Question about horizontal vs vertical Heatsink mount

[MunkyTOS]

Hey ocers,

Saw a picture posted with what looked to be a noctua Heatsink, maybe nh-d14 mounted with the exhaust pointed up with a few mm of clearance above the gpu. Does this hinder the effectiveness of the heatsink?

 

[Conumdrum]

Well, I would think so, your saying the HS/fan was probably in a pull format to move hot air from the CPU out of the case?

My thoughts is with pull (not push/pull) air from the farthest fins will have no airflow. Due to air always choosing the last area of resistance, this more from the sides. Not using all the fin area. Push kinda ensures you use all the fins.

Nice to see that pic to decide really, you still can find it and post a link?

 

[MunkyTOS]

 

[MunkyTOS]

Thanks for the reply, I don't know specifically how the Heatsink works but I imagine both fans are pulling air up. I can't imagine it pulling much air through the bottom set of fins or move much air through the case.

 

[Conumdrum]

Yep. When it comes to airflow etc usually common sense makes a lot of difference. The top fin area will get great cooling.... The bottom part, meh, maybe not so good.

That is a HUGE heatsink and a good one. He might of had memory clearance issues the other way and had to do that. Not the best option, but we all do what we have to do to make it work.

Thankfully it's a hobby and creativity and workarounds need to be invented, and not all inventions are the best.

The poster of that pic can prolly easily move the single GPU to the second PCI slot depending on the mobo and lose no performance, allowing the fans to be put back properly.

To each thier own eh?

Note. Looking at that GPU, it's for sure not a top notch 680/7970 etc. Second slot would be fine.

 

[MunkyTOS]

That's very true and it does look as though memory could be a huge issue. I remember having that issue with the hyper 212 Evo but thankfully there was some leeway with the fan height. Thanks for the reply and input.

 

[Seebs]

Very easy fix for that setup though.

- Keep the heatsink as it is right there and move the GPU to a slot farther down. I can't get the whole model on the motherboard as the picture is a bit fuzzy, but that board is 100% an Asus P9X79... It could be the vanilla P9X79 or maybe the LE or WS... I can't make out the last two letters, but it is a P9X79 for sure and any of the variations on that model will have (at a minimum) two PCIe slots that support x16. So the owner of that computer could very easily improve his airflow by just moving the GPU down a slot or two.

 

[doyll]

Agree with Seebs. Move GPU down and it's golden.

My rule of thumb for clearance is area of fan divided by circumference equals minimum distance from flat surface. Same applies to face of cooler.. In this case cooler face area divided by total length of sides and top (bottom blocked by motherboard) equals minimum distance from GPU. Not perfect but works.