It's been so cool to hear from so many of you about how flipping your radiator to tubes down fixed your noise issues! Thanks for the awesome questions! Lot of newer or mainstream viewers in that previous one, so we took some time to sort of re-walk through some stuff and answer new ones here. First video here: ruclips.net/video/BbGomv195sk/видео.html Grab a high-quality GN Wireframe Mouse Mat for a desk-sized mousing surface and support our testing directly: store.gamersnexus.net/products/gn-wireframe-mouse-mat Or a GN Medium Modmat for PC builds: store.gamersnexus.net/products/medium-modmat-gpu
You guys did nothing wrong with the last video, it was fine. Everyone seems a little high strung these days with human malware. Just ignore it and push on, it's a very, very small percent of your viewers, very small. Don't sweat it.
19:54 I was actually missing some pictures like that in the previous video. It makes it relatively easy to show a bunch of correct and wrong orientations that folks can then compare too. Was surprised ya only went with video showing a few positions.
Hey I just wanted to say thank you for doing this content, i've been catching up on my own knowledge and have never used an AIO before so I didn't know a lot of this stuff at all and found it really useful. Also my large modmat arrived yesterday so thank you for that, you guys should see it featured on my channel soon when our first series of DIY videos go live.
Hey, as a 'main stream' audience member I just wanted to say this: Thank you for this explination. I am building my very first PC with a standard AIO watercooler and the first video was clear enough. It made me check my stuff and I actually already mounted the cooler the correct way, but now I know why it's correct. The AIO manual doesn't say anything about it (Corsair H100i). Anyway I just wanted to mention that mainstream audience is layered into 'new enthousiasts' and others :) I suppose I belong to the 'new enthousiast' group and that is entirely thanks to RUclipsrs like yourself and people like Jay and Linus. So I want to THANK YOU for everything you do, keep up the good work! You've helped me discover a new passion which might actually turn into a new job opportunity, as I am currently unemployed. Thanks again, from a fellow curly-head.
Bold move using an aio for your first build. FYI check it every so often for leaks. Just a water cooling thing. Doesn't matter if it's an aio or custom loop.
Isn’t GN a goldmine? I keep trying to subscribe to other places and outside some really specific instances, just end up arguing with other channels. If you have not tried them yet, HardwareUnboxed (upside down steve) is equally knowledgable but in their own way and not much actually overlaps between the two channels (GN & HUB). De8auer is pretty good but more for educational or random extreme stuff though he has some build videos that are ok to watch. Another really fun channel for more of a beginner flair is JayzTwoCents. He orients his channel for that kind of stuff. Good luck!
@@Pakulia Same here. GN gives you the hard and fast, *reliable* numbers, while Jayz brings a good second perspective and a nice bit of levity. They make an excellent combination.
I was looking for this comment to see if I needed to make it... It's incredible the fact that he has to explain a 90 degree rotation on the horizontal access changes nothing about the results he talked about... It reminds me of when I was like 2 or 3 years old and the concepts of object transitivity were still not entirely 100% concrete, or I was realizing that some words were root words to other words... It's just such strong evidence that people aren't even trying to think about what is actually going on at all, and just looking for a perfect visual representation of their system with big letters that say "BAD" or "GOOD" next to them...
I was panicking - trying desperately to rip side off my system unit - I could hear the pump whine rising - the acrid smell of burning plastic choking me - blackness closing in... just managed to get the side off in time - there I could see it. Mounted correctly - everything was fine. I told the lady on the phone (I had called the fire department shrieking at them I was going to die) to get lost, settled back in my chair, and breathed a long, deep sigh. Then my house fell down. Thanks a lot Gamer's Nexus.
"Engineers, there's some really good ones and there's some new ones" As a newer engineer I both laughed and felt personally attacked. 100% agree though, great video.
The problem is, there are thousands of completely different jobs engineers do, and hundreds of degrees and jobs with "engineer" in the name... That in my opinion should say tech ( nothing wrong with that at all BTW). Also just beacuase you can complete even an ivy league course doesn't mean you have the ability to use that knowledge well.
@@andrewt.5567 that's because "the devil is in the details" as the saying goes, and everyone knows that the devil is bad right, therefore the details must be bad by association. ;-)
So,as a smart math guy, or gal, is it best to push the fluids uphill, because of science and their related equations. Pump should always be at the bottom, if possible, right. Does this apply to open loops. Look dude; I suck at math, okay. Be thankful you're good at it. Not everyone can do that! Basically, what I got out 9f this video is, pump at bottom, and do not put a radiator at the bottom. And it is better to push water uphill, rather than downhill, because air tends to go to the highest point. Lol, if I am annoying you, please don't answer. I just want to place components, the best way possible, and you gave the ability, to understand those complex equations, that they talk about.
Thank you so much Steve for taking the time to re-explain it to to an audience at a different level than your regular viewers. Really shows the caliber of your character.
Experience counts ..... All Engineers make mistakes but the good engineers learn from them and never make the same mistake twice ..... If you can't admit to a mistake you'll always be at the bottom tier .... There are several politicians that could learn from these facts too ......
I don’t know if I dug this comment. This is totally true, but a big company will have a big team of engineers, both experienced/good and inexperienced/not as good. So the overall product shouldn’t have key design flaws unless literally the *entire* engineering team was bad.
As a veteran builder that still enjoys learning new things, I absolutely enjoyed this and the last video. You going the extra effort for clarification with a 2nd video is admirable.
-"How is it wrong if it fits?" *Set of Possible Responses:* 1. That's like hearing someone else ask: _How could chlorine be poisonous if you can drink it?_ 2. That's what she said. 3. That's what I told her. 4. ???
I can fit my underpants on my head. Do we believe that's the correct way to wear underpants? If you answered 'yes', you probably shouldn't be installing a CPU cooler without responsible adult supervision anyway.
I had a NZXT X62 Kraken front mounted in a NZXT H510i, so you could maybe call this a joined up solution where they have been designed to fit together. I had it tubes up and it all fitted very nicely top and bottom of the radiator (...and it matched the NZXT photos...) I flipped it round so the tubes were at the bottom. It fits but not as nicely. You have to use all of the available tolerance on the radiator bracket to get it to fit and even then the tubes look uncomfortably tight to the bottom of the case. The 'mainstream audience' would i think draw the conclusion from all of this that the AIO has been designed to be installed front mounted, tubes up and that tubes down is wrong. (1 day in and the clicking noise the pump makes has not gone...)
@@ramshead7379 I've had my 360mm aio front mounted with tubes at the top (but pump/block is at a slightly lower level) for a few years now (think this unit has a gen3 or gen4 pump), the pump speed is low enough that it doesn't pull air through from the radiator and make noise unless the system is really hot where the fans are going balls out and a slight occasional air bubble noise is of no concern.
It kinda goes both ways. Both shouldn't be allowed to talk to customers without hearing, accepting and regarding the other ones expertise. But so far I found no company that really had a good interface between marketing and engineering people (I'm on the engineering side of things) and thus marketing is usually hot garbage.
I was the head software guy for a product we had at this one company. I got sent on site and to some "very technical" conferences. People using our stuff would ask questions and I could tell them very detailed answers. In one case, I answered a question and someone said "are you sure that's the way it works?" and I replied "yeah, I wrote that bit myself" or the equivalent. I could also tell them stuff like "yeah, it doesn't quite work that way." or "don't do it that way, this other way is faster". They seemed to really like that. Marketing found out and weren't happy. My "marketing" trips became fewer.
@StubbornProgrammer Dude,the problem was that 14 year old kids were trying to show off their "computer knowledge and expertise" and "interpret" Steve's lessons to other 14 years old without computer knowledge. Did you really thought anything other than this would happen?
No,HERE'S the REAL TL:DR: MARKETING people don't "talk" to the PUBLIC. But an eager 14 year old's "know-it-alls" just love to represent as "experts" and pass their "knowledge" to other 14 year old's with less knowledge....
I very recently grabbed an Arctic Freezer II AIO cooler and I was pleased to see your video on the instruction manual page. I had already watched it when looking at other stuff, but it was nice to see just how much Arctic were showing it as part of the installation instructions. It really did a great job of explaining most of it without needing the actual physics lesson about how top of a loop is the highest point of the whole system and not a highest local point.
@@iankemp2627 If you consider yourself an "enthusiast" but won't watch or read the entirety of something are you even actually an enthusiast? Or just a poser who wants to act like they know things when they really don't understand any of it and just use cookie cutter settings/setups?
all the different ways you held it - especially 120mm rad with the pump centered - was super helpful. I've been building PCs for 20 some years, including professionally for a while but it's nice to see for sure that I understand the mechanics and I'm not causing premature failure in things I send out into the world.
Coming from someone who's brand new to PC (currently making the switch from console and doing my first build) I think these videos are the perfect length to learn most everything you need to know. Its not often I can take this much knowledge away from a 30 minute sitting when I had none prior. It just goes to show how much work you're putting in and how little the viewers are! I appreciate the content as it is.. hope other noobs agree 👍
Not gunna lie I watched a bitwit video before this, I now can't stop staring at how the cooler is mounted in his system, it's the worst case scenario XD
He put out a half hour long video, in calm and vivid detail, explaining benefits and setbacks of various orientations. And everyone panicks!? The world is so tense right now, wow.
