Lian Li O11 Air Mini - Best Fan Configuration

hello today i'm going to be answering the question what is the best cooling configuration for liam lee's brand new 11r mini now i've already done a full step-by-step build guide as well as a full case review for this case and if you haven't seen either of those videos you'll find links to them in the description so before we get into the temperatures i wanted to give you a look at the build i put together in the case so for parts we had intel's i5 11500 being killed by killer masters ml240 illusion 240 millimeter aio so i had that radiator on the side of the case set to exhaust and rather than using the included case fans i use lian lee's uni fans sl 120s on the radiator for the graphics card i use the rog strix 3080 and i maxed out all of the case fan locations so that was two 140 millimeter fans both at the front and at the bottom set to intake and for exhaust fans we had three 120 millimeter fans at the top and one at the rear all the case fans are used in the build where leon lee uni fans either sl120 or sl140 fans it's also important to say that all the fans in the builder were controlled using the standard fan curves in the motherboard bias and that ambient temperature was controlled to 20 degrees during all thermal testing so taking a look at the temperatures our cpu idled at 31 degrees and reached a maximum 91 degrees during the 10 minute is 64 stability test our gpu idled at 30 degrees reached a maximum of 70 degrees during the 10-minute i-264 stability test the average noise levels recorded 30 centimeters away from the closed tempered glass side panel were 33 decibels at idle and 44 decibels under load so very impressive numbers in terms of temperatures and noise now when i'm putting a bill together i always go with what i think is the best thermal configuration importantly i don't just go with the temperatures i will try and factor in the noise and importantly the aesthetics and for me looking at the case this is what i thought would give the best overall configuration now i know some of you right from the start will be questioning my choice of having the radiator set to exhaust because everybody knows having your radiator set to intake or it gets cooler from outside the case is going to give you better cpu temperatures than a radiator set to exhaust where it's getting the air from inside the case the downside to having your radiator set to an intake is that the hot air ends up in the case heating up your gpu and all the other components what i have found in the past in these cases where you have a side as an option for either intake or exhaust if you have your front fan set to intake they bring in a source of cooler and if it goes straight through the radiator your radiator almost sees as much killer as it does being on the front of the case the advantage of having your radiator on the side is that all that hot air goes straight out of the case rather than coming in and heating up all your other components as well aesthetically that looks great because your fans set the exhaust means the fans on the side are facing the right way round so what i found in the past that this not only gives you the best overall temperatures but also looks great as well so now what i want to do is change some of the configurations about and see what effect that has on the temperatures so the first thing i wanted to test was the effect of removing the two fans at the bottom below the gpu and seeing what difference that makes so removing the two fans below the gpu our cpu idled one degree killer while there was no difference to the cpu temperatures under load in terms of gpu temperatures with no fans at the bottom our gpu was one degree killer at idle while it was two degrees hotter under load in terms of noise levels as these leon league uni fans are incredibly quiet removing to the fans from the build it didn't make any difference to the idle noise levels however under load the build without the two fans at the bottom was actually lighter by three decibels and the only reason i can think for that is that because the gpu was running slightly hotter the fans were spinning up much more and the gpu fans were significantly lighter than the liandy case fans so certainly having the two fans blue gpu is going to bring your temperatures under load down by a little bit but not as much as i would have expected and i think that's largely due to the amount of airflow that must be coming in from the front of the case so the gpu is getting plenty of air regardless of whether or not you've fans down at the bottom so whether you should go for fans at the bottom or not is really going to depend on whether the extra cost of the fans is worth it or not for you in terms of the temperature saving and also aesthetically whether you like the look of the fans at the bottom or not the next thing i want to test was the effect of adding an extra set of fans onto the radiator and running it in a push-pull configuration so running the radiator in a push-pull configuration our cpu was one degree cooler and idle but one degree hotter under load in terms of gpu temperatures there was no difference at idle but the push pull configuration brought gpu temperatures up by two degrees under load in terms of noise levels there was no difference at idle but the push-pull configuration was five decibels lighter under load so with the push-pull configuration we had worse temperatures a significantly lighter build and we were going to have to pay extra money for two additional fans so i would stay away from a push-pull configuration the next thing i want to look at will be getting an additional advantage by turning the fans around on the radiator and having them set to intake rather than exhaust taking a look at our temperatures there is no difference to the temperatures at idle under load our cpu