AIO Radiator Placement - Front vs Top & Push vs Pull, plus a look Mounting Orientation

Hi folks,

I've been a top mounted guy for a long while but when I am being forced to front mount an AIO (video coming up), I thought it was a good time to put it to the test, what is better for overall system temps (CPU & GPU) when front and top mounting your radiator.
We also cover the placement in relation to the pump in order for the AIO to work properly and last longer. Links below to Gamers Nexus and Jayztwocents who originally covered this and did a better job than me :-)

System Specs
CPU: i7 10700k
Motherboard: Asus Z490-G
Ram: 32gb 3600 Trident Z Neo
Cooler: Corsair H100i Pro RGB XT
NVME: 1tb Adata SX8200 Pro
HDD: 2* 2tb Seagate Barracuda
GPU: AMD RX6800
Case: Fractal Design Define 7 Compact
PSU: Corsair RM850X

Please let me know if you have any questions.

thanks, Wayne

Intro music: Song: Jim Yosef - Firefly
Music provided by NCS Music.

[thedesperaterun]

Great video. I was set on top-mounting my Kraken X-63 in my BeQuiet 500DX, only to find it wouldn’t fit. I panicked, but it forced me to consider front-mounting as an option, and in doing so I find that many, such as yourself, are getting cooler temperatures with front mounting. So I’ll do that, and before installing make sure I’ve worked all air I can into the top of the radiator and do my best to keep the pump lower than the top of the radiator. Not bad, not bad.

[lyndyannajones]

There are videos that are coming out 3 years after this, and they aren't as informative let alone short or relative info per minute compact as this video, this video answered every question I had, and have a way better idea on how to make my next build which is my first end game build, thanks for this 3 years later :)

[AG-bpll]

I got hammered for daring to front mount an AIO with the tubes up even though I ran one that way in a previous system for five years with no issues. People only watched a portion of Steve's video and became AIO experts. I usually like to top mount, but it depends on clearance. You showed exactly the proper way to mount them depending on your case.

[JustMyOpinion-]

Simple clear & concise, bruv no joke I've watched 4-5 videos from maybe some of the top pc builders on youtube they love to over complicate things not to mention one says this is better and the other says it's wrong! thanks! I subbed also.

[gypsykatcher]

I have watched the Gamers nexus on this, but I found your video more simple to understand. Obviiously its good to have in detail but it can be complex. Thanks for the explanation, I understand it much better now.

[ByGraceThroughFaith]

Top rad has to move the hot air from the gpu out, so you're basically cooling your CPU with warmer air. At least that's how I see it. Front mounted CPU aio cools cpu better while allowing faster exit of hot air via unrestricted case fans, win win for CPU and GPU. Coolling is about extracting hot air, so you're better off increasing case airflow out of the case than intake.

[mtz]

Best informations after 24 hours of reading and watching. For me was the Point, if u install the Aio Top, und cant do anything for your cpu. But if u install in front, u can manage that the airflow of the Aios intake can direkty go outside (it dont even touch MB/GBU and if u have more space, like a fan extra front down + bottom, then would be teven better. The best is naturally not in the Case, for me is nosense installing it in the case... I will try install the radiator outside the case. Dumber as dumb for me inside. Thx for the video ;)

[feshpince]

Everyone goes top-mounted exhaust, but that just tells me that a whole lot of people have extremely cramped PCs. I have the Corsair 680x Crystal case, the ATX one with the extra chamber for cable management. I just bought a Corsair H100i Elite LCD Display AIO, 240mm, as an upgrade to my air cooler and my first ever liquid cooling hardware for a PC. My plan is to use it as an intake using push/pull config. I have 8 Case fans, three of which blow cool air directly on my GPU (3080Ti). Temps are never an issue, even in some of the most graphically intense environments. Only my CPU (Ryzen 9 5900x) suffers from uncomfortably hot temps under stress. I figure that, using push/pull with 2 of the 3 front case fans, I'll get a negligible (if any) increase in temps to my GPU while getting a much cooler CPU. I have 3 exhaust fans, two on top and one in the back. Doing it this way should create a nice positive airflow, and the warm air from the radiator shouldn't even touch my GPU. It's going to take a lot of work to get the thing on this way, but It'll be worth it, I'm sure.

[hectorpcmr.]

Exactly the video I was looking for; for my second "end game" build, thank you. Left a like. 👍

[carlreid]

Really good video and well explained, I'm looking to upgrade my PC case to Lian O11D mini.
At the moment I have the AIO cooler mounted on the top but I currently use a 2GB passive GPU as I don't really play games.
Nonetheless there's some really good points raised, I will consider morning the cooler to the front/side with the new case.
Also mentioned in the video having the tubes at the top or bottom with the front orientation I would have thought over a period of time the fluid inside will gradually decrease or may not be topped up fully.
This may cause problems in the future, one more thing in motor vehicles there's one tube near the bottom which is intake gravity will feed the intake along with pump.
Just wanted to know everyone's opinion.

