Such an underrated channel. You explain everything in such detail, and with such eloquence. I hope your channel goes to the moon my guy.

Thank you so much for the thorough stuff, concise explanation on findings, accurately representing graphs that look sweet, and the room level speaking volume. My ears and eyes appreciated this video.

Thanks for the great content. Never thought the TX240 would perform this well.

most valuable video about picking a right radiator for your CL .... this was pleasure even to scroll back and listen again and again... dude more of thise dude MORE !

Amazing video! Awesome production quality!

This video is fantastic. The visuals helped me understand a lot more then if you were to just say it. Thank you!

Great channel! Currently researching on switching my NR200, 5800X and 6900XT from air to custom loop.

Thanks, this is great encouragement for my tiny PC heart.

I have a background in heat transfer, just to piggyback that the amount of heat flow gets dissipated into ambient via a rad plateaus really quickly against the fin length (rad thickness in this case), it's actually a tanh curve if I'm not mistaken. In other words, once passing a certain height (which is determined by many factors itself), you are not going to notice any meaningful gains, which is demonstrated in this video. In convection heat exchanger, fin density and length of the rad matters much more. Honestly high pressure head fans at low RPM with low resistance rads works wonder.

this helped clarify the difference in temps. thanks!!

I've seen this data replicated over the past 2 (or so) years and found it still holds up. In my SFF builds, cooling comes down to the fans. The dirt cheap radiator has always worked better in combination with the Noctua fans. And yes, the pumps are a factor. Indeed poor pump leads to poor results and elevated temps. AIOs are a good example (exit costume loops) since some rpms are "fixed". Love the info and please keep it going. And, of course, thanks for the content!

This is what we need. No BS reviews like the mainstream reviewers. Keep it real.

Amazing video! Thanks a lot.

Thank you! Super helpful

Thank you for the content.

This is really good data.

The reason the thin rad underperformed at low fan speeds is because of the higher fin density. That's why the gap shrinks at high fan speeds.

I'm curious to see this test done with more heat being dumped into the system. Your experiment was certainly controlled, but the results are bugging me and I'm definitely interested in how things would change if there was a high power GPU dumping heat into the loop as well.

Thanks to the video, it really saved my money.. I had two heatkiller rad 360S, was thinking about upgrade one of them from S to L (30mm to 48mm). But it seems like it probably would only improve 1C if I do that…

I was wondering earlier this weekend whether running a top and bottom TX240 with 15mm Noctuas in an NR200P would fit. And then I wondered if Machines and More had made any new NR200P videos. I'm not disappointed.

You are very likeable, and have some great vids. Subbed

Thank you for this video. i was doubting between a 30mm radiator with slim fans or a 20mm radiator with regular fans. Definitely going for the tx360 now, especially with the extra FPI it should do way better with regular fans.

Good video. Although I also suspect that the higher fin density on the slimmer rad causes more noise.

Nice! I've always wanted to see this test done, and I'm not sure if I had ever seen it done before. It would've been nice to also include a noise comparison, since from what I've heard from the likes of JayzTwoCents is that higher fin density makes for more noise. Maybe a dB comparison wouldn't have been necessary, but at least hear your description of which one sounded less intrusive, or less loud.

I’d love to see more rad testing. It’s a topic barely touched on KZfaq, except AIOs, which don’t count imo