@@arbalestt4590 not everyone has the patience to watch a half-hour video. Most youtube content is much shorter than that. Many people aren't interested in learning all the details and nuances of a topic and just want a quick and dirty explanation. And if there's something they don't understand, they just want that one specific question answered in the comments rather than sitting through a half-hour video to see if their question happens to be answered. It's just how people are. They're not idiots for it.
@@KDub57 (near) instant gratification. The bane of modern society. Maybe more relatable, understandable analogies (like, in this case, how the cooling system & radiator in your car works) might help with this subject matter, but I suspect most people barely know where their coolant reservoir is when they open the hood ;)
@@arbalestt4590 Some people had to start off somewhere. It was hard for me to digest all the information too in that 30min video, and the second video helped. Maybe just be happy that there is ever-growing interest and people actually want to learn :)
I know this will get lost in the flood of comments that I was just reading....but coming from one of the mainstream viewers that really just got turned on to your channel - thank you. I haven’t built a system in over a decade, but thanks to your content I am almost through my midrange build. This video (and the one that necessitated this one lol) provided exactly the information I needed to not only do it right - but to know WHY it’s right. That’s in addition to the ones I have watched from you covering the rest of my build. Thanks for catching me up and helping revive an old addiction.
Definitely admire the patience you have with people. It would be easy to get frustrated to the point of not wanting to bother clarifying for people but it seems like you feel a sense of duty to giving people the truth and correct information.
@@nocturnal0072 i have a welder i thot about doing sheet metal rat rod build with a small Atv rad paint it copper sticking out of the case on the front.. some mock sparkplug wires.... but i need a new desk for that.
I just wanted to say thanks for these vids. I've tearing down and building for over 20 years, and running AIO in every build for almost a decade now, and only earlier today while watching the first of these did I even consider running I/O at the bottom of the rad. Inspired me to re-mount my ML240 inside my NZXT510 and got a couple degrees back from having to run fans front blowing through, rather than fans back drawing. I had never realized just how many of the promo images (and indeed reference builds in image searches) have pipes up that were implicitly guiding my mounting orientation. Even the 510 itself has a cutaway in the rad mounting plate for pipes-up to face back through the plate, and all of NZXT's material shows pipes up. Also, if anyone finds this comment and is curious, a CM ML240 will orient pipes-down in this case while working around an Aurus 2080 in the top slot, but it's millimetrically close, and requires the radiator to be mounted in the highest possible position on the inside of the mounting plate. If I could do it all over again, I'd change cases to something that had space for the rad up top instead.
It's pretty much why a cars engine cooling system it set up like it is. The radiator is the highest point and the pump (and the coolant passages in the engine) sit lower than the highest point of the radiator (yes the radiator in a car is set up slightly different as the radiator inlet is at the top, and the radiator outlet is at the bottom). It's pretty much to avoid air being trapped in the engine. I understood your video pretty clearly.
also the inlet to the engine is on the bottom and the outlet from the engine is at the top, ensuring the engine doesnt suck air as long as the radiator has some water
@@christophervanzetta that has nothing to do with what i said. of course you put antifreeze into coolant. it lowers its freezing temp and raises its boiling temp but that has no relevance to what i said
Thank you from the bottom of my heart (top too) I have always (30+years) been an air cooled kind of guy and shunned watercooled for the simple fact I did not need that kind of complexity or heat removal. Coming up soon, I will - and you explained a lot of details that are important to know. Please disregard those that won't at least TRY to think through a problem and make it seem like you did something wrong. If you ever drank a soda from a bottle, you should be able to think through the issues of water and air in a closed system. You did a good job. Thanks again.
Both of these were worth the journey, and I really appreciated having the visual that shows me the water flow inside the AIO. For those of you wondering how well various pre-builts do, I thought it's worth mentioning that in 2010 Alienware got it right: my overclocked Area-51 ALX is still running great today. I had a brief hiatus using an H80i and then went back to the stock cooler - which was always top-mounted, tubes down. I just fixed one of my DIYs after watching the first of these - thanks again for all the effort!
Thank you Steve for this follow up, after watching your video yesterday i imminently changed my orientation but was scared, but this video helped ease my mind about my aio lol
22:13 - As a physicist/engineer, I approve this XD This channel is amazing! Keep the good work! I remember seeing a comparison between front and top-mounted rads*. I think it can really depend on the ventilation of the case**, as there are several factors that come into play here. Might be interesting to see you doing a comparison of your own between mounting positions***. Anyway, as you said, this is not nearly enough as important as the acoustic/performance issue caused by mounting improperly, so if you can't mount it properly at the front just mount it at the top. * Assuming top means as exhaust ** Won't matter as much in a well-ventilated case (hypothesis) ***** Will also be more informative if replicated between different cases. (sry had to do this)
Heat rises is absolutely a factor though. If CFMs matter, contending with natural air movement tendencies matters by default. Hot air will more naturally exhaust at the top, so if the radiator is slowing down the air movement at the top (and it does) then the case will trap more heat. It depends on how much intensity your system is driven to overall of course, but if you're pushing high frame rates at 4K and maxing out your CPU and graphics card, you're probably not going to want them to throttle. Nowadays, CPUs will react not just to high temps, but perceived head room. Small clock differences can matter a lot, as Jay's review of the Ryzen 3000 XT series showed and as Intel benchmarks show.
You don't even need to study for anything to understand this tbh, hot air goes up and if it's in a closed system it will try to go to the highest thing. So make sure it stays trapped instead of it always being moved around within the system.
People with bottom mounted radiator **Panik** Steve informing them, that it won't explode overnight **Kalm** Steve adding "most likely" to the sentence **Panik**
Steve, I love your content and your willingness to go to lengths to help people understand a topic. I watched the first video and basically you said front mounted rads with the barbs positioned at the top is a sub-optimal position and changing it to either front mounted barbs down or a top mounted orientation solves an acoustics issue whereas changing from a bottom mounted rad solves an issue related to longevity of the pump performance. Basically, because all AIOs are not 100% filled with liquid, it is advised to orientate the rad so both the pump and the barbs don't inherit the pocket of air within the loop. To achieve this, the rad would either be front mounted with the barbs down or top mounted. This would ensure that the air would rise to a non-malignant area of the AIO liquid loop.
23:46 I was little disappointed on the side mount case. I think what the original question was meant on the case when one of the tube is above the motor, but the other one is under. like the NR200 or other sff cases. the air will be spread out through the long side of the radiator so it's most likely be ok as long as it doesn't create big air pocket in the motor, other then having occasional gurgling noise. I just wanted to see at which point that would be the problem with your mod AIO.
It's actually extremely easy to solve the problem for front mounted radiators with tubes up. All the manufacturers have to do is have the IN and OUT tubes just slightly more towards the middle of the radiator. This will prevent air from getting back into the loops and could also solve the problem for tubes down since at the moment the long graphics cards (RTX 3080s and 2080s - tubes are too short to cross over them) make it impossible to have that orientation in more traditional cases (unless you use a case like the Lian li o11).
This is essentially how a lot of hot water storage cylinders work, in the UK at least. The outlet is on the top of the tank with a dip tube dropping down inside, this means the tank cannot be vented of its top section of air, creating an "expansion gap". This eliminates the need for separate expansion requirements if sized correctly for the system and should never drag air once it has finished initially filling/venting.
Because of your previous video I purchased a new case (the huge Thermaltake X71 ) and moved my AIO to the top. I have had zero issues since, and the new case is really, really easy to work on - so thank you!
Parts hunting for a new system this month and really want to thank you chaps for your coverage of topics, going beyond just a "standard" review. Was looking into the EVGA hybrid 3080 and the arctic liquid freezer ii 280mm cooling solutions for the CPU/GPU and trying to find a case that best fits to AIO cooling systems. (Not an easy task). This information was very helpful for me to eliminate cases that set up bottom rad configurations. Really chaps you are doing a bang up job. Found you lot in 2016 when i bought my last DIY system and now four years later I am hunting down reviews of products old and new. Thank you.
Shortest summary: * Pump below highest point of radiator = good. * Pump above highest point or radiator = bad. * Pump Way below highest point of radiator = Best
32:08 I laughed so hard at this, i spilled half my coffee over my GN Mouse Mat (store.gamersnexus.net).) Sadly this is a problem you come across quite frequently when trying to explain technical things to people on the business side of the company.... Where sometimes it would be enough just to pay attention throughout the whole explanation instead of waiting for a "simple" conclusion at the end. Some things just aren't simple enough to be understood with a 2 sentence conclusion. Really speaking to my heart there Steve
Steve, thank you for this. Did my first build with a 3 fan radiator and mounted it in the front of the case. There was nothing in the documentation with the cooler to make sure that the barbs were at the bottom. While my pump is not at the top of the loop, I am still in that sub-optimal category. I will look into flipping the rad this week, I appreciate this amount of information. It is super important to not only know the how, but why. I had no idea that the entire system was not filled 100% with liquid. TDiL
13:32 (Also 24:00) I was one of those probably incredibly annoying people asking for clarification on this - that visual _really_ helps, completely cleared my confusion about the wrong and right way to front mount an AIO. AIOs and the terminology for their parts are new to me (I was dead set on only using fans until I heard about the Liquid Freezer II that sold out before I could buy one), so it was kind of tricky to understand from the description itself.
"I've learned something new, I need to go pester someone and belittle them for not knowing it." This is such a common attitude on the internet, and it's mind-boggling.
