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December 3rd, 2019 12:00

Aurora R9, GPU liquid cooler

I have ordered an Alienware Aurora R9 with the CPU Liquid cooling option. I was wondering if the casing can house another closed loop radiator for the GPU, which is RTX 2080 Super.

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2.2K Posts

December 3rd, 2019 15:00

The short answer is NO.

Here is the reason:

I have an R8 which I modded an MSI RX580 Armor OC 8GB with the NZXT Kraken G12 + Corsair H55 AIO. The card itself is 268mm which is about the same size as the EVGA 2080 Super Hybrid XC. If you bought the card during the BF sales or 2 weeks before that when it dipped to $709.99 after MIR, congrats, you made a good call. I am staring at the Egg shop every night praying it will go down again.

Here's how my mod looks like:

IMG_6274.jpg

See how the card only has space left for the radiator but not the fan? So there's only one place to fit the fan:

ML120 Pro doesn't fitML120 Pro doesn't fit

In picture above, I was trying to show that a 120x25 fan will not fit in the bezel. Finally, I used a Noctua AF12x15 which barely makes it in the bezel. I eventually plan to move to that 2080 Super with AIO. For that plan to work, I'm gonna cut out the lower front piece of the casing (not the bezel). Then I should be able to fit both radiator and 120x25 fan through the hole and call it a day. Waiting for my Dremel to arrive any day now.

So why did I say no to your question? Because I just had the chance to stare at an R9 2 days ago at local BB. The bezel dips too far in towards the chassis such that you may not even have space to squeeze in a 120x15 fan.

Alternatively, you can try installing the radiator at where the CPU radiator is, and move the CPU radiator to the upper front of the chassis. AW Umer did a video on the GPU AIO installation in the CPU AIO mount. @HanoverB has an XPS8930 write-up for placing the CPU radiator up front. Maybe you will be the first person to do both?

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798 Posts

December 4th, 2019 01:00

@GTS81 already did the homework for you as he observed even a 15mm radiator won't fit in front of the chassis of the R9 with a 120mm radiator at the location of the lower front intake fan.  Too bad that front bezel dips in so much at the bottom.

Take a look at @coldfish_91 DIY thread and how he put a 240mm radiator at the bottom of the chassis.  That seems to be a viable option with either the 120 or 240mm AIO cooler.

Follow the lead of both those modders in how they installed the Kraken hybrid coolers on their GPU's.

https://www.dell.com/community/Alienware-Desktops/Aurora-R9-DIY-project/td-p/7420250

https://www.dell.com/community/Alienware-Desktops/Aurora-R8-Experience-of-Buying/m-p/7352232/highlight/true#M11643

 

 

December 4th, 2019 00:00

Thanks for the reply. I am kinda concerned because the I have been reading that the GPU temperatures on this thing go up to 83 C, and I dont want that since my ambient temperatures will be around 36-37 C in summers and that might make it go even hotter. Do you have any idea how many case fans does the R9 have, are there just two, the one on the top and the one in the front?

I bought the Alienware with the RTX Super 2080 on BF, not just the card

Yeah I have seen the video from AWUmer. Can you please give a link to the write-up on the XPS8930 by @HanoverB?

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2.2K Posts

December 4th, 2019 09:00

Just a disclaimer here, I did not pry open the R9 in the local BB therefore it is not 100% that a 15mm thick fan won't fit in the bezel. All I did was eyeball it from the outside and made a call that the dip was too far in.

Yeah I have seen the video from AWUmer. Can you please give a link to the write-up on the XPS8930 by @HanoverB?

https://www.dell.com/community/XPS-Desktops/XPS-8930-GPU-and-CPU-Liquid-Cooler-PSU-Case-Swap-Upgrade/m-p/6137280/highlight/true#M16363

The conventional mindset around GPU liquid cooling in Aurora nanocase previously has been to stick the radiator and fan in the lower front of the chassis like yours truly did. @coldfish_91 just shown us something different. 

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