NOCTUA NH-C14 - optimal mounting direction?

[the_stigma]

Hey all,

I recently got my hands on a NOCTUA NH-C14 and I wanted some advice on what orientation mount it in for optimal performance, as apparently this cooler (and many heatpipe coolers in general) are greatly impacted by which way gravity pulls on them.

The manual states that having the heatpipes sticking "upwards" when mounted in a tower is a bad idea, but that still leaves the choice between "sideways" or "bottom-to-up" installastion, and I can't help but think that one of those is probably at least marginally better than the other.

For this case - assume the cooler is mounted to a vertical tower-mounted motherboard.

So what do the experts say? Is sideways or down-to-up the way to go? I have plenty of space to work with so there are no other considerations that affect my choice.

Thanks!
-Stigma

 

[aigomorla]

depends on clearance and exhaust port.

If you have no top fan, or a hole to exhaust the heat up, then pointing the heat sink in the up direction is a nono, as u will trap hot air.

Most cases have a rear exhaust, so people tend to point the heat sink so it blows out to the rear exhaust, hence ur not choking on the recycled hot air.

There are other factors too, like memory clearance and GPU clearance which also denotes direction of heat sink.

It is wrong to say there is only 1 way to mount a heat sink, because a lot of factors can contribute to why it should be that way instead of this way.

 

[the_stigma]

The NH-C14 is a "blow down" design though, not a tower cooler or similar, so there is not really any way to direct the exhaust with this. It's going down no matter what (you have some small control over what parts of the motherboard will get a little extra side-benefit cooling, but that's about it)

I'm mainly wondering about what orientation benefits the heatpipes the most. I guess the "up-to-down" position means that liquid will have to wick upwards against gravity a lot and that's why its bad - but does that mean that the "down to up" position is really good, or maybe the balanced sideways position is... I just don't know.

For reference an image:
http://www.guru3d.com/news-story/noctua-nh-c14-cpu-cooler-review.html

-Stigma

 

[aigomorla]

The NH-C14 is a "blow down" design though, not a tower cooler or similar, so there is not really any way to direct the exhaust with this. It's going down no matter what (you have some small control over what parts of the motherboard will get a little extra side-benefit cooling, but that's about it)

I'm mainly wondering about what orientation benefits the heatpipes the most. I guess the "up-to-down" position means that liquid will have to wick upwards against gravity a lot and that's why its bad - but does that mean that the "down to up" position is really good, or maybe the balanced sideways position is... I just don't know.

For reference an image:
http://www.guru3d.com/news-story/noctua-nh-c14-cpu-cooler-review.html

-Stigma

oh thats a derp moment for me...

i misread the C for D.

Heat pipes work on a capillary design so it doesn't matter what direction its at. Meaning as gas rises, it forces the liquid to move the other direction.

So direction of heat pipes is sort of moot.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

oh thats a derp moment for me...

i misread the C for D.

Heat pipes work on a capillary design so it doesn't matter what direction its at. Meaning as gas rises, it forces the liquid to move the other direction.

So direction of heat pipes is sort of moot.

Yeah -- that's why they first seemed to get mention in a NASA white-paper -- prolly from the late '50s. No gravity at all, ya see . . .

 

[the_stigma]

oh thats a derp moment for me...

i misread the C for D.

Heat pipes work on a capillary design so it doesn't matter what direction its at. Meaning as gas rises, it forces the liquid to move the other direction.

So direction of heat pipes is sort of moot.

Yea heatpipes are supposed to be resistan to this and even be able to work against gravity - but it must have some effect. Noctuas own manual says the heatpipe-bends pointing upwards is a bad idea (and some reviewers who skimmed the manual recorded bad results from mistakenly mounting it wrong).

They are fairly long heatpipes after all. My guess is that the capillary action has some limits to what it can do against gravity.

hmmm maybe i could just rotate the whole motherboard out-of-case to teast easily without having to reseat/reclean... may have to test that.

-Stigma

 

[BonzaiDuck]

Yea heatpipes are supposed to be resistan to this and even be able to work against gravity - but it must have some effect. Noctuas own manual says the heatpipe-bends pointing upwards is a bad idea (and some reviewers who skimmed the manual recorded bad results from mistakenly mounting it wrong).

They are fairly long heatpipes after all. My guess is that the capillary action has some limits to what it can do against gravity.

hmmm maybe i could just rotate the whole motherboard out-of-case to teast easily without having to reseat/reclean... may have to test that.

-Stigma

In addition to my own observation about the NASA white-paper, I'd actually tried different orientations without any concern about the effects of gravity. Instead, the experiment addressed airflow and cooling performance by ducting a TRUE cooler so that air was forced through the narrow side of the cooler instead of the broad face of it -- exhausted from the same rear case-exhaust fan as with the original orientation.

I concluded that the ducting and airflow through the length of the fins got me 1C degree improvement.

Let me put this another way. If it wasn't the ducting and direction of flow, or if you could attribute the temperature difference to "gravity," it sure as hell isn't much to worry about -- is it?!