has anyone been using a dual tower cooler for 5+ years?

[Sheninat0r]

my current rig (from 2009) is watercooled, but i want to go back to air cooling on my next build to save myself the hassle of having to maintain a water loop. i'm looking at the nh-d15, but it weighs 1300+ grams with fans and i'm worried about the stress it will put on my motherboard. is there anyone else who has been using a huge, heavy cooler for a long period of time? as you can see, i upgrade very infrequently so i don't want to risk any long-term damage to my mobo.

 

[Smoblikat]

I had a phanteks dual tower 140mm on a board for at least 2 years and it never bent or drooped at all. Ive also had hyper 212's bend boards after no more than 1 year, so from what ive seen its all just luck. Make sure the board is tightened down snugly and the cooler is installed properly, you should be fine.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

I had a phanteks dual tower 140mm on a board for at least 2 years and it never bent or drooped at all. Ive also had hyper 212's bend boards after no more than 1 year, so from what ive seen its all just luck. Make sure the board is tightened down snugly and the cooler is installed properly, you should be fine.

NH-D14 here -- predecessor to the D15.

Your typical 120 or 140mm fan weigh in at around 7oz. Two of them will add short of a lb in weight to the cooler.

Here's what I suggest if you want to trouble yourself.

If there's a "round" 140mm fan included with the D15 -- likely meant for use between the towers -- leave it installed. Then duct the back of the rear tower (assuming it faces to the case exhaust fan) to the rear case exhaust.

You can play around with different configurations. For instance, you could cut a 1.5" circle from a Quaker Oats box, and see if using it to duct the space between the coolers helps while using a pusher fan as intake to the front-most tower.

You can replace your case exhaust fan with something like a Noctua iPPC 120mm 2,000 or 3,000 RPM. Assuming that you'll use motherboard PWM port for that fan and control it thermally.

Ducting the cooler to the exhaust fan can be done any number of ways, mostly using cheap materials. For instance, you could use a Nestlé's coffee-mate plastic "barrel" to cut a duct of ~ 140mm diameter. You can build a rectangular duct with foam art-board, designed to slide in and out for maintenance. OR you can spend ~$5 plus shipping and buy a ThermalRight blue-rubber accordion duct. Latter is supposed to be "only compatible" with TR coolers, but that's hogwash. You can cut it and klooge it anyway you like to make and effective duct.

Nothing wrong with the D15, except for its size. I will still cautiously recommend the EVGA ACX cooler such as the one I've tested on another system. I guarantee that it will provide temperatures ~6C lower than a D14 @ ~120W thermal power. I'm pretty sure it will edge out the D15 by maybe 3C. But it's a single-tower cooler with only a single fan. Like the D14, I have ducted my ACX rear to the case exhaust, and replaced the pusher fan with an iPPC.

 

[Sheninat0r]

I had a phanteks dual tower 140mm on a board for at least 2 years and it never bent or drooped at all. Ive also had hyper 212's bend boards after no more than 1 year, so from what ive seen its all just luck. Make sure the board is tightened down snugly and the cooler is installed properly, you should be fine.

that's not very reassuring. i think i may just forego the option of overclocking this pc and use a smaller cooler instead. aio water doesn't interest me, and i doubt it could last 5 years with zero maintenance either.

 

[ClockHound]

If the motherboard is properly secured and the cooler is mounted correctly using the supplied backplate and you don't kick the system down the stairs every time there's a BSOD, wouldn't expect any issues. Epxoy PCBs are tough.

Pre-2010 there were many less than optimum backplates and some 1.8+kg coolers and that's when you might have worried.

I've used twin tower Silver Arrows, Phanteks and Noctuas for years without seeing any gravitational induced fatigue - on boards like Sabertooths, UD5s. Most of the cooler's mass is mounted close to the board anyhow.

If you're getting a new board, make sure it's not a thin piece of crap. Cheap boards with heavy coolers with poor mounting systems could be an issue.

That said, for piece of mind, you can consider either cases that offer heatsink support, like some of the Silverstones. Or join the collective cubers that mount the board in correct horizontal position with non-conductive support shims under the backplate. ;-)

And while saying that, there a few smaller single tower coolers that can get within 3-6 degrees of the big twin towers, like the TR TS140 Rev A with a middle weight of 610 grams. Or the svelte, yet effective (at stock) Scythe Kotetsu with a feather weight 480 grams. Sure, it's heavy Big Bird feathers, but still...under the Intel spec.

The risk of gravity induced motherboard distortion is lower than the risk of a liquid cooling loop failure pouring liquid onto the motherboard and destroying it electrically.

