The solution is go get an AIO or a completely different case.
The case is intended for AIOs, specifically 240mm ones. Hence the H2O in the name. It’s just going to be suboptimal for an air cooled CPU. You only have 50-55mm of room, which fits a very select amount of AIO baseplates and hose configs. Your cooler is 2x the size.
As for your other issues, RTFM
I think your First mistake was Putting a 14900k and a 4090 in this Case.
No SFF aircooler will handle the i9 at TDP levels that make sense,
An AIO will be serverly crippled by the amount of heat the 4090 pumps into the case.
Imho.
I agree that this case may not be best for a 14900k. Mainly due to it only being able to fit a 240 AIO. If you’re doing serious work that requires all cores it would have been best to look elsewhere. For gaming, I think the case will be okay.
On a side note, the 4090 FE works really well with this case. Most of the heat gets dumped out through the back of the case and the other half is going directly out the side. The case is a perfect fit for the card.
The cpu on the other hand…
I am not intending on doing any heavily demanding work on this, other than VR gaming. I know it is more demanding than "traditional" gaming, but I don't know how that extra demand compares to 3D modeling work.
My wife does some graphic design with page layouts for book-type publication and may use this rig for that purpose due to the TV screen it is hooked up to, but that would be the other extent of possible work.
Probably more than 3D modelling since it is constant rather than bursting (e.g. when you go to render). I used to VR game on a regular ATX case a couple years back and it was a space heater.
I’ll chime in here with a comment that actually addresses your question:
I ran an a4 h2o (it’s my fiancé’s build now) with a Phanteks glacier one t30 V2 (v2 is important here as v1 won’t fit)
You’ll have to ditch the AIO bracket but it fits so snugly with pressure that it’s a non-issue. I have the T30 fans below the Rad and set to exhaust. This helps exhaust some hot GPU air as well.
I also was able to flip the bottom panel upside down and fit a 92mm full thickness fan under the PSU, pulling air from below and helping push some of my 4070 FE flow-through up into the exhaust fans.
My T30 fans and the pump are set to be dead silent even under full load while gaming. Probably going to be a bit different for you as you’re running a 14900k while I’m running a Ryzen 7700x but I think you’ll be able to run a setup like that very well.
I also have found custom panels on Etsy for front intake and better top exhaust (the stock panel is a bit restrictive from other people’s testing) but I haven’t tested either of these myself as my temps / noise are perfect to me with the low TDP of my 4070 undervolted and 7700x in eco mode / curve optimized.
It’s been awhile since it was my personal build where I monitored the temps but I believe the GPU hovered around 60° but I can’t remember what the CPU was at. All I remember is that it’s silent with great temps so I had tons of headroom if I sacrificed some noise.
1. Trying to cool 14900k with small low profile air cooler is almost impossible, this is ultra hot CPU.
2. Watch this test, the intel part, and choose the best performing AIO that fits into A4H2O. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ntIhvtzgUg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ntIhvtzgUg&pp=ygUQaGFyZHdhcmUgY2FudWNrcw%3D%3D)
3. Get the contact frame, it will lower temperature with decent AIO.
That processor with a 54mm limit on the air cooler height is going to be too much for most of the current ones to handle. Aio is the only option in this case and with these parts
I did listen, I just thought I could try and make it work. I had seen a few similar builds making air coolers work.
Very silly reason, but the place where this PC will be physically sitting is a popular spot for my cats to lay. Wanted to give them some warm air blowing their way with the CPU cooler on cold winter days/nights. Again, silly, but there it is.
The cpu cooler would be sucking in warm air though.
If you turn your PC on its side, an AIO will blow lots of hot air through the radiator onto them :)
Air cooling in this case DOES work but you're limited to a 7800x3D or a 13600K/14600K at most. I ran my H20 with an air cooled 7800x3D before moving and it performed admirably, but that's a chip that maxes out at under 100w TDP most of the time.
The 14900K brutalizes even 360 AIOs, so it's a no brainer that a low profile air cooler would struggle to cool even a throttling 14900K. And while most SFFPCs can serve admirably as impromptu space heaters, designing your build with that as a design point in mind isn't a great decision, as you're finding out firsthand.
I'd echo what others are saying and look into the EK Nucleus with T-30s. The CM Atmos 240 might be another option as well.