Hey man, it was a great video that definitely made me think about my future with aio as my tubes don't reach all the way down. There was no panic for me but it is pretty clear that a high quality air cooler will be a much more failsafe design and may end up with a similar level of noise anyway. I may end up going back to air before too long. Great work as always
Thank you for explaining in detail, again. I did watch your whole "Stop Doing it wrong Video" but wasn't confident I knew for sure how to correctly install an AIO. Now I'm confident to not put the water block at the top of the loop period. I'm a noob about to build my first pc, and a high end AMD at that and you cleared up a lot including how to install and the normal life expectancy of a water cooler when installed correctly. Again Thank you for all the great diagnostic and detective info.
People wouldn’t have thought that tubes down means having the pump at the top of the loop if they had just watched the whole video. Steve very clearly explained the ideal layout. This seems like more of a problem with people clicking on the video, not wanting to bother with any of the explanations, scrolling down to the comments and asking questions that would have been answered had they simply watched the video. There are two ends of a radiator. One end has tubes coming out and one does not. You can have the tubes down and simultaneously have the tube-free end of the radiator situated above the pump block. Just make sure the very top of the radiator, the end without the tubes, sits higher than the block. Job done. Or just top-mount the radiator.
I might be mis-interpreting this, but I think the clearest way to explain the issue is to imagine that your entire AIO is transparent and you can watch the bubbles moving around when you jiggle the AIO. In the current orientation, where are the bubbles going to go? Are they gonna pool inside the pump? That's not good, since these pumps aren't the kind that pump air. Are they gonna pool inside the radiator? That's the best place for them to be, but don't forget that the pump sucks liquid out of the radiator via the tubes. Is the pump going to be sucking bubbles? If so, then flipping the radiator to move the bubbles to the opposite end will fix this!
I like when you said the "short attention span audience is not who you cater to" I agree, your videos are not for people who can't pay attention. You provide so much in depth detail and information those people just can't grasp the concepts you talk about. I love your videos. I get a lot of information that helps me make decisions about my current build. I have to rewatch bits here and there to make sure I understood something properly from time to time, but I don't mind that. Keep up the great content and I will keep coming back.
Thanks for the clarification video! To begin, as a noob in liquid coolers, I was so confused with what "tubes at the top/bottom" means, because I did not know whether that meant off the pump or off the radiator, but the 25:50 topic covers that. I personally had a bit of confusion with the "examples of correct/incorrect installation" part in the previous video just because the voice over and the b-rolls weren't explaining the same thing all the time. It also initially almost sounded to me like tubes on the top would really damage the cooler to me. It makes a lot of sense now though after doing a ton more research and watching this video. I had an issue with air just being completely trapped in the system causing my cpu to crash from overheating and I realized that was because I had the pump in the middle of the loop but the tubes at the top. Flipping it upside down for a while and bleeding it fixed everything. My new build's gonna have a big chungus GPU that would be impossible for the tubes to go to the bottom of the rad without having to go in front of the GPU but it's reassuring knowing that my pc won't explode from the tubes being at the top.
Ever since the other video people think their an AIO expert. I do have my tubes up, and it’s like Steve said, it’s mainly for noise, but can effect the pump over time with permeation. My pump is whisper quiet right now so I am happy where it’s at. When it does start to make noise I will top mount the AIO in a new case. People need to pay attention more. I don’t even like posting build photos anymore since everyone is an AIO expert now and says move your radiator lol.
Just shoot them back with "just because I can technically fit [a dangerous object] into [something said object do not belong, or an orifice even] doesn't mean it's right."
Thanks for the follow up video, I didn't post any questions however only just getting into PC building. And both videos really helped and has given me some confidence to start doing AIO installs and one-day a custom loop.
Thank you for the awseome explinations GN. I am at 11:30. Your bottle analogy was great, I understand now the idea: If you flip the radiator with the tubes down, the air in the loop goes up, so the pump will get only watter. If the tubes are up, being that the air is also up, that means that the pump will get that air in (it makes perfect sense after all, because the tubes are after all, the phisical means to get fluid to the pump, so like a strow in a cocktail: if what is at the other end of the strow is liquid, you will get liquid, but if what is at the other end of the strow is ice cubes and... air, that is what you will "drink"). I will keep watching your video now, to make shure that I fully understend what you are trying to say...
would it make sense for AIO manufacturers to start offering coolers with longer tubing to fit the needs of different use cases? to me it seems very odd that there are situations where if one wants to install a 360mm AIO front-mounted that there's a chance the tubes won't be long enough to install the cooler in the optimal orientation. I personally use a Lian-Li Lancool Mesh case which allows the use of a front-mounted 360mm AIO, but only up to a 280mm AIO at the top. My GPU is a Sapphire Nitro+ 5700xt which is an exceptionally long card. That puts me in a position where I would likely have to sacrifice the performance of the 360mm AIO as the tubing likely won't be long enough to make its way from the bottom of the radiator, around the GPU, and up to the CPU socket. I'm pretty much playing the devil's advocate here, as for my use case a 280mm AIO would be more than sufficient to cool my CPU efficiently, BUT for those who use a much more power-hungry chip, why are they put in a position where in some way, shape, or form, they need to sacrifice cooling potential or commit to a much more complicated and expensive solution in order for everything to operate in its optimal configuration?
I would disagree with this because you are now just creating two high spots for air to build, both pump and rad. It makes more sense to have the tubing always traveling uphill from the pump so water settles in the pump and any trapped air can travel away from the pump while not circulating.
@@LiquidFoxDesigns that can easily be avoided by NOT MOUNTING the radiator. Mount the pump, put the rad in the correct position outside the case. Let it run for a couple minutes/hours, shake a little bit. After that, you can be sure that there is no bubbles in the pump. Now you can mount the rad in the front panel, slowly and making sure you don't turn it so the bubbles are kept at the rad. At least that's how I always did.
I'm in the same case I have a Lancool II Mesh and I don't know if i should take a 240 AIO to put at the top of my case, or a 360 and take risks to put it with the hoses/tubes at the top and not at the bottom because tubes are too short...
Great video ... you're spot on about cavitation. As background, I was an engineer at a heavy manufacturer for 35 years. We manufactured pumps up to 60" and above driven by motors with up to 1000 HP. We also manufactured micro processor driven industrial control valves big enough for an average size human to walk right through. Cavitation was a prime and constant concern. You are correct that it is highly unlikely/impossible (depending on fluid used). Cavitation is caused by a fluid that due to velocity/temp/pressure drops below it's vapor pressure and then enters an area of higher pressure causing the vapor bubbles to implode releasing a tremendous amount of energy causing extreme erosion. We had world class metallurgists and in our testing there is no metal capable of resting extreme damage. We tested all forms of hardened, boron diffused, plasma transfer of hard facing materials, you name it we tried it. All of this to say that if cavitation could occur in an AIO, the plastic impellers would not stand a chance. They would erode away in seconds. So I completely agree that with the fluids used in AIO's (and their associated vapor pressure/temperature curves) it would be next to impossible to cavitate a well built AIO. Great content ... keep it up.
I used to own Hybrid FTW GTX 1070 from EVGA and I have to appreciate the inclusion of the insert that shows correct radiator orientation when installing. What I got from GN's content is that apparently not everyone does that.
I didn't see "Tubes Down Don't Reach?" actually get addressed here. I assume it's just some answer like "well it won't last as long so maybe it'll feel bad but what can ya do?" from the last one.
I like the "nerding out" style of the videos. I've been working on computers for over 15 years, and I still learn quite a bit from GN due to the fact that you all don't try to make "TL:DR" videos.
Less than 10 degrees C(between the x72 and the Deepcool and Noctua) when noise normalized means that unless you're hotboxing the CPU those better thermals are largely irrelevant. But I suppose I should amend my initial statement to cover all the bases. Aesthetics, form factor issues, very poor case airflow, or bragging rights. In terms of everyday performance the difference is a negligible. While Ryzen technically improves it's clock speed at lower temperatures, for a actual significant difference you need to drop it farther than an AIO can.
@@GamersNexus Are we talking steady state, because my PC runs for days at a time, doing workstation stuff. Steady state is irrelevant. The Noctua does a great job and cools the VRM's to boot. My install is nice and clean. I don't really want a couple of tubes hanging down from a radiator. There's also 0.0% chance my D15 would ever spring a leak. I remain unconvinced.
FWIW, I think some of this (not all, but SOME) confusion might be alleviated with more aggressive, dare we say "hand holding" titles. The current subs are fine honestly, but I understand how they might be easy to overlook for someone watching on a smaller screen, or who has a brief attention span. I'll admit, I have found myself occasionally absorbed by the image only to realize too late that I missed a sub in time to read it in entirety and had to skip back or pause to catch the full context. A lot of folks who were TL:DR to begin with might not do that. Alternately: Some of y'all didn't pay attention in your basic physics class, and it shows.
Ideally, you want the CPU/pump at the lowest point to keep air out of it. But we cannot move it, because the CPU cannot be moved, so we move the radiator to be higher. Also, we want ALL the air to be trapped in the large mid-rad return header (opposite end from the rad inlet/outlet), where it can do the least harm to flow. BUT: It can also matter how you orient the pump and run the hoses. If there is air already inside the pump (pretty likely from shipping) with connectors at the pump bottom, and you run the hoses down out the bottom of the pump, dipping even lower before going back up again to the rad, then you have made it very difficult for the pump to fully expel it's existing trapped air. Any air that doesn't get fully pushed out will remain trapped in the pump case high point when the pump is stopped. In theory, you want the pump connections on top and the hoses routed continuously upward to the rad inlet/outlet. And the rad itself vertical (or slightly tilted) so the air gets trapped in the mid-rad return header (opposite end from the connections). But this may not be possible for many PC case designs.