Well presented very interesting topic. I really enjoyed to watch it. Though I can't totally agree with conclusion. The thing is that in order to answer the question of rad thickness affect on cooling in a more scientific way, some conditions should be met. And the most important is that the rads should be all from the same series of the same manufacturer. This is because the difference between various models can be huge. For example the 30mm HWLabbs Nemesis GTS 280 will slightly outperform 45mm EK CoolStream CE280 across different fan speeds. But will lose in all but slowest fan speed to 45MM Alphacool XT45. When comparing Alphacool ST30 to XT45, the thinner will lose at all fan speeds. Thermal load is also very important - and here its ok as 180W for 240rads is kinda enough. So practically the answer to the question which rad to pick is kinda more complicated than just thickness. Starting with how much heat should be dissipated at required noise level at the given ambient (some have room temp of 19C while others can easily have around 30C). From there moving to how much space in case and what is required for tube routing and fill ports - thinner larger rad (say 280) will yield better cooling than thicker 240 in any any scenario. Sometimes even things like wideness of the rad can be a factor. For example Alphacool's rads are 1-2mm wider than fans, while HWLabs rads tend to be ~13mm wider. Those could be critical for SFF builds. As for the video topic, I noticed that there is very little cooling improvement in noise optimized systems (fans below 1500) with thicker rads. The biggest advantage is the number of ports. But there are thin rads with multiple ports - Alphacool. Not the best performance, but very compact and have largest number of ports. I'm in a SFF sect for very long time. So I could be wrong about performance in large cases.

thank you

Yes, agree with the other commenters that this is a great channel. The concepts are presented clearly and concisely. I was wondering if you've ever worked with Quick Disconnect fittings and their impact on a loop. Thank you

More cooling more better is my motto. To each his own, but I prefer overkill in large or larger case. Everybody and their brother may have one but I love my Lian Li O11DXL-X O11 Dynamic XL ROG, you can squeeze in a 1000W+ of cooling.

great video, thanks for the testing! :) For quite some time i was wondering what the optimal set up would be if you have limted space like in the NR200 below the GPU. Would a normal radiator with slim fans or a thin radiator with normal fans perfome better. Since in your testing the these two rads had similar performance i guess it should be better to grab the thin radiator with regular fans?

Excelent content, was waiting for a test like this, thanks. Can You run a comparison using noctua thin fans (15mm) thick. That would be a more real comparison, since you normally run the slim rad along with slim fans too un the NR200 for instance

Great content! I've been thinking about a custom loop in my cougar qbx, with dual 240 20,5mm rads. I'm curious to see how slim 15mm fans compare against the 12x25

Very well demonstrated. Thanks! Thickness doesn't seem to be THAT important. Also, choose length over thickness whenever possible.

Great video. I'm building a nr200 with a tx240 and I was wondering what I was losing not buying a thicker rad.

Really surprising to see that rad thickness really has very little impact in temps, you can get a bigger reduction in temps by switching to a better thermal compound that you can get from doubling your rad thickness.

Are you reading my mind? I've been searching for this comparison for weeks and at the same time wondering when your next video is up.

Question. Which way should I go having place for 360 thick top, 280 mid mid, 360 thin/mid bottom with ~550-600W max power (GPU+CPU) to make it ultra silent in stress? (one of those at least needs to be intake) 1) Populate all and stick to thin/mid ones 2) Dedicate bottom just for unobstructed air intake and get thickets possible mid/top. 3) Doesnt matter - both options can handle. 4) Something else.

I can’t remember if you have done the slim fan/thick rad vs reg fan/slim rad test- based on this the best cooling will likely be on the fan side.

I got a cheap 360x25, the core definitely thinner, closer to 20mm, but I was very surprised to find it cooled my 3080, 320w, without trouble. My main gaming PC has a 4090/13900K, but the rads on that are massive overkill, 3x480’s

Well, that's really surprising. Roughly double the cooling surface area with double the fluid heatsink and there's less than a 2 degree difference? Wow. I would have guessed a much, much greater difference.

cool! 2k rpm would be nice to see too

great all I wanted to know was if thickness brought anything because I can go pull fan-54mm but not push fan-54 I'd have to go push fan-30mm because of how my case is, space for 30+30 not 30+54 apparently it does so I'll keep my current pull config for that vertical rad but will go push for the one at the bottom (lianli 011 dynamic xl)

“What really matters is how you use it”

Corsair's XR 5 and 7 360mm are what I am going with.

It appears that internal pipe length matters more than anything. Adding more rads would appear to be more beneficial than have a single thicker rad. I wonder if stacking two 20mm thick rads on top of each other would be better then a single 40mm rad. Perhaps do a 240 and a 360mm rad stacked on top of each other instead of a thick 40mm 360mm radiator. That way you can get the hoses to loop properly.