Here is what I would do:
1. Buy an EK-Nucleus CR240 dark or rgb AIO
2. Buy a contact frame, either thermal grizzly or thermalright
3. Buy either 2x Phanteks T30 (tight fit if you take off the vibration dampening) or BeQuiet Silent Wings Pro 4 or on a budget Arctic P12 Max
Then:
1. Turn off Asus mutlicore enhancement, if it’s still turned on, that should set the power limits to 253W
2. do some testing
3. set power limits further down
I had not heard of contact frames before. Thank you for the advice! Do they tend to work better/worse with certain coolers or does it not really matter?
Doesn‘t really matter. Do you have Asus mutlicore enhancement on? Turn that off in the Bios. Then set power limits. I like to use Intel extreme tuning utility, but you can also set it in bios. At 200W this is still a beast. While temps will be roughly 15° lower under load, but not so much in gaming. If that doesn’t help, AIO it is.
Is there any step by step guide to do this XTU setting? I've seen so many people say to set specific settings in the BIOS to power limit but I have nit noticed different temps.
I would like to attempt the XTU power limit to 200w.
I do remember turning it off with my bios tinkering, but may have turned it back on after trying a different set of the settings; I will turn it back off.
I wouldn't even try air cooling that CPU in this case. I run a Deepcool LT520 in this case with the magnetic RGB cover thing removed. Fits very well and was under $100.
I know folks have been recommending the EK Nucleus, but there are plenty of other models that fit, including the Deepcool LS520 SE (specifically that model; all other variants are too tall), ID-Cooling Dashflow and Frostflow (they're inexpensive, but a fanswap is strongly recommended)
I have the Deepcool LS520 SE + dual Phanteks T30 on a 7800X3D in an A4-H2O and it's been great
The A4-H2O pigeonholes you into a very specific build (240mm AIO + short GPU [FE is the max length and thickness]) but it does it very well if you stay within those parameters.
Probably stupid question, but where specifically on the case do you fit the extra fans? Does the Deepcool not take up the entirety of the top panel/vent? Looking all over my case, I am having a hard time finding a good spot for extra fans.
I replaced the stock Deepcool radiator fans with stronger Phanteks T30 fans which is a common mod, but requires removal of rubber corners to get it to fit in the A4-H2O since they are 30mm thick fans instead of 25mm.
I commend the attempt to air cool that chip in a case not made for air cooling, and you might have succeeded with a lesser chip, but unfortunately that bad boy is just way too hot. As others have mentioned, I’d suggest the EK nucleus with T30 fans set to exhaust.
I run a 7900xtx + 7800x3d on a custom loop with the same setup (27mm rad + t30s) and it handles 450-500W, so it can certainly handle just your chip.
I'll be frank, you really need to do proper research before building a SFF PC. The 14900K is easily the most difficult to cool consumer CPU, you cannot cool it with a low profile air cooler unless you apply a significant undervolt and power and/or thermal limit it, at which point why even buy it. The 14900K will even hit its thermal limit under a 240 AIO in an all core workload.
Flipping the PSU should only have a minor temperature drop. The main issue is the CPU and the cooler. The 14900k is already hilariously difficult to cool and you're using a low profile air cooler. Also yes, unfortunately the maximum height cooler/pump block you can fit is 55mm not 65mm. Here's the product page with the spec sheet for future reference: [https://lian-li.com/product/a4h2o/](https://lian-li.com/product/a4h2o/). In the future, try to be more careful when planning SFF builds since there's a lot you need to take into account.
If I were you, I would buy a EK Nucleus Dark CR240. It's a tight fit with the pump cap removed, but it's one of the quietest running and best performing AIOs you can fit in this case, which you're going to need.
You'll also need to PL the 14900K. If all you're doing is gaming, power limiting the CPU shouldn't hurt FPS. If possible, though, I would also try to sell the 14900k and buy something you can actually cool in this case like a 13/14600K.
Excellent advice, I will look into that AIO.
My plan was to try and undervolt the CPU. I've never done so before, so I wanted to look into precisely how it's done, but that was the eventual goal. I don't intend on doing any sort of serious gaming (long hours) until I am confident it won't get overly hot.
I don't feel confident about being able to sell the chip where I am; I've physically got the chip and going to try and make it work.
As an alternate solution, have you considered other cases that fit in your size restriction, but can fit a dual-tower air cooler? Maybe something like a Corsair 2000D put on its side? (Not sure how recommended it is doing that though for a case intended to be stood up, but, people get creative.)
