I currently have a '77 Bonneville heatercore in a full tower (in the bottom front). It's about 240mm x 160mm. I'm sure most if not all here are familiar with it.
I was planning on using this heatercore for my new rig, but now I'm thinking about a new layout. I thought it up mainly from some of my previous designs so I guess you would say it stemmed from an evolution of ideas. It's a rather simple idea, though I've never seen anything like it online. Basically a external rad box attached to the bottom of a mid tower resulting in full tower dimentions. (And a "reseratior")
Would two ~120mm x ~120mm heatercores be better, worse, or about the same from a performance standpoint? What about three? And which of the many heatercores of this size would you personally recommend? Edit: With just a rought guestimate max heatercore dimentions come out to about 180mmx160mm.
Here's part of the setup. I added the third heatercore & fan for good measure if only so I can undervolt all the fans all the more.
I may turn the hottest heatercore around such that the fan is sucking like all the others. I plan on using birch ply (Light but strong. I use birch props on my RC airplanes) for the rad/pump box.
So turning a mid tower into a full tower, just one with the attributes I want, which is a full tower with lots of room at the bottom. The only case I know of that might let me do this layout without serious modding would be the Coolermaster Stacker. But I would like the look of a Lian Li and their full tower just has a lot on 5.25” bays and very little if any of the extra volume is in the bottom area where I would like. I could put a Camry heatercore in the 5.25” bays I know, but I would like them towards the bottom, if only for aesthetics.
That’s one thing I like about this idea is aesthetics. Not only is the Iwaki hidden (sticks out like a sore thumb in my current full tower), but the cool looking action (UV additive) tubing, waterblocks, and reservoir (if I use one) are literally placed on a pedestal rather an at the bottom of things.
Also, I plan to make this slightly on the wide side so I could use it in future rigs to come.
I hope to make this setup selectable from a very quiet machine to a near silent machine with only the PSU fan and outblowing rear case fan running (and of course the Iwaki). How? More sketches coming...
DrCR
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SilentPCReview