Late comment but would the variable of pump speed/fluid flowrate be significant. Case in point: I use alphacool DC-LT 2600 tiny pump with rated flowrate of 75L/h in NR200. Know you can faster DDC pumps, so curious.

Would be curious to see a custom loop NR200P with a thick rad, riser cable and just top mounted fans to see if it's doable. Been eyeing a 54mm r240 but I don't want to make the investment without knowing for sure. Also unclear if you could fit thin fans with something that thick. Can't seem to find GPU slot to bottom of the case clearance anywhere.

Are those fans a little thin for radiators?

Any chance you can tell us what was your CPU package power when you were conducting these tests?

Very good... but i just worried about the test made with different brands. I mean.. different brands have different projects.

wonder what's the difference between tx240 and gts280 low profile

Watching this with my 360mmx38mm Arctic Liquid Freezer 3

dang that rad is THICC

I'm about to build my first custom loop in the NR200P. 240mm slim from EK at the bottom and 92mm on the back. Nothing on top as I'm not comfortable with modding the case yet. Biggest caveat is that my hardware is a 5900x and 3080ti FE. Should I be worried?

Really suprised with the results, I’m planning on water cooling my Jonsbo d30 and been looking at different radiators/fan configs and if it would be better to do a 30mm thick rad with 15mm Arctic p12s or to do a 20mm thick rad with Normal p12

Wonderful video. It's a shame you didn't also test pump speed or fan thickness. I wonder if a thin rad with 25nm fans beats a medium rad with thin fans.

So, a push+pull with a thin radiator would be better than just push+45mm rad from other tests I've seen around?

in the first graph you didn't let the thermals equalize, you can see the temps are still increasing. in the second graph it looks like it may have just reached it but you should probably have still gone longer.

Which is better: 1 set of fans with a thick rad, or 2 sets of fans doing push-pull on a thin rad?

I am curious. Are thick radiators louder?

Very Last Post but did you try a push/Pull?

T H I C C

45mm starts from a lowe temp... it means that the ambient temp was lower from the beginning. 45m at equal air temp would have performed same as 35mm rad.

Greater thermal mass also means it takes longer to reach maximum temp.... Also if your flow is good and you have a big rad it means you will dump out this xtra heat faster with less noise. . Termal mass = better cooling overall.

guess going 280 slim rad in my case was the way to go

Noctua fans are pretty ass. Might want to consider replacing those with Phanteks, Thermaltake, Nidec or Scythe fans

There is a simple thing that can bring temps down. drop the ambient temp. How? coolbot and a common enough window unit ac. 3d print a shroud to an 8 inch vent tube, and pipe the cool air anywhere you want. buy a cheap enough marijuana grow tent, and pipe the cold air into it. Spending 200 on a custom cooling loop just to gain a few extra degrees... AIO's give you at best 44 c temps. custom loops give you at best 37 c temps. With an AC unit cooling the air to 3c, you can expect 20 c temps. Not to mention the positive air pressure, filtered air, and dry air... You could probably get extremely descent temps with just an air cooler like Noctua. Heat pipes really are the most effecient.

Any p[lan on reviewing the SSUPD Meshilicious?

You know black tubing is like 4$ a meter on Aliexpress right? So much better looking unless you want Colored liquid ofc... But that gunks up your whole loop though...

You'll also see a much more significant difference in a system where the custom loop is already being pushed to its limit. Say two high end graphics cards on top of a cpu.

Wow, so only about 10-15% difference between the 20mm TX240 and the 45mm EK

So, it really doesn't matter all that much. Especially not with multiple rads.

My wife says thickness doesn't matter. I have doubts though.

Big Chinese brands like bykski and barrow are better than western parts btw. Usually made of copper and half the Price with the same quality. Aluminium is just for cost savings, it's worse In every way... This is one reason why cars use aluminium btw, for those that use that flawed argument against copper. Those radiators are so huge it makes a lot of difference

Not a great test. You need to test the same line with different thickness. Even if these rads were the same thickness they'd have different performance.

Thicc with two c