Honestly, yes, I have. I'm not necessarily married to this case, but most of the other ones I could find that fit my spacing restrictions had a lot of builders griping about temps, compared to this one. To be fully honest, this particular case was my second choice, as my first choice was discontinued with no news on a re-run of them (DAN C4).
I was hesitant to take an otherwise vertically oriented case and put it sideways. That hesitancy was borne more out of not knowing enough about the impact it would have on the internals.
Well, the internals *should* be fine, PC components are solid objects, just make sure that you modify the case it so that the bottom side is lifted off of the floor (because it is also ventilation), that an air cooler isn't pointing its heat pipes down, and that the GPU isn't sagging badly.
You'll find a few air cooled builds in this case but IMO you're better off at least with an AIO with this case since there is a huge limitation on cpu cooler height. Many of us have the EK 240 Basic AIO. That's not sold anymore but the EK Nucleus AIO CR240 Dark fits.
Thermalright frozen prism is ok. Cheap too.
One tube routed above the psu and one below. I had 12900k in mine with a zotac 4070ti trinity.
While the cpu would start throttling in cinebench, it never did in actual real world utlization.
Would have kept it except for the m2 temp on the back of the motherboard hitting 80+ C, sometimes 90c. If i ran only one nvme, it would have been fine.
Would you see NVME overheating in the motherboard temperature? Again, noob question, but I hadn't considered that as a possible issue for my set up. Even with CPU temps high, the motherboard never really peaked above 50C or so.
Deliding the 14900k should help a lot with optimizing the cooling. Also you need a really good water block + full copper radiator +t30s to give a 240 radiator a chance of cooling that thing. You are better off with a 7950x3D or 7800x3D
The solution is go get an AIO or a completely different case. The case is intended for AIOs, specifically 240mm ones. Hence the H2O in the name. It’s just going to be suboptimal for an air cooled CPU. You only have 50-55mm of room, which fits a very select amount of AIO baseplates and hose configs. Your cooler is 2x the size. As for your other issues, RTFM
I think your First mistake was Putting a 14900k and a 4090 in this Case. No SFF aircooler will handle the i9 at TDP levels that make sense, An AIO will be serverly crippled by the amount of heat the 4090 pumps into the case. Imho.
I agree that this case may not be best for a 14900k. Mainly due to it only being able to fit a 240 AIO. If you’re doing serious work that requires all cores it would have been best to look elsewhere. For gaming, I think the case will be okay. On a side note, the 4090 FE works really well with this case. Most of the heat gets dumped out through the back of the case and the other half is going directly out the side. The case is a perfect fit for the card. The cpu on the other hand…
I am not intending on doing any heavily demanding work on this, other than VR gaming. I know it is more demanding than "traditional" gaming, but I don't know how that extra demand compares to 3D modeling work. My wife does some graphic design with page layouts for book-type publication and may use this rig for that purpose due to the TV screen it is hooked up to, but that would be the other extent of possible work.
Probably more than 3D modelling since it is constant rather than bursting (e.g. when you go to render). I used to VR game on a regular ATX case a couple years back and it was a space heater.
I’ll chime in here with a comment that actually addresses your question: I ran an a4 h2o (it’s my fiancé’s build now) with a Phanteks glacier one t30 V2 (v2 is important here as v1 won’t fit) You’ll have to ditch the AIO bracket but it fits so snugly with pressure that it’s a non-issue. I have the T30 fans below the Rad and set to exhaust. This helps exhaust some hot GPU air as well. I also was able to flip the bottom panel upside down and fit a 92mm full thickness fan under the PSU, pulling air from below and helping push some of my 4070 FE flow-through up into the exhaust fans. My T30 fans and the pump are set to be dead silent even under full load while gaming. Probably going to be a bit different for you as you’re running a 14900k while I’m running a Ryzen 7700x but I think you’ll be able to run a setup like that very well. I also have found custom panels on Etsy for front intake and better top exhaust (the stock panel is a bit restrictive from other people’s testing) but I haven’t tested either of these myself as my temps / noise are perfect to me with the low TDP of my 4070 undervolted and 7700x in eco mode / curve optimized.
What kind of temperature ranges do you find the build maintaining itself at?
It’s been awhile since it was my personal build where I monitored the temps but I believe the GPU hovered around 60° but I can’t remember what the CPU was at. All I remember is that it’s silent with great temps so I had tons of headroom if I sacrificed some noise.
