeah, kind of off topic, but good information is always welcome!


I've been water cooling all of my systems for the last 10 or 12 years. This new build is actually my first go at a basic AIO solution in my own rig as I've always ran custom loops in the past (although I have used AIO coolers successfully in my wife's and kids' systems).

That aside, the main benefit to water cooling in my opinion has always been where the heat is discharged more than noise/performance ratios (although the right water cooling system can indeed be much quieter and better performing than any air system). Where water loses out is typically in cost. Once money is factored in, high end air coolers usually win hands down. But, as an enthusiast I tend to lean to water cooling as effectiveness/noise is paramount to cost.

Although I concur that a good high end air cooler will often beat an AIO cooler in noise/efficiency, the beauty to water cooling, including the base AIO units, is that a properly placed radiator expels the heat directly out of the case. That can be said of both CPU and GPU cooling solutions. Venting directly out of the case makes a HUGE difference in overall system temps. And that has been more important then ever in the last few years with the arrival of hot running VRMs, M.2. drives, and PCHs. For this reason I will likely never go back to mounting an air cooler on a CPU inside of a case. In my opinion that just throws more heat into a case that needs to be dealt with. It's also the reason I cringe whenever I see folks mount their radiator on an intake fan position.

Hence "the rub" with the Evolv ATX. The upper radiator simply does not vent itself directly out of the case. That's a big deal. Of course I knew that going in, but I really wanted the case none the less based on it's awesome good looks. I figured I would sacrifice some cooling performance for the sake of simplicity and good looks. But for water cooling....the case does have its challenges on radiator air flow recirculation, and I would concur that for this particular case a solid air cooling solution may indeed compete very well.

Side note, I swapped my Corsair H115i fans for Phanteks MP140mm units. They are not silent at full blast, but they are much quieter than the Corsair fans and perform equally. I am also tossing around the idea of swapping to the Phanteks Luxe TG and just putting in a nice custom loop that will transfer all my GPU and CPU heat directly outside of the case in near silence. I went with the Evolv because I wanted to avoid the complexity of a customer water loop this time around and I love the looks of the case. But now that I'm here, the motivations that drove me to water cooling 10 years ago have returned. I'm not sure yet. I'm also going to delid my 7700k this weekend so maybe that suffices my need for better CPU temps. We shall see.

Last note. As I mentioned above, I ran both my rear venting set up AND the case top resting on the clips and my total drop was 8C! That's close to the 10c I saw by ignoring the open spaces in the radiator tray and just running the case with the top off (something I would never do full time). If my CPU temps reach my goal using the rear venting and a de-lidded/improved TIM 7700k, I'm done. If not, I see a custom water loop in a different case in my future....

[doyll]

I agree with much of what you are saying, but not that air cooled CPUs dump heat in case. Tower coolers flow their heated exhaust back toward the back exhaust. Often motherboard components run cooler with a good air cooler (and low / normal 33mm tall RAM) than water cooled CPU systems do .. reason is obviously air coolers flow air over the motherboard around the CPU which results in lower temps of chips in that area .. the area of most hi-heat chips.

GPUs coolers are a total FUBAR. The draw air in on on side but dump heated exhaust in all 4 directions off of their PCB .. even toward motherboard where the only place it can go is back into GPU's fans .. and same applies for air coming off of front end of GPU cooler.

I'm running a 6700K under TRUE Spirt 140 rev.A in Evolv ATX on air with no problems .. high 20s @ 700rpm idle and low 50s@ 1050-1150rpm encoding. KF2A GTX 7700 LTD OC with Arctic F9 PWM fans in custom shroud and no problems with heat or noise levels.
KFA2 GTX 770 LTD OC & F2 fans.jpg

[mdzcpa]

Final note to my thread, albeit my comment continues to be off topic.

I de-lidded my 7700K. It was simple, took less than an hour from start to finish, and produced tremendous results. Previous fully loaded CPU temps would hit 78C. This is with a mild overclock of 4.7GHz @ 1.26v after 60 minutes of ASUS Real Bench Stress Test and after I set up my radiator and fans as noted in my first post. Originally I was hitting 82C with the radiator tray completely blocked off.

With the de-lidding (using a Rockit 88 De-lid tool) and application of Coollaboratory Liquid Ultra as a new TIM material, I know max out at 56C. A 22C drop! With that improvement I upped my overclock to 5Ghz at 1.31v and it is completely stable, something before that I could not achieve. Max temps at 5Ghz @ 1.31v hit 62C. So I am running 300mhz higher and 20C cooler. I'd call that a resounding success!! And I'm please to say that I'm staying with my simple AIO cooler and the gorgeous Evolv TG case

EDIT: Missed the previous post by doyll:

I agree air cooled GPUs FUBAR case temps. Big time. In the past I've water cooled the GPUs and the VRMs around the CPU socket for the reasons you noted above. These AIO coolers do not do as well around the CPU socket keeping VRMs cool as do a good air cooled solution. I completely agree.