shroud or no shroud?

[Avalanche]

whats the benefit with shroud i wanna know cuz im looking at a system from overclockershideout in one of those lian li cases

 

[WarriorII]

It basically directs airflow.

Say....you have a 10" tall radiator. And 1 fan. You could use a fan shroud from to radiator to that 1 fan. Instead of using 2 fans.
Kinda like a funnel.

Or... Side case fan, and you wanted to "direct" the air flow towards the CPU. You could put a shroud on that side mounted case fan, and direct the airflow towards the CPU.
Kinda like a funnel.

 

[Diggrr]

Without a shroud, your fan only gets air movement through the grey area in the pic. Big waste of rad size and cooling surface area.
With a shroud, (fan sucking through the rad) all the fins of the radiator get airflow because the fan causes negative pressure within the entire cavity inside the shroud. The air on the outside of the rad will move toward the negative pressure, going across all the fins/tubes. The same way your car does it (for the same reason)

 

[pudgy-duck]

Besides what WarriorII and Diggrr already mentioned. If you don't use a shroud, the fan is mounted right on the radiator. This puts the edges of the fan blades right next to the radiator fins. This causes a lot of static pressure. Whenever a fan is fighting static pressure, the fan motor has to work harder, which causes more noise from the fan motor. This also causes a lot of air turbulence, which in turn causes a lot of air movement type noise and poor air flow through the radiator. Using a shroud gives much better air flow through all parts of the radiator with less noise. Both of which justify the use of a shroud.

The general rule is: A shroud should place the fan from 1 to 2 inches away from the radiator.

If you don't want to get fancy, measure the surface area of the fins. Then go to the supermarket at look at Rubbermaid "Servin' Savers". A number 2 (5 cup) "Servin Saver" just fit my radiator exactly.

Pudge

 

[Avalanche]

well im looking at one of those kool 101 cases from overclockershideout. any1 got any info on these...another choice could be the 500 buck one i guess

 

[Avalanche]

bump*

 

[Avatar28]

Just build your own setup. I was going to do something similar with a premade kit. But as someone pointed out, what's the fun in that? In all honesty, I realized that I could likely do better by building my own setup and combining the best from different companies.

The water block I'm getting from DTek. One of his new one's that not out yet. For a rad I'm torn between TDek's new Pro rad or a Black Ice Extreme. Not sure which will cool better. They're close enough in size that that's not really a consideration. A pump I'll probably find an Eheim somewhere. Chipset and video blocks I haven't determined which I want yet either.

 

[Avalanche]

im not to big on cutting the whole on top and they test there **** before they send it... duno duno duno!

 

[CrystalMethod]

Dude, hang around here a bit, spent some time in Cooling, and alt. Modding, and you can save yourself a bundle of cash. The guys around here know how to and have made better rigs for less $$$ than what you can buy premade. There's a wealth of knowledge here, you should take advantage of it. In a couple of months time you'll be the one giving the tutorials on how to make a cheap, cool looking, extreme preformance setup. No better said than "knowledge is power".