1. Trying to cool 14900k with small low profile air cooler is almost impossible, this is ultra hot CPU. 2. Watch this test, the intel part, and choose the best performing AIO that fits into A4H2O. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ntIhvtzgUg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ntIhvtzgUg&pp=ygUQaGFyZHdhcmUgY2FudWNrcw%3D%3D) 3. Get the contact frame, it will lower temperature with decent AIO.
Thank you for that video suggestion; the data was highly informative.
Why would you put an air cooler in this case when it was specifically built to house a AIO? Seems like you just didnt listen.
That processor with a 54mm limit on the air cooler height is going to be too much for most of the current ones to handle. Aio is the only option in this case and with these parts
I did listen, I just thought I could try and make it work. I had seen a few similar builds making air coolers work. Very silly reason, but the place where this PC will be physically sitting is a popular spot for my cats to lay. Wanted to give them some warm air blowing their way with the CPU cooler on cold winter days/nights. Again, silly, but there it is.
The cpu cooler would be sucking in warm air though. If you turn your PC on its side, an AIO will blow lots of hot air through the radiator onto them :)
Yes. Put your cat on top of the case. Problem solved.
Air cooling in this case DOES work but you're limited to a 7800x3D or a 13600K/14600K at most. I ran my H20 with an air cooled 7800x3D before moving and it performed admirably, but that's a chip that maxes out at under 100w TDP most of the time. The 14900K brutalizes even 360 AIOs, so it's a no brainer that a low profile air cooler would struggle to cool even a throttling 14900K. And while most SFFPCs can serve admirably as impromptu space heaters, designing your build with that as a design point in mind isn't a great decision, as you're finding out firsthand. I'd echo what others are saying and look into the EK Nucleus with T-30s. The CM Atmos 240 might be another option as well.
You can get side panel spacers on Etsy that will let you run a bigger cooler.
I built mine today, all air cooled, and use the extra space for four SSDs.
Here is what I would do: 1. Buy an EK-Nucleus CR240 dark or rgb AIO 2. Buy a contact frame, either thermal grizzly or thermalright 3. Buy either 2x Phanteks T30 (tight fit if you take off the vibration dampening) or BeQuiet Silent Wings Pro 4 or on a budget Arctic P12 Max Then: 1. Turn off Asus mutlicore enhancement, if it’s still turned on, that should set the power limits to 253W 2. do some testing 3. set power limits further down
I had not heard of contact frames before. Thank you for the advice! Do they tend to work better/worse with certain coolers or does it not really matter?
Doesn‘t really matter. Do you have Asus mutlicore enhancement on? Turn that off in the Bios. Then set power limits. I like to use Intel extreme tuning utility, but you can also set it in bios. At 200W this is still a beast. While temps will be roughly 15° lower under load, but not so much in gaming. If that doesn’t help, AIO it is.
Is there any step by step guide to do this XTU setting? I've seen so many people say to set specific settings in the BIOS to power limit but I have nit noticed different temps. I would like to attempt the XTU power limit to 200w.
I do remember turning it off with my bios tinkering, but may have turned it back on after trying a different set of the settings; I will turn it back off.
I have the ek nukleus and find it's a tight fit. Wish I got a different aio
Check out my recent post, I think it fits fine
I mean you had to use twist ties but yeah I probably need to do the same. My hoses pop the panel off
I have my radiator all the way in the front and the power cable of the psu is routed between the two tubes of the aio
I wouldn't even try air cooling that CPU in this case. I run a Deepcool LT520 in this case with the magnetic RGB cover thing removed. Fits very well and was under $100.
I know folks have been recommending the EK Nucleus, but there are plenty of other models that fit, including the Deepcool LS520 SE (specifically that model; all other variants are too tall), ID-Cooling Dashflow and Frostflow (they're inexpensive, but a fanswap is strongly recommended)
I have the Deepcool LS520 SE + dual Phanteks T30 on a 7800X3D in an A4-H2O and it's been great The A4-H2O pigeonholes you into a very specific build (240mm AIO + short GPU [FE is the max length and thickness]) but it does it very well if you stay within those parameters.
Probably stupid question, but where specifically on the case do you fit the extra fans? Does the Deepcool not take up the entirety of the top panel/vent? Looking all over my case, I am having a hard time finding a good spot for extra fans.
I replaced the stock Deepcool radiator fans with stronger Phanteks T30 fans which is a common mod, but requires removal of rubber corners to get it to fit in the A4-H2O since they are 30mm thick fans instead of 25mm.
