Thermalright T-rad2 gtx

[BlakAcid]

I just ordered a Thermalright T-rad2 GTX for my BFG GTX 285 OCFU since liquid cooling is not in my budget at the moment (I do plan to switch everything over to liquid cooling eventually, but I don't want to skimp).

I have two questions concerning it. The first is will I be able to mount the heatsink 'upside down' or not. Instead of having the heatsink and fans facing/blowing down (the normal installation), can i have the heatsink on top of the card with the fans blowing up?

Second question is concerning the case fans if the heatsinks/fans must be downward oriented. I have a CM HAF 932 and have the stock 200mm fan on the side pulling air into the case. Will it help with the video card heat if I were to replace that with 4 120mm fans and have the bottom two for intakes and the top two for exhaust. Also, would that totally wreck the internal air pressure that the case was designed for?

[blueonblack]

I use that same cooler and it has to be bottom-mounted. As for the side fans, it could help. The fans draw upward into the heat sink and blow out the sides but that hot air isn't directed anywhere. Good airflow planning is in order to be sure it's not recirculated back into the fans. Feed them fresh air on the bottom and draw out the hot air higher up and you should be fine.

I love this cooler, by the way, it's extremely effective and the included fans are surprisingly quiet.

[BlakAcid]

cool. the next thing ill be looking into is soldering the fans wires together so they are controlled together (the ones on the t-rad2) and then wiring the two intake fans together and the two exhaust fans together so i can control intake and exhaust with two controllers instead of four.

think this will work on the t-rad2 or are the fan controlling capabilities already taken care of?

[blueonblack]

cool. the next thing ill be looking into is soldering the fans wires together so they are controlled together (the ones on the t-rad2) and then wiring the two intake fans together and the two exhaust fans together so i can control intake and exhaust with two controllers instead of four.

think this will work on the t-rad2 or are the fan controlling capabilities already taken care of?

It will work fine, they're standard 92mm case fans with 3-pin leads, no control of any sort. If you didn't want to solder them you could do the same thing with a Y-connector. That's how mine are hooked up.

[BlakAcid]

i picked up a y connector for the two fans on the t-rad2 and hooked them together. i did pick up another y connecter but didnt plug any of the 120mm fans into it as the package said 'supports up to 92mm fans'. i didnt feel safe plugging them in.

so all the side fans are now run off the scythe fan controller and the t-rad2 fans are plugged into the motherboard.

is there any way to monitor/control the t-rad2's fans (other than speedfan, which is always running)? i liked having precision be able to take care of everything with the video card.

if the motherboard runs both the t-rad2's fans at full speed then i feel a little better about overclocking the vid card a little more (its already at 713; but i want moar!!!).

btw, here are my system specs now

Cooler Master HAF 932
Stock front/top/rear fans
Scythe slim 120mm 800rpm side fans x4 (bot intake/top exhaust)
Scythe slim 120mm 1600rpm bot intake
Scythe Kaze Master Ace fan controller
Asus P6T Mobo
Intel i7 920 OC'ed to 3.6Ghz
Cooler Master V8
Corsair 6Gb DDR3-1600
BFG GTX 285 OCFU! with Thermalright T-Rad2 GTX
WD Caviar 300Gb 7200rpm
Seagate Barracude 1.5Tb 7200rpm
Seagate external 160Gb 7200rpm
Seagate FreeAgent 1Tb 7200rpm
Cyborg RAT 7 Mouse
Das Keyboard
Insignia 1080p 37" Primary "Monitor"
LG 19.1" Secondary Monitor