11:30 this might had been clearer for people to understand if you had taken like 1 minute to show all of the correct ways vs incorrect ways the CLC should be mounted in a case at the start of the video, and not spaced apart throughout the video. What seems basic for someone can be rocket science to another.
Yeah that's because your intent is to be the quick fix "do it this way. I am the authority and you should just do what I tell you without explanation" whereas the way the video was actually presented was in such a way for the viewer to be educated on why the incorrect ways are wrong and the correct ways are good. That's the difference between actually teaching and what it seems just about every other teacher wants to do which is just say "do it this way because I said so."
@@_GntlStone_ basically, if I remember correctly, anything Asetek, will have a pump and a rad, whereas if it isn't an Asetek model or licensed by Asetek, it'll be a pump-in-rad design... The reason they do that, is that they are forced to comply with Asetek patents and to avoid copyrights, they add the pump into the radiator, not that that's a good idea necessarily... I think Steve has taken apart a few pumps of that design, and he states something to the effect of the different design being because they want to bypass Asetek's patents... So, TL;DR anything with a separate pump and rad, at least in an AIO, will at least be licensed products of Asetek's designs, if I'm not mistaken
I am new to AIO so seeing both videos helps me a lot to understand about them. when i decided to build computer in the future i will make sure to review both videos again when purchasing parts.
this guy is always so good at explaining everything and doesn't sugar coat anything, only reason i enjoy this content, this is the best youtube channel that is explaining in-depth pc stuff
Does the size of the rad affects its longevity? (Large volume of liquid in the loop with larger volume in rad for air bubbles, along with lower temps in avg.)
Not really because were talking about volume and not quantity, IE if a company makes all rads to 90% water to air then a 120MM will still be 90% water by volume as a 360MM would be meaning there is between the two the same amount of water to air ratio per mm of tank size.
@@MichaelJohnson-uo3ef I agree with the liquid to air ratio at the exit of factory. I'm not sure I understand your logic however when you're distinguishing between volume and quantity. I agree that the quantity of each is determined by their ratio and that this total quantity is limited by the total volume. BUT, how would a change in the quantity of air to liquid ratio as the rad is being used, affect it's lifespan? Comparing a 360mm rad to a 120mm, the larger rad contains a larger volume of liquid and air (even though the ratios of water to air are equal for both rads). This would mean a larger time for the liquid to heat up (liquid has high heat capacity), a larger surface area in which (even though some volume of liquid is lost after use) the remaining liquid can cool through (less pronounced effect when replacing liquid to air in rad) which would all lead towards cooler plastics around the CPU. Logically... if I'm not forgetting something obvious, leading to possibly a larger lifespan?
I will say I saw one manufacturer video/install instruction that demonstrated what your video said was the "ideal" configuration for your AIO. Only one. All in all your video was very informative. Thanks again. This also allowed better utilization of the space in my case lol.
Good video. Recently moved my build from a Corsair 760t to a Lancool ii performance. When moving the Corsair 280mm AI0 (4 yrs old) from the top of the 760t to the front of the Lancool ii with the tubes up because the lines were not long enough otherwise, my system overtemped. Trouble shooting showed the AIO failed. Replaced with new AIO with no overheating. Tossed the old AIO into the trash. It probably would have worked in one of my other systems with the tubes down but it is now in a landfill somewhere. I know better and should not have trashed it. Thanks for the video but for me the reminder was too little too late. Thanks and keep telling and reminding us about issues like these.
It's been so cool to hear from so many of you about how flipping your radiator to tubes down fixed your noise issues! Thanks for the awesome questions! Lot of newer or mainstream viewers in that previous one, so we took some time to sort of re-walk through some stuff and answer new ones here.
First video here: ruclips.net/video/BbGomv195sk/видео.html
Grab a high-quality GN Wireframe Mouse Mat for a desk-sized mousing surface and support our testing directly: store.gamersnexus.net/products/gn-wireframe-mouse-mat
Or a GN Medium Modmat for PC builds: store.gamersnexus.net/products/medium-modmat-gpu
Gamers Nexus hi
You guys did nothing wrong with the last video, it was fine. Everyone seems a little high strung these days with human malware. Just ignore it and push on, it's a very, very small percent of your viewers, very small. Don't sweat it.
19:54 I was actually missing some pictures like that in the previous video. It makes it relatively easy to show a bunch of correct and wrong orientations that folks can then compare too. Was surprised ya only went with video showing a few positions.
Great Follow up Steve, Thank you for the detailed info, always great watching these.
Hey I just wanted to say thank you for doing this content, i've been catching up on my own knowledge and have never used an AIO before so I didn't know a lot of this stuff at all and found it really useful. Also my large modmat arrived yesterday so thank you for that, you guys should see it featured on my channel soon when our first series of DIY videos go live.
Short Version: Sit down, be patient and learn. Not everything can be explained in a 5 minute video. Great job as always Steve.
Side mounted. No one is taking your information in lol, are the tubes at the top? Then it makes no difference if its side, back or front.
Love this comment
Can someone TL:DR this comment for me?
@@hugevibez tl:dr : no tl:dr for the video.
Really short version - use an air cooler.
Hey, as a 'main stream' audience member I just wanted to say this: Thank you for this explination. I am building my very first PC with a standard AIO watercooler and the first video was clear enough. It made me check my stuff and I actually already mounted the cooler the correct way, but now I know why it's correct. The AIO manual doesn't say anything about it (Corsair H100i).
Anyway I just wanted to mention that mainstream audience is layered into 'new enthousiasts' and others :) I suppose I belong to the 'new enthousiast' group and that is entirely thanks to RUclipsrs like yourself and people like Jay and Linus. So I want to THANK YOU for everything you do, keep up the good work! You've helped me discover a new passion which might actually turn into a new job opportunity, as I am currently unemployed. Thanks again, from a fellow curly-head.
Bold move using an aio for your first build.
FYI check it every so often for leaks.
Just a water cooling thing. Doesn't matter if it's an aio or custom loop.
This is the kind of comment I love to see. :)
Isn’t GN a goldmine? I keep trying to subscribe to other places and outside some really specific instances, just end up arguing with other channels. If you have not tried them yet, HardwareUnboxed (upside down steve) is equally knowledgable but in their own way and not much actually overlaps between the two channels (GN & HUB). De8auer is pretty good but more for educational or random extreme stuff though he has some build videos that are ok to watch. Another really fun channel for more of a beginner flair is JayzTwoCents. He orients his channel for that kind of stuff.
Good luck!
@@bookworm8415 Thanks! I actually already follow pretty much all of them haha, Paul's Hardware too. But GN and Jay2C are definitely my favourites :)
@@Pakulia Same here. GN gives you the hard and fast, *reliable* numbers, while Jayz brings a good second perspective and a nice bit of levity. They make an excellent combination.
Watching Steve trying not to call peoples comments stupid/lacking common sense, is the best part of this.
This seriously needs more likes
I don't understand how he manage to do it... I did facepalm a few time reading the questions 🤦♂️
I was looking for this comment to see if I needed to make it... It's incredible the fact that he has to explain a 90 degree rotation on the horizontal access changes nothing about the results he talked about... It reminds me of when I was like 2 or 3 years old and the concepts of object transitivity were still not entirely 100% concrete, or I was realizing that some words were root words to other words... It's just such strong evidence that people aren't even trying to think about what is actually going on at all, and just looking for a perfect visual representation of their system with big letters that say "BAD" or "GOOD" next to them...
I love it when RUclips celebrities visibly hate their fans. It really makes me want to keep watching and buy their stuff.
I was panicking - trying desperately to rip side off my system unit - I could hear the pump whine rising - the acrid smell of burning plastic choking me - blackness closing in... just managed to get the side off in time - there I could see it. Mounted correctly - everything was fine.
I told the lady on the phone (I had called the fire department shrieking at them I was going to die) to get lost, settled back in my chair, and breathed a long, deep sigh.
Then my house fell down.
Thanks a lot Gamer's Nexus.
That was good🤣
I think that this is a issue that creates voids and eventually pops ....there is an air gap ...
2:20 I'm going to intentionally use the worst possible setup so I get heaps of these comments and more engagement, big brain moves
I wonder how you plan on doing so with a laptop
The Verge did it already.
You shameless TheVerge copycat!
Jk love ya reviews
Free publicity
I appreciate your patience in dealing with these questions
true dat :D
I want to see more Beve Sturke
No one wants more of that!
@@GamersNexus No more outrage, just Beve!!
@@GamersNexus we want to see him sabotage Jayz2Cents when he does ripGN.
@@GamersNexus need more hype
@@scottyhaines4226 YES!
"Engineers, there's some really good ones and there's some new ones"
As a newer engineer I both laughed and felt personally attacked. 100% agree though, great video.
I know the feeling. I would probably be bad at marketing too though. I get in trouble all the time for putting too much detail in my plant reports.