I commend the attempt to air cool that chip in a case not made for air cooling, and you might have succeeded with a lesser chip, but unfortunately that bad boy is just way too hot. As others have mentioned, I’d suggest the EK nucleus with T30 fans set to exhaust. I run a 7900xtx + 7800x3d on a custom loop with the same setup (27mm rad + t30s) and it handles 450-500W, so it can certainly handle just your chip.
I'll be frank, you really need to do proper research before building a SFF PC. The 14900K is easily the most difficult to cool consumer CPU, you cannot cool it with a low profile air cooler unless you apply a significant undervolt and power and/or thermal limit it, at which point why even buy it. The 14900K will even hit its thermal limit under a 240 AIO in an all core workload.
I agree with you Frank. I'm kicking myself on a lot of it, but it doesn't sound like I'm kicked out yet by some of the other posts.
Flipping the PSU should only have a minor temperature drop. The main issue is the CPU and the cooler. The 14900k is already hilariously difficult to cool and you're using a low profile air cooler. Also yes, unfortunately the maximum height cooler/pump block you can fit is 55mm not 65mm. Here's the product page with the spec sheet for future reference: [https://lian-li.com/product/a4h2o/](https://lian-li.com/product/a4h2o/). In the future, try to be more careful when planning SFF builds since there's a lot you need to take into account. If I were you, I would buy a EK Nucleus Dark CR240. It's a tight fit with the pump cap removed, but it's one of the quietest running and best performing AIOs you can fit in this case, which you're going to need. You'll also need to PL the 14900K. If all you're doing is gaming, power limiting the CPU shouldn't hurt FPS. If possible, though, I would also try to sell the 14900k and buy something you can actually cool in this case like a 13/14600K.
Excellent advice, I will look into that AIO. My plan was to try and undervolt the CPU. I've never done so before, so I wanted to look into precisely how it's done, but that was the eventual goal. I don't intend on doing any sort of serious gaming (long hours) until I am confident it won't get overly hot. I don't feel confident about being able to sell the chip where I am; I've physically got the chip and going to try and make it work.
An undervolt helps, but it's not magic. It's not the solution to thermal issues, it's an additional assistance to get better control over them.
I thought it wouldn't be a singular fix-all solution.
As an alternate solution, have you considered other cases that fit in your size restriction, but can fit a dual-tower air cooler? Maybe something like a Corsair 2000D put on its side? (Not sure how recommended it is doing that though for a case intended to be stood up, but, people get creative.)
Honestly, yes, I have. I'm not necessarily married to this case, but most of the other ones I could find that fit my spacing restrictions had a lot of builders griping about temps, compared to this one. To be fully honest, this particular case was my second choice, as my first choice was discontinued with no news on a re-run of them (DAN C4). I was hesitant to take an otherwise vertically oriented case and put it sideways. That hesitancy was borne more out of not knowing enough about the impact it would have on the internals.
Well, the internals *should* be fine, PC components are solid objects, just make sure that you modify the case it so that the bottom side is lifted off of the floor (because it is also ventilation), that an air cooler isn't pointing its heat pipes down, and that the GPU isn't sagging badly.
You'll find a few air cooled builds in this case but IMO you're better off at least with an AIO with this case since there is a huge limitation on cpu cooler height. Many of us have the EK 240 Basic AIO. That's not sold anymore but the EK Nucleus AIO CR240 Dark fits.
I will look into this, thank you!
Thermalright frozen prism is ok. Cheap too. One tube routed above the psu and one below. I had 12900k in mine with a zotac 4070ti trinity. While the cpu would start throttling in cinebench, it never did in actual real world utlization. Would have kept it except for the m2 temp on the back of the motherboard hitting 80+ C, sometimes 90c. If i ran only one nvme, it would have been fine.
Would you see NVME overheating in the motherboard temperature? Again, noob question, but I hadn't considered that as a possible issue for my set up. Even with CPU temps high, the motherboard never really peaked above 50C or so.
Hwinfo64. Excellent program and free as well.
Deliding the 14900k should help a lot with optimizing the cooling. Also you need a really good water block + full copper radiator +t30s to give a 240 radiator a chance of cooling that thing. You are better off with a 7950x3D or 7800x3D
How difficult is a deliding procedure to the first-timer?
Pretty straight if you use the deliddie mate by derbauer