Fan shroud DIY? b-u-y? why bother?

[jediman]

At low fan speed martin shows the shroud to be a little bit of a benifit. Do ya'll feel it is worth the cash for the ~5% improvement? Do you make your own? Do you not bother shrouding at all?

link for reference http://martin.skinneelabs.com/Radiator-Fan-Orientation-And-Shroud-Testing-Review.html

[BioTuned]

Shrouds are good for radiators like heatcore, but most new radiators are spaced quarter inch (correct me if im wrong) to act like shroud to minimize the dead spot on the radiators. I stopped use shrouds after my first wc loop.

[Diggrr]

I just finished my shrouds yesterday--fiberglass, two halves, 27.5mm seperation (middle of the curve).
I'll take that 5%, and I'll enjoy even quieter Noctua's. :thup:

[Conumdrum]

Yea a shroud can help. If your nowhere near your max heatload you really don't need it. It can reduce noise, but thats kinda subjective anyway.

If your Delta T is about 5C, getting another .1 C for your water temps isn't worth it. Now, if your above 10C your stressing your loop and you'd get better temps somewhat, and a shroud is cheaper than a whole new bigger or another rad.

I have a PA 120.3, my first rad, I got the shroud, I was new at this, money was no object. But I never pushed my rad hard enough to really show any benefit. My XSPC 320 doesn't have one and again I don't need the extra performance.

[thorilan]

dig and con both covered most of what you want to know .
i will say with a system that uses cores and dense fins .... IF your case is sealed so that the only exhaust comes from 1 point and its also your core pull fan , you will want a shroud . Lots of real world setups i have done have shown benefits , especially with fans that are lower in pressure or just being run slower .
that being said todays made for computers style rads dont need them nearly as much as others here have said

[baditude_df]

I had 4 lowspeed yateloons that were getting pretty ratty from sitting in the horizontal position too long on my overhead cooling bracket. I cut the guts out of those and used them as shrouds. I can confidently say that the only noticeable improvement was the lower sound level from the fans beeing stood off from the rad a bit. Temperatures remained the same likely due to what thorilan has described above.
This is a dedicated CPU loop(in Sig) that cools a 4GHz 920 D0 for 24/7 Rosetta Crunching.