The problem is, there are thousands of completely different jobs engineers do, and hundreds of degrees and jobs with "engineer" in the name... That in my opinion should say tech ( nothing wrong with that at all BTW). Also just beacuase you can complete even an ivy league course doesn't mean you have the ability to use that knowledge well.
@@andrewt.5567 that's because "the devil is in the details" as the saying goes, and everyone knows that the devil is bad right, therefore the details must be bad by association. ;-)
The same goes for any profession or skill really, nobody is great day 1 ;)
So,as a smart math guy, or gal, is it best to push the fluids uphill, because of science and their related equations. Pump should always be at the bottom, if possible, right. Does this apply to open loops. Look dude; I suck at math, okay. Be thankful you're good at it. Not everyone can do that!
Basically, what I got out 9f this video is, pump at bottom, and do not put a radiator at the bottom. And it is better to push water uphill, rather than downhill, because air tends to go to the highest point. Lol, if I am annoying you, please don't answer. I just want to place components, the best way possible, and you gave the ability, to understand those complex equations, that they talk about.
Thank you so much Steve for taking the time to re-explain it to to an audience at a different level than your regular viewers. Really shows the caliber of your character.
"The engineers in this industry, there are some really good ones and there are some really... new ones." Perfectly dodged! Chapeau bas!
Experience counts ..... All Engineers make mistakes but the good engineers learn from them and never make the same mistake twice ..... If you can't admit to a mistake you'll always be at the bottom tier .... There are several politicians that could learn from these facts too ......
@@longjohn526 Those who were able to learn from these facts didn't become politicians in the first place.
I don’t know if I dug this comment. This is totally true, but a big company will have a big team of engineers, both experienced/good and inexperienced/not as good. So the overall product shouldn’t have key design flaws unless literally the *entire* engineering team was bad.
@@longjohn526 from an engineering student I can tell you this is very much true
Engineers design the parts, they don't always get to decide how it's used.
As a veteran builder that still enjoys learning new things, I absolutely enjoyed this and the last video. You going the extra effort for clarification with a 2nd video is admirable.
-"How is it wrong if it fits?"
*Set of Possible Responses:*
1. That's like hearing someone else ask: _How could chlorine be poisonous if you can drink it?_
2. That's what she said.
3. That's what I told her.
4. ???
I can fit my underpants on my head. Do we believe that's the correct way to wear underpants? If you answered 'yes', you probably shouldn't be installing a CPU cooler without responsible adult supervision anyway.
I had a NZXT X62 Kraken front mounted in a NZXT H510i, so you could maybe call this a joined up solution where they have been designed to fit together. I had it tubes up and it all fitted very nicely top and bottom of the radiator (...and it matched the NZXT photos...) I flipped it round so the tubes were at the bottom. It fits but not as nicely. You have to use all of the available tolerance on the radiator bracket to get it to fit and even then the tubes look uncomfortably tight to the bottom of the case. The 'mainstream audience' would i think draw the conclusion from all of this that the AIO has been designed to be installed front mounted, tubes up and that tubes down is wrong. (1 day in and the clicking noise the pump makes has not gone...)
@@ramshead7379 I've had my 360mm aio front mounted with tubes at the top (but pump/block is at a slightly lower level) for a few years now (think this unit has a gen3 or gen4 pump), the pump speed is low enough that it doesn't pull air through from the radiator and make noise unless the system is really hot where the fans are going balls out and a slight occasional air bubble noise is of no concern.
This should be on a shirt with Snowflake sitting in a case.
I can pour water in my car's gas tank, so it must be ok to use
Here's the real TL;DR: Marketing people shouldn't be allowed to "talk" to the public without engineer supervision.
Or "How not to sell a product; Allow the engineer to talk".
It kinda goes both ways. Both shouldn't be allowed to talk to customers without hearing, accepting and regarding the other ones expertise.
But so far I found no company that really had a good interface between marketing and engineering people (I'm on the engineering side of things) and thus marketing is usually hot garbage.
I was the head software guy for a product we had at this one company. I got sent on site and to some "very technical" conferences. People using our stuff would ask questions and I could tell them very detailed answers. In one case, I answered a question and someone said "are you sure that's the way it works?" and I replied "yeah, I wrote that bit myself" or the equivalent. I could also tell them stuff like "yeah, it doesn't quite work that way." or "don't do it that way, this other way is faster". They seemed to really like that. Marketing found out and weren't happy. My "marketing" trips became fewer.
@StubbornProgrammer
Dude,the problem was that 14 year old kids were trying to show off their "computer knowledge and expertise" and "interpret" Steve's lessons to other 14 years old without computer knowledge.
Did you really thought anything other than this would happen?
No,HERE'S the REAL TL:DR:
MARKETING people don't "talk" to the PUBLIC.
But an eager 14 year old's "know-it-alls" just love to represent as "experts" and pass their "knowledge" to other 14 year old's with less knowledge....
I very recently grabbed an Arctic Freezer II AIO cooler and I was pleased to see your video on the instruction manual page. I had already watched it when looking at other stuff, but it was nice to see just how much Arctic were showing it as part of the installation instructions. It really did a great job of explaining most of it without needing the actual physics lesson about how top of a loop is the highest point of the whole system and not a highest local point.
You can seen him trying to keep his cool and smile while seeing the frustration in his eyes. Keep going steve, you'll get through to them eventually.
Ok, so TLDR: watch the damn video?
It's difficult enough to get so-called enthusiasts to do so, or read an article from start to end... do you really think mainstream users will?
@@iankemp2627 If someone doesn't care to hear/read the whole story. Do they care enough if their pump is going to last a year or two longer?
TLDW
@@iankemp2627 If you consider yourself an "enthusiast" but won't watch or read the entirety of something are you even actually an enthusiast? Or just a poser who wants to act like they know things when they really don't understand any of it and just use cookie cutter settings/setups?
Can always watch at 1.25 speed if normal speed runs on too long ;)
Does this issue also occur with the hair mounting kit that is sold separately?
I bet Steve's hair gets in his face when he bends over the pump. Same thing happens to my girlfriend...for different reasons.
Steve has a custom hair mounting solution.
all the different ways you held it - especially 120mm rad with the pump centered - was super helpful. I've been building PCs for 20 some years, including professionally for a while but it's nice to see for sure that I understand the mechanics and I'm not causing premature failure in things I send out into the world.
Coming from someone who's brand new to PC (currently making the switch from console and doing my first build) I think these videos are the perfect length to learn most everything you need to know. Its not often I can take this much knowledge away from a 30 minute sitting when I had none prior. It just goes to show how much work you're putting in and how little the viewers are! I appreciate the content as it is.. hope other noobs agree 👍
Love that one part: Don't pester YTers EXCEPT THIS GUY
That's trolling among a bromance. ^^
Its just a joke? Coz i thought bauer is top guy. Even though i think hes more OC guy them water cooling system guy
@@WyRmiE Yes, it's a joke. Steve and Roman are bros.
People Misconstrue the contents of a video:
Linus: Apologizes
GN Steve: “It’s free follow up content”
It's not entirely Linus' fault. He had no control in being born Canadian.
Not gunna lie I watched a bitwit video before this, I now can't stop staring at how the cooler is mounted in his system, it's the worst case scenario XD
@@UNSCPILOT Bitwit Kyle even had a cooler die in an evolve shift with a bottom mounted radiator in one of his HTPC videos.
He put out a half hour long video, in calm and vivid detail, explaining benefits and setbacks of various orientations.
And everyone panicks!?
The world is so tense right now, wow.
So many idiots can't process simple information.
@@arbalestt4590 not everyone has the patience to watch a half-hour video. Most youtube content is much shorter than that. Many people aren't interested in learning all the details and nuances of a topic and just want a quick and dirty explanation. And if there's something they don't understand, they just want that one specific question answered in the comments rather than sitting through a half-hour video to see if their question happens to be answered.
It's just how people are. They're not idiots for it.
@@KDub57 (near) instant gratification. The bane of modern society.
Maybe more relatable, understandable analogies (like, in this case, how the cooling system & radiator in your car works) might help with this subject matter, but I suspect most people barely know where their coolant reservoir is when they open the hood ;)
@@arbalestt4590 Some people had to start off somewhere. It was hard for me to digest all the information too in that 30min video, and the second video helped. Maybe just be happy that there is ever-growing interest and people actually want to learn :)
I know this will get lost in the flood of comments that I was just reading....but coming from one of the mainstream viewers that really just got turned on to your channel - thank you. I haven’t built a system in over a decade, but thanks to your content I am almost through my midrange build. This video (and the one that necessitated this one lol) provided exactly the information I needed to not only do it right - but to know WHY it’s right. That’s in addition to the ones I have watched from you covering the rest of my build. Thanks for catching me up and helping revive an old addiction.
Definitely admire the patience you have with people.
It would be easy to get frustrated to the point of not wanting to bother clarifying for people but it seems like you feel a sense of duty to giving people the truth and correct information.
Them: We NeEd A sHoRt AtTeNtIoN VeRsIoN!!!!
Steve: Then mount it *this way*.
Them: BuT..BuT WhY????
Steve:
Bold of Steve to assume that I don't use a 20 ft impeller as my pump and actually have to worry about cavitation
I prefer a briggs powered trash pump.
i see no problem in DYI 4 core alum rad for say a 77 nova( example) and electric Hi flow water pump :-) from Summit racing
@@CMDR-V-UncleJ Heater cores were a thing in the 90's.