[kaimin]

When your aio is top mounted, the heat from your system rises into the radiator (Thermal convention). A top mounted aio intakes hot air from the system regardless of if you have it set to push or pull due to the natural rise in heat as a single exhaust fan will not be enough to remove all the heat from every component. However, a front mounted aio intakes cool air from outside the front of the case. Remember that the cpu is cooled by the radiator as coolant is moved through the aio. This is what causes the dramatic increase in cpu temperature as the radiator changes between cool air and hot air intakes when mounted on the front or top of the case respectively.

[itsJDarts]

Very interesting. Thanks for doing the tests

[Lead_Foot]

You can always run a top radiator as intake for better temperatures. A lot of cases even come with a top fan filter now. Heat rises, but it's totally insignificant when you have fans.

Open air gpus just dump all their heat into the case, they even recirculate some of their exhaust. You're putting like ~300w worth of heat into the case some of which is going through your cpu aio.

Pulling air through a radiator is usually best when you have fans with large hubs. The slight gap between the fan blades and the radiator fins gives it a little space for the airflow to even out. With push you end up having the frame and stator directly blocking airflow.

Going with pull as intake also keeps the fan further from filters and solid front panels that can be quite restrictive. I removed an ultrafine mesh filter from a bottom intake radiator in push and dropped my custom loop's temps by 10C. The fans being sandwiched between a restrictive radiator and filter meant they basically weren't doing anything except stirring the air around in a circle.

[duwtn]

I have a front pull setup due to my case being too small, thanks for proving it that it ain't as bad I was quite pessimistic and paranoid when I have to compromise the position, hearing Jay station or Steve whoever guy exaggerations is very useless and absurd to beginner PC geek like

[hidazip]

I switched the top mounted AIO(360mm) from push-exhaust to pull-intake(just flipped the fans).
That dropped about 10℃(75⇨65℃ 10900K) ｗhile playing Cyberpunk and the GPU(RTX3090 82℃) didn't seem to be affected.
My chassis has a dust filter on the top, and since both front and top are intakes, the heat comes out from the back even without rear fans.

[dennissmith]

Thanks for the content and for the testing. Very informative.

[bobdaman]

Did you try testing exhaust vs intake? You didn't specify if you were using the top (and front) mount as an exhaust or intake. This will change the effectiveness of the rad at that placement as it will either be using warmer air from inside the case or the cooler outside air.

As a result we still don't know what orientation the rad performs better in

[AxleLotl]

Something else to consider.
You can have two different kinds of "pull" and "push".
Do you pull/push from inside the case and exhaust through the rad to outside or do you pull/push from outside, through the rad and intake into the case?

[wTermlon]

it also depends on what your gpu cooler fans do. if they are like the 6900xt 6800xt (i have an xfx merc) and it pushes it out the back of the pc case. I think thats how yours does as well. as long as the fins are clean they are actually very efficient. in pumping out hot air from the pc case. A top mount will always cause extra temps because of something a lot of people dont always take into effect. when you put a restriction (theoretically) on the top, and because hot air rises. the hot air from the back of the mobo. or the back panel actually becomes a space for really dead air. there is no movement and it stay generally toasty back there. (the pandemic quarantines are to blame as to why i know this lol. i ordered a FLIR for a non pc related project. and well it becomes a literal hot plate in the back. especially if you have a lot of ssd 2.5 or just a lot of wires. the residuals make that back area hot. so thats actually a big reason for it. awesome video tho. not one i usually see so thats the reason i checked it out =)

[Jermdizzle]

I think you have insufficient intake airflow. That's the only way your graphics card sees zero variance when case ambient temp increases significantly due to all intake coming through the CPU radiator. It makes perfect sense that CPU temps would increase with top mount exhaust configuration since the radiator is being cooled with warmer case air rather than fresh cool air from the room. The important thing to remember is that any medium/high end gaming system today will see much larger improvement by cooling their graphics card and GPU/CPU VRM and VRAM than just the CPU die, assuming your CPU is nowhere near thermal throttle (which is should definitely not be with an AIO). That's why top-mount is better overall for a modern med/high/very high end gaming system. I'm much more concerned about doing everything in my power to curb my 3090 FE's 90+ C VRAM temps (after re-padding the back of the PCB, used to be 100+ C during gaming) than my making my 5950x run at 71C instead of 77C under full load.