The Noctua mounting system is very, very good. For me, the overclocking performance and low noise of the D15 is worth the risk of long-term gravitas. ;-)

 

[BonzaiDuck]

If the motherboard is properly secured and the cooler is mounted correctly using the supplied backplate and you don't kick the system down the stairs every time there's a BSOD, wouldn't expect any issues. Epxoy PCBs are tough.

Pre-2010 there were many less than optimum backplates and some 1.8+kg coolers and that's when you might have worried.

I've used twin tower Silver Arrows, Phanteks and Noctuas for years without seeing any gravitational induced fatigue - on boards like Sabertooths, UD5s. Most of the cooler's mass is mounted close to the board anyhow.

If you're getting a new board, make sure it's not a thin piece of crap. Cheap boards with heavy coolers with poor mounting systems could be an issue.

That said, for piece of mind, you can consider either cases that offer heatsink support, like some of the Silverstones. Or join the collective cubers that mount the board in correct horizontal position with non-conductive support shims under the backplate. ;-)

And while saying that, there a few smaller single tower coolers that can get within 3-6 degrees of the big twin towers, like the TR TS140 Rev A with a middle weight of 610 grams. Or the svelte, yet effective (at stock) Scythe Kotetsu with a feather weight 480 grams. Sure, it's heavy Big Bird feathers, but still...under the Intel spec.

The risk of gravity induced motherboard distortion is lower than the risk of a liquid cooling loop failure pouring liquid onto the motherboard and destroying it electrically.

The Noctua mounting system is very, very good. For me, the overclocking performance and low noise of the D15 is worth the risk of long-term gravitas. ;-)

I think it has largely been a myth that has actually grown with the size of coolers, coming from a time when a full-copper TRUE or Zalman "flower" were hefty weights.

I'm quite convinced that my fan-mounting alternatives aren't necessary for removing fans from the coolers, only because there's little risk with usual expectations of 7oz./fan.

 

[PliotronX]

If you are really that concerned, you can relieve some of the weight with clever use of fishing line or zip ties. No problems here and my first mega tower was a Tuniq 120 (2006) still going on an Opteron 165/DFI LanParty UT RDX200 nor with a TRUE (2008) on a Q6600.

 

[Rezist]

I've been using a 212 evo on a 57$ MOBO for years with out a single issue, I kinda wish there were better sub 120 mm coolers for some itx cases though.

 

[Cerb]

Not dual-tower (today, I'd get a NH-U14S, for an OCed PC, which is also not a dual-tower), but I used a Scythe Ninja for over 6 years, never even refreshing the TIM.

Popular tower coolers aren't all that stressful on the mobos (there are probably exceptions, after all ). Most of the weight is towards the base, any good one reduces bending with a backplate, and the mobos are already designed to flex with the stock coolers.

IMO, it's worth spending a little more for a good mounting system, like Noctua, Thermalright, Prolimatech, etc. use, where you just apply one or two screws to actually mount the heatsink, after securing the backplate to a bracket that goes around the socket.

 

[iceranger]

I agree with some members here if you attach your cooler and MOBO correctly there shouldn't be any issue no matter the size of your cooler.

 

[DrMrLordX]

I ran an NH-D14 on an ATX board for about 5 years (2009-2014). During the entire period (well, the vast majority of it), the PC sat upright (case was midsize tower) and the board bore the pressure of the HSF mount aided by the Noctua backplate. The board was a MSI 790FX GD70. I swapped out the board for a new one in November/December 2014.

There was no long-term damage to the GD70.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

Years ago, there had been some official Intel spec recommending heatsink-fan assemblies at 500gm or less -- half a kg. People were still mounting heatsinks on those boards with twice the weight. And again -- it isn't just the "weight" -- it's the torque. The torque for a tower-heatpipe is mostly due to the weight of the fan(s) and the distance of their center-of-gravity from the board.

 

[cmdrdredd]

I have a Noctua nh-d14 on my current system and it was built in March of 2012. No problem. However Noctua makes IMO the beefiest mounting bracket for air coolers.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

I have a Noctua nh-d14 on my current system and it was built in March of 2012. No problem. However Noctua makes IMO the beefiest mounting bracket for air coolers.

True-'nuff. My ACX cooler performs 6C better than the D14 for a load thermal power of ~130W. But the mounting hardware was not as good. It was good enough, though, for a single-tower cooler and one fan. Actually, they are all solid parts -- no less solid than Noctua. But a difference in quality of design and manufacture seems somewhat apparent to me.

Since it's "good enough," I'm happy with the 6C.

 

[readymix]

Have been suspending the cooler with sevenstrand fishing wire since I had 2 fans on a TRUE and have continued to do so with others. Unnecessary apparently, but what the hey it's setup and easy to do.

 

[lehtv]

True-'nuff. My ACX cooler performs 6C better than the D14 for a load thermal power of ~130W.

Are you using the original 800-2800 RPM fan?