@@nocturnal0072 i have a welder i thot about doing sheet metal rat rod build with a small Atv rad paint it copper sticking out of the case on the front.. some mock sparkplug wires.... but i need a new desk for that.
@@CMDR-V-UncleJ I was about to just buy a transcooler kit. Comes with fans and mounts. But finding a pump to go with it that doesn't suck 10amps.
"I can fit it that way so how is it wrong?" - Try that reasoning with your partner and let us know how that goes :)
I did 9 years ago and we're still together and spoiler alert it wasnt wrong lol
@@thomasfields2749 r/ihavesex material right here.
@@Gretchen_Trouble r/ihavereddit material right here.
That is the black hole of youtube comments right there. Respond and you're past the event horizon of "it will never understand" :D
How can it be wrong if it feels so right?
I just wanted to say thanks for these vids. I've tearing down and building for over 20 years, and running AIO in every build for almost a decade now, and only earlier today while watching the first of these did I even consider running I/O at the bottom of the rad. Inspired me to re-mount my ML240 inside my NZXT510 and got a couple degrees back from having to run fans front blowing through, rather than fans back drawing.
I had never realized just how many of the promo images (and indeed reference builds in image searches) have pipes up that were implicitly guiding my mounting orientation. Even the 510 itself has a cutaway in the rad mounting plate for pipes-up to face back through the plate, and all of NZXT's material shows pipes up.
Also, if anyone finds this comment and is curious, a CM ML240 will orient pipes-down in this case while working around an Aurus 2080 in the top slot, but it's millimetrically close, and requires the radiator to be mounted in the highest possible position on the inside of the mounting plate. If I could do it all over again, I'd change cases to something that had space for the rad up top instead.
Thanks for answering my question about the tube orientation on the pump! Glad that it doesn't make a difference as long as the rad is correct.
It's pretty much why a cars engine cooling system it set up like it is. The radiator is the highest point and the pump (and the coolant passages in the engine) sit lower than the highest point of the radiator (yes the radiator in a car is set up slightly different as the radiator inlet is at the top, and the radiator outlet is at the bottom). It's pretty much to avoid air being trapped in the engine.
I understood your video pretty clearly.
also the inlet to the engine is on the bottom and the outlet from the engine is at the top, ensuring the engine doesnt suck air as long as the radiator has some water
@@kasuraga Water coolant mixture.
Pure water will freeze in the winter and cause issues
@@christophervanzetta that has nothing to do with what i said. of course you put antifreeze into coolant. it lowers its freezing temp and raises its boiling temp but that has no relevance to what i said
Lots of new cars have complex bleed systems so the radiator can be mounted lower for a smaller frontal area.
@@JusttheEdge That is mostly true, but even than, the pump is never at the top.
Damn it people, just turn your case over, problem solved 😂
easy access to the bottom dust filter since its now on the top
Bravo! Might as well mount it onto a spinning stand so that you can easily turn it.
Oh man, yeah, what if I just lay it on it’s side??
@@rosterdam7198 Oh, man, oh, man, we need another video.
Robert Nees but my nzxt h500 has the power button and USB port on the top
"That's not how it works! I'm not trying to be condescending ..." I feel this statement so much!
Thank you from the bottom of my heart (top too) I have always (30+years) been an air cooled kind of guy and shunned watercooled for the simple fact I did not need that kind of complexity or heat removal. Coming up soon, I will - and you explained a lot of details that are important to know.
Please disregard those that won't at least TRY to think through a problem and make it seem like you did something wrong. If you ever drank a soda from a bottle, you should be able to think through the issues of water and air in a closed system. You did a good job. Thanks again.
"It hit a really mainstream audience"
"They don't understand what we were talking about" - Just say it as it is, we wont be offended.
But Steve, I paid for a full water bottle and not a 10% air water bottle. 😜😂😉
It won't be long before that air is valuable!
@@GamersNexus Air-X
Perri-Air
@@GamersNexus funny and sad ath the same time :D
@@The-OGRE Eau! I see wat-er you did there
When Steve makes a 33 min video on coolers because people asked for a tldr. legend.
Nothing legendary about it
Steve: "it's not gonna explode overnight... MOST LIKELY"
So what you're telling me is, there is a chance
**facepalm** ;)
Technically, everything could explode overnight.
@@allmybasketsinoneegg Everything except the sun, if it explodes it will be during daytime
@@Drubnubjagr due to its orientation in space the sun doesn't register whether it's day or night time 😜
There's always a chance... like the probability of being killed by a duck is low, but never zero. . .
"Instead of fixing my problem, I've compounded it."
Can that be the next GN tee shirt? That's my whole life in one phrase lol
Yes, please.
Both of these were worth the journey, and I really appreciated having the visual that shows me the water flow inside the AIO. For those of you wondering how well various pre-builts do, I thought it's worth mentioning that in 2010 Alienware got it right: my overclocked Area-51 ALX is still running great today. I had a brief hiatus using an H80i and then went back to the stock cooler - which was always top-mounted, tubes down. I just fixed one of my DIYs after watching the first of these - thanks again for all the effort!
Thank you Steve for this follow up, after watching your video yesterday i imminently changed my orientation but was scared, but this video helped ease my mind about my aio lol
22:13 - As a physicist/engineer, I approve this XD
This channel is amazing! Keep the good work!
I remember seeing a comparison between front and top-mounted rads*. I think it can really depend on the ventilation of the case**, as there are several factors that come into play here. Might be interesting to see you doing a comparison of your own between mounting positions***. Anyway, as you said, this is not nearly enough as important as the acoustic/performance issue caused by mounting improperly, so if you can't mount it properly at the front just mount it at the top.
* Assuming top means as exhaust
** Won't matter as much in a well-ventilated case (hypothesis)
***** Will also be more informative if replicated between different cases.
(sry had to do this)
No warning that results may vary between manufacturers, designs, or slight variation if your 12V line is slightly lower/higher? ;)
Heat rises is absolutely a factor though. If CFMs matter, contending with natural air movement tendencies matters by default. Hot air will more naturally exhaust at the top, so if the radiator is slowing down the air movement at the top (and it does) then the case will trap more heat. It depends on how much intensity your system is driven to overall of course, but if you're pushing high frame rates at 4K and maxing out your CPU and graphics card, you're probably not going to want them to throttle. Nowadays, CPUs will react not just to high temps, but perceived head room. Small clock differences can matter a lot, as Jay's review of the Ryzen 3000 XT series showed and as Intel benchmarks show.
You don't even need to study for anything to understand this tbh, hot air goes up and if it's in a closed system it will try to go to the highest thing. So make sure it stays trapped instead of it always being moved around within the system.
Thank you so much for the follow up. This cleared up a lot of the user questions after yesterdays video. Really good work as always!
People with bottom mounted radiator **Panik**
Steve informing them, that it won't explode overnight **Kalm**
Steve adding "most likely" to the sentence **Panik**
Steve, I love your content and your willingness to go to lengths to help people understand a topic. I watched the first video and basically you said front mounted rads with the barbs positioned at the top is a sub-optimal position and changing it to either front mounted barbs down or a top mounted orientation solves an acoustics issue whereas changing from a bottom mounted rad solves an issue related to longevity of the pump performance. Basically, because all AIOs are not 100% filled with liquid, it is advised to orientate the rad so both the pump and the barbs don't inherit the pocket of air within the loop. To achieve this, the rad would either be front mounted with the barbs down or top mounted. This would ensure that the air would rise to a non-malignant area of the AIO liquid loop.
I love the thumb nails on GN
Really looking like a mental breakdown in this one.
"It's not going to explode overnight.... Most likely".... They mostly come out at night... Mostly...
This was actually helpful I still had 2 questions after watching the first video and this answered both in crystal clear fashion. Thanks!
23:46 I was little disappointed on the side mount case. I think what the original question was meant on the case when one of the tube is above the motor, but the other one is under. like the NR200 or other sff cases. the air will be spread out through the long side of the radiator so it's most likely be ok as long as it doesn't create big air pocket in the motor, other then having occasional gurgling noise. I just wanted to see at which point that would be the problem with your mod AIO.
Thanks for these videos! I'll try to apply these best practices on my next build if I decide on an AiO over a traditional air cooler.
Sounds like we need representative engineers in marketing departments with absolute veto power over marketing misusing products.
It's actually extremely easy to solve the problem for front mounted radiators with tubes up. All the manufacturers have to do is have the IN and OUT tubes just slightly more towards the middle of the radiator. This will prevent air from getting back into the loops and could also solve the problem for tubes down since at the moment the long graphics cards (RTX 3080s and 2080s - tubes are too short to cross over them) make it impossible to have that orientation in more traditional cases (unless you use a case like the Lian li o11).
This is what I was thinking as well.
This is essentially how a lot of hot water storage cylinders work, in the UK at least. The outlet is on the top of the tank with a dip tube dropping down inside, this means the tank cannot be vented of its top section of air, creating an "expansion gap". This eliminates the need for separate expansion requirements if sized correctly for the system and should never drag air once it has finished initially filling/venting.
"AIO Explodes overnight"
DAMN IT, STEVE!
Because of your previous video I purchased a new case (the huge Thermaltake X71 ) and moved my AIO to the top. I have had zero issues since, and the new case is really, really easy to work on - so thank you!
Parts hunting for a new system this month and really want to thank you chaps for your coverage of topics, going beyond just a "standard" review. Was looking into the EVGA hybrid 3080 and the arctic liquid freezer ii 280mm cooling solutions for the CPU/GPU and trying to find a case that best fits to AIO cooling systems. (Not an easy task). This information was very helpful for me to eliminate cases that set up bottom rad configurations.
Really chaps you are doing a bang up job. Found you lot in 2016 when i bought my last DIY system and now four years later I am hunting down reviews of products old and new. Thank you.
Shortest summary:
* Pump below highest point of radiator = good.
* Pump above highest point or radiator = bad.
* Pump Way below highest point of radiator = Best
OMG! That Thumbnail!! LMAO! 🤣🤣🤣
Good to see you back in the comments, Al!
@@River_Miles i can read, on 5" phone
@@River_Miles "PANIC! AT THE AIO!"
32:08 I laughed so hard at this, i spilled half my coffee over my GN Mouse Mat (store.gamersnexus.net).)
Sadly this is a problem you come across quite frequently when trying to explain technical things to people on the business side of the company.... Where sometimes it would be enough just to pay attention throughout the whole explanation instead of waiting for a "simple" conclusion at the end. Some things just aren't simple enough to be understood with a 2 sentence conclusion.
Really speaking to my heart there Steve
Steve, thank you for this. Did my first build with a 3 fan radiator and mounted it in the front of the case. There was nothing in the documentation with the cooler to make sure that the barbs were at the bottom. While my pump is not at the top of the loop, I am still in that sub-optimal category. I will look into flipping the rad this week, I appreciate this amount of information. It is super important to not only know the how, but why.
I had no idea that the entire system was not filled 100% with liquid. TDiL
13:32 (Also 24:00)
I was one of those probably incredibly annoying people asking for clarification on this - that visual _really_ helps, completely cleared my confusion about the wrong and right way to front mount an AIO. AIOs and the terminology for their parts are new to me (I was dead set on only using fans until I heard about the Liquid Freezer II that sold out before I could buy one), so it was kind of tricky to understand from the description itself.
I low key want to see a Patronizing-Steve's "how water works" video.
"I've learned something new, I need to go pester someone and belittle them for not knowing it."
This is such a common attitude on the internet, and it's mind-boggling.
I guess it's how you approach it, I see nothing wrong in passing on info that might help someone else avoid unnecessary expense
Hey man, it was a great video that definitely made me think about my future with aio as my tubes don't reach all the way down. There was no panic for me but it is pretty clear that a high quality air cooler will be a much more failsafe design and may end up with a similar level of noise anyway. I may end up going back to air before too long. Great work as always
I went back, don't miss water.
@@nocturnal0072 ya I feel like the peace of mind is worth it especially if you don't have the budget to handle a catastrophe.
@@AnK5402Yes, sir. I'd rather dump the $100 on a better cpu or gpu.
Thank you for explaining in detail, again. I did watch your whole "Stop Doing it wrong Video" but wasn't confident I knew for sure how to correctly install an AIO. Now I'm confident to not put the water block at the top of the loop period. I'm a noob about to build my first pc, and a high end AMD at that and you cleared up a lot including how to install and the normal life expectancy of a water cooler when installed correctly. Again Thank you for all the great diagnostic and detective info.
People wouldn’t have thought that tubes down means having the pump at the top of the loop if they had just watched the whole video. Steve very clearly explained the ideal layout. This seems like more of a problem with people clicking on the video, not wanting to bother with any of the explanations, scrolling down to the comments and asking questions that would have been answered had they simply watched the video. There are two ends of a radiator. One end has tubes coming out and one does not. You can have the tubes down and simultaneously have the tube-free end of the radiator situated above the pump block. Just make sure the very top of the radiator, the end without the tubes, sits higher than the block. Job done.
Or just top-mount the radiator.
"Stop pestering RUclipsrs"
...
**Me, about to ask Steve again when RAM timings explained part 2 is coming out**
"it's not gonna explode..... *underbreath " most likely"""
- Steve
8:59 That was the nicest way of saying "thats really stupid and not how fluid works" ive ever heard :D
I might be mis-interpreting this, but I think the clearest way to explain the issue is to imagine that your entire AIO is transparent and you can watch the bubbles moving around when you jiggle the AIO. In the current orientation, where are the bubbles going to go? Are they gonna pool inside the pump? That's not good, since these pumps aren't the kind that pump air. Are they gonna pool inside the radiator? That's the best place for them to be, but don't forget that the pump sucks liquid out of the radiator via the tubes. Is the pump going to be sucking bubbles? If so, then flipping the radiator to move the bubbles to the opposite end will fix this!
I like when you said the "short attention span audience is not who you cater to" I agree, your videos are not for people who can't pay attention. You provide so much in depth detail and information those people just can't grasp the concepts you talk about. I love your videos. I get a lot of information that helps me make decisions about my current build. I have to rewatch bits here and there to make sure I understood something properly from time to time, but I don't mind that. Keep up the great content and I will keep coming back.
Hardware Jesus demonstrates infinite patience with his flock.
I just watched the other vid and now this one came out, good timing
"PANIC! AT THE AIO!"
Great reference, though I wonder how many get it at this point.
Is it wrong that I immediately thought of glowing genitals?
Barely any people from that generation have died or gotten alzheimer's yet, you're not that old.
Wanting your shame buried doesn't make it so.
Thanks for the clarification video!
To begin, as a noob in liquid coolers, I was so confused with what "tubes at the top/bottom" means, because I did not know whether that meant off the pump or off the radiator, but the 25:50 topic covers that. I personally had a bit of confusion with the "examples of correct/incorrect installation" part in the previous video just because the voice over and the b-rolls weren't explaining the same thing all the time. It also initially almost sounded to me like tubes on the top would really damage the cooler to me. It makes a lot of sense now though after doing a ton more research and watching this video. I had an issue with air just being completely trapped in the system causing my cpu to crash from overheating and I realized that was because I had the pump in the middle of the loop but the tubes at the top. Flipping it upside down for a while and bleeding it fixed everything.
My new build's gonna have a big chungus GPU that would be impossible for the tubes to go to the bottom of the rad without having to go in front of the GPU but it's reassuring knowing that my pc won't explode from the tubes being at the top.
Ever since the other video people think their an AIO expert. I do have my tubes up, and it’s like Steve said, it’s mainly for noise, but can effect the pump over time with permeation. My pump is whisper quiet right now so I am happy where it’s at. When it does start to make noise I will top mount the AIO in a new case. People need to pay attention more. I don’t even like posting build photos anymore since everyone is an AIO expert now and says move your radiator lol.
Mine is front mounted with tubes on top. My pump is a lot lower than the radiator. I don’t hear anything at all and my temps are really low.
"But how is it wrong if it fits?" At this point, these people deserve to be made fun of.
Unless you are a cat - snowflake the CEO. If it fits it sits.
That's what I told my gf. jk
Just shoot them back with "just because I can technically fit [a dangerous object] into [something said object do not belong, or an orifice even] doesn't mean it's right."
@@crowdemon_archives I belong to the HBQWERTY+-*/ community, i feel offended by your words
"Panic at the AIO" :Nice!
High Thermal 😂
TDLW: Cooler will burst into flames, explode and burn down your house.
In that order.
@@nocturnal0072 No. It will burn your house down prior to bursting into flames. Because it is cooler.
Thanks for the follow up video, I didn't post any questions however only just getting into PC building. And both videos really helped and has given me some confidence to start doing AIO installs and one-day a custom loop.
Thank you for the awseome explinations GN. I am at 11:30. Your bottle analogy was great, I understand now the idea: If you flip the radiator with the tubes down, the air in the loop goes up, so the pump will get only watter. If the tubes are up, being that the air is also up, that means that the pump will get that air in (it makes perfect sense after all, because the tubes are after all, the phisical means to get fluid to the pump, so like a strow in a cocktail: if what is at the other end of the strow is liquid, you will get liquid, but if what is at the other end of the strow is ice cubes and... air, that is what you will "drink"). I will keep watching your video now, to make shure that I fully understend what you are trying to say...
would it make sense for AIO manufacturers to start offering coolers with longer tubing to fit the needs of different use cases? to me it seems very odd that there are situations where if one wants to install a 360mm AIO front-mounted that there's a chance the tubes won't be long enough to install the cooler in the optimal orientation. I personally use a Lian-Li Lancool Mesh case which allows the use of a front-mounted 360mm AIO, but only up to a 280mm AIO at the top. My GPU is a Sapphire Nitro+ 5700xt which is an exceptionally long card. That puts me in a position where I would likely have to sacrifice the performance of the 360mm AIO as the tubing likely won't be long enough to make its way from the bottom of the radiator, around the GPU, and up to the CPU socket.
I'm pretty much playing the devil's advocate here, as for my use case a 280mm AIO would be more than sufficient to cool my CPU efficiently, BUT for those who use a much more power-hungry chip, why are they put in a position where in some way, shape, or form, they need to sacrifice cooling potential or commit to a much more complicated and expensive solution in order for everything to operate in its optimal configuration?
I would disagree with this because you are now just creating two high spots for air to build, both pump and rad. It makes more sense to have the tubing always traveling uphill from the pump so water settles in the pump and any trapped air can travel away from the pump while not circulating.
@@LiquidFoxDesigns that can easily be avoided by NOT MOUNTING the radiator. Mount the pump, put the rad in the correct position outside the case. Let it run for a couple minutes/hours, shake a little bit. After that, you can be sure that there is no bubbles in the pump. Now you can mount the rad in the front panel, slowly and making sure you don't turn it so the bubbles are kept at the rad. At least that's how I always did.
I'm in the same case I have a Lancool II Mesh and I don't know if i should take a 240 AIO to put at the top of my case, or a 360 and take risks to put it with the hoses/tubes at the top and not at the bottom because tubes are too short...
"The computer's literally just a space heater. That's all it is." - Steve, 2020
Honestly, my old 2008 build definitely is just that at this point >_>
At one point in late 2011 I had two GTX 480s in SLI on a custom loop with an overclocked i7 930. I really don’t miss the heat output of that system!
I had a core2quad 9650 and GTX275 that was like that. 95W CPU + 250W GPU...
Thanks for the AIO video before, very helpful and great resource for reference in the future! :D
(don’t think I’ve ever been this early before, haha.)
Great video ... you're spot on about cavitation. As background, I was an engineer at a heavy manufacturer for 35 years. We manufactured pumps up to 60" and above driven by motors with up to 1000 HP. We also manufactured micro processor driven industrial control valves big enough for an average size human to walk right through. Cavitation was a prime and constant concern. You are correct that it is highly unlikely/impossible (depending on fluid used). Cavitation is caused by a fluid that due to velocity/temp/pressure drops below it's vapor pressure and then enters an area of higher pressure causing the vapor bubbles to implode releasing a tremendous amount of energy causing extreme erosion. We had world class metallurgists and in our testing there is no metal capable of resting extreme damage. We tested all forms of hardened, boron diffused, plasma transfer of hard facing materials, you name it we tried it. All of this to say that if cavitation could occur in an AIO, the plastic impellers would not stand a chance. They would erode away in seconds. So I completely agree that with the fluids used in AIO's (and their associated vapor pressure/temperature curves) it would be next to impossible to cavitate a well built AIO. Great content ... keep it up.
I used to own Hybrid FTW GTX 1070 from EVGA and I have to appreciate the inclusion of the insert that shows correct radiator orientation when installing. What I got from GN's content is that apparently not everyone does that.
I didn't see "Tubes Down Don't Reach?" actually get addressed here. I assume it's just some answer like "well it won't last as long so maybe it'll feel bad but what can ya do?" from the last one.
yeah basically that, just expect your aio to last 1-3yrs instead of 5+ was the bottom line
I like the "nerding out" style of the videos. I've been working on computers for over 15 years, and I still learn quite a bit from GN due to the fact that you all don't try to make "TL:DR" videos.
Meanwhile me looks at the noctua and raises glass: "to you"
The only reason for an AIO is aesthetics, or in an SFF case where the cooler height isn't there for a decent air cooler.
@@ravenshrike That's not the only reason. ruclips.net/video/7VzXHUTqE7E/видео.html
High five noctua gang. I for one do not regret my purchase.
Less than 10 degrees C(between the x72 and the Deepcool and Noctua) when noise normalized means that unless you're hotboxing the CPU those better thermals are largely irrelevant. But I suppose I should amend my initial statement to cover all the bases. Aesthetics, form factor issues, very poor case airflow, or bragging rights. In terms of everyday performance the difference is a negligible. While Ryzen technically improves it's clock speed at lower temperatures, for a actual significant difference you need to drop it farther than an AIO can.
@@GamersNexus Are we talking steady state, because my PC runs for days at a time, doing workstation stuff. Steady state is irrelevant. The Noctua does a great job and cools the VRM's to boot. My install is nice and clean. I don't really want a couple of tubes hanging down from a radiator. There's also 0.0% chance my D15 would ever spring a leak. I remain unconvinced.
FWIW, I think some of this (not all, but SOME) confusion might be alleviated with more aggressive, dare we say "hand holding" titles. The current subs are fine honestly, but I understand how they might be easy to overlook for someone watching on a smaller screen, or who has a brief attention span. I'll admit, I have found myself occasionally absorbed by the image only to realize too late that I missed a sub in time to read it in entirety and had to skip back or pause to catch the full context. A lot of folks who were TL:DR to begin with might not do that.
Alternately: Some of y'all didn't pay attention in your basic physics class, and it shows.
Ideally, you want the CPU/pump at the lowest point to keep air out of it. But we cannot move it, because the CPU cannot be moved, so we move the radiator to be higher. Also, we want ALL the air to be trapped in the large mid-rad return header (opposite end from the rad inlet/outlet), where it can do the least harm to flow.
BUT: It can also matter how you orient the pump and run the hoses. If there is air already inside the pump (pretty likely from shipping) with connectors at the pump bottom, and you run the hoses down out the bottom of the pump, dipping even lower before going back up again to the rad, then you have made it very difficult for the pump to fully expel it's existing trapped air. Any air that doesn't get fully pushed out will remain trapped in the pump case high point when the pump is stopped.
In theory, you want the pump connections on top and the hoses routed continuously upward to the rad inlet/outlet. And the rad itself vertical (or slightly tilted) so the air gets trapped in the mid-rad return header (opposite end from the connections). But this may not be possible for many PC case designs.
11:30 this might had been clearer for people to understand if you had taken like 1 minute to show all of the correct ways vs incorrect ways the CLC should be mounted in a case at the start of the video, and not spaced apart throughout the video. What seems basic for someone can be rocket science to another.
This isn't Tic Tok, you have to be willing to listen to the information and make the appropriate adjustments (if needed/possible).
Yeah that's because your intent is to be the quick fix "do it this way. I am the authority and you should just do what I tell you without explanation" whereas the way the video was actually presented was in such a way for the viewer to be educated on why the incorrect ways are wrong and the correct ways are good. That's the difference between actually teaching and what it seems just about every other teacher wants to do which is just say "do it this way because I said so."
"If it fits then how is it wrong?" I can technically fit a screwdriver in the wall outlet, like hell am I going to though
When you say Asetek targets 98% is that just for their own AIOs or all AIOs that use their pumps?
All the ones they make - that is their standard for all their OEM models.
@@malphadour Do you know who they manufacture for just for future reference? I'd rather have 98% water than 90% to start with.
@@_GntlStone_ basically, if I remember correctly, anything Asetek, will have a pump and a rad, whereas if it isn't an Asetek model or licensed by Asetek, it'll be a pump-in-rad design... The reason they do that, is that they are forced to comply with Asetek patents and to avoid copyrights, they add the pump into the radiator, not that that's a good idea necessarily... I think Steve has taken apart a few pumps of that design, and he states something to the effect of the different design being because they want to bypass Asetek's patents... So, TL;DR anything with a separate pump and rad, at least in an AIO, will at least be licensed products of Asetek's designs, if I'm not mistaken
@@_GntlStone_ This list is some of the OEMs that use their coolers. Not necessarily all of them. www.asetek.com/gamingenthusiasts/diy-partners
I am new to AIO so seeing both videos helps me a lot to understand about them. when i decided to build computer in the future i will make sure to review both videos again when purchasing parts.
this guy is always so good at explaining everything and doesn't sugar coat anything, only reason i enjoy this content, this is the best youtube channel that is explaining in-depth pc stuff
16:11
Thank you for the grief counceling. I think people need that after hearing their partner only has 3 years to live.
Does the size of the rad affects its longevity? (Large volume of liquid in the loop with larger volume in rad for air bubbles, along with lower temps in avg.)
Not really because were talking about volume and not quantity, IE if a company makes all rads to 90% water to air then a 120MM will still be 90% water by volume as a 360MM would be meaning there is between the two the same amount of water to air ratio per mm of tank size.
@@MichaelJohnson-uo3ef I agree with the liquid to air ratio at the exit of factory. I'm not sure I understand your logic however when you're distinguishing between volume and quantity. I agree that the quantity of each is determined by their ratio and that this total quantity is limited by the total volume. BUT, how would a change in the quantity of air to liquid ratio as the rad is being used, affect it's lifespan? Comparing a 360mm rad to a 120mm, the larger rad contains a larger volume of liquid and air (even though the ratios of water to air are equal for both rads). This would mean a larger time for the liquid to heat up (liquid has high heat capacity), a larger surface area in which (even though some volume of liquid is lost after use) the remaining liquid can cool through (less pronounced effect when replacing liquid to air in rad) which would all lead towards cooler plastics around the CPU. Logically... if I'm not forgetting something obvious, leading to possibly a larger lifespan?
Although I do have to concede that a larger volume of liquid could effect the amount that is lost per time of use. This could be a counter factor.
"She can't take much more, Capt'n! She's gonna BLOW!!!"
I will say I saw one manufacturer video/install instruction that demonstrated what your video said was the "ideal" configuration for your AIO. Only one. All in all your video was very informative. Thanks again. This also allowed better utilization of the space in my case lol.
Good video. Recently moved my build from a Corsair 760t to a Lancool ii performance. When moving the Corsair 280mm AI0 (4 yrs old) from the top of the 760t to the front of the Lancool ii with the tubes up because the lines were not long enough otherwise, my system overtemped. Trouble shooting showed the AIO failed. Replaced with new AIO with no overheating. Tossed the old AIO into the trash. It probably would have worked in one of my other systems with the tubes down but it is now in a landfill somewhere. I know better and should not have trashed it. Thanks for the video but for me the reminder was too little too late. Thanks and keep telling and reminding us about issues like these.