around one degree killer with the radiator set to intake while our gpu temperatures were two degrees worse and again that makes perfect sense the cpu temperatures are going to occur because we're getting cooler from outside the case but that hot air goes inside the case and heats up our other components in this situation our gpu in terms of noise levels the only difference was noticed at idle where the radiator set the intake was one decibel quieter so overall with the radiator set to intake on the side although our cpu temperatures came down slightly our gpu temperatures increase more so overall the temperatures were worse but the biggest thing for me was actually the aesthetics because having the fans on the side set to intake meant you were looking at the back of the fans having them set to exhaust you were looking at the good side of the fans the front of the fans so for me it's simple keep your fans on the radiator on the side set to exhaust the next thing i want to look at was the effects of moving the radiator to the top so i added two 120 millimeter fans on the side set the intake take a look at the temperatures with our radiator at the top our cpu idled 2 degrees hotter while under the itis 64 stability test it was 4 degrees hotter in terms of gpu temperatures with the top mounted radiator our gpu idled 1 degree hotter while it was two degrees cooler under load the top mounted radiator was also lighter by one decibel at idle and two decibels under load these results are absolutely no surprise at all having your radiator at the top they are going through it is going to be hotter from the case that the gpu has heated up so the cooling potential is going to be much less than if we had the killer from outside the case the other important thing to factor in is the aesthetics at the top of the case we can't fit a 360 millimeter radiator although we can thread three 120 millimeter fans so having the 240 millimeter radiator at the top just didn't look as good it didn't fill the top of the case as well as the three fans did and it looked much better to me on the side so i would stay away from a top mounted radiator in this case the next thing i want to test was moving the radiator to the front having it set to intake the most sensible configuration for the side to me seemed to have the two fans set to exhaust so the hot air coming through the radiator would go straight out the back of the case while the gpu would still be able to get fresh air from the fans underneath it so with the front-mounted radiator our cpu idled two degrees cooler while under the is64 stability test it was five degrees cooler with the front-mounted radiator our gpu idled one degree killer while it was two degrees hotter under load and there was no difference to the noise levels so overall in terms of temperatures under load our gpu temperatures come up by a little bit but our cpu temperatures came down by a massive amount and this was much more than i was expecting with the cpu temperatures because like i've said in other cases where i've set them up in a similar way with the radiator on the side set to exhaust and front intake fans i've had similar results with the side radiator as what i have when i've moved it to the front the only way i can explain this bigger than expected reduction in cpu temperatures by moving the radiator from the side to the front is actually related to the position of the front fans to the side radiator and in this particular case the fans are set very far back into the case and actually overlap the radiator in other cases i've tested this in the fans are actually outside the main body of the case so they're well in front of the radiator and this would mean that an air coming through the fans would have more of a chance of going through the radiator in this particular case because the fan sits so far down the radiator it's quite a steep angle for the air to turn and go through the radiator the next thing i want to test was leaving the front radiator set to intake but flipping the fans around on the side and having them set the intake rather than exhaust taking a look at the temperatures and the only difference was with the side intake fans our cpu ran two degrees hotter under load in terms of noise levels with the side fan set to intake our build was one decibel quieter at idle while there is no difference under load so again here the results are fairly clear with a front-mounted radiator you're going to want to have your fans on the side set to exhaust because not only will your cpu run killer but your build is going to look much better as the fans are the correct way around the final thing i wanted to test with the front mounted radiator was actually removing the side fans and putting the side brackets back in place take a look at the temperatures our cpu temperature under load was in between the two previous configurations while this particular configuration had the loudest idle noise levels so on a first look at these results you might think actually i'm only bringing my cpu temperatures under load down by one degree by having side exhaust fans and that to me is not worth the price of two fans what is worth the price of two fans to me is the aesthetics having the fans on the side set to exhaust looks great i think leaving this empty does not look good at all so for me i definitely would recommend with a front mounted radiator having two side exhaust fans the final thing i wanted to test was how good this case was for air cooling now normally when i'm trying to test the case's air cooling potential i will use notches in hd15 and with a maximum cpu killer height of 170 centimeters the nhd15 should fit in this case now importantly that 170 centimeters is exactly the same height as you got in the original o11 dynamic mini and i struggled to fit the nhd15 in that case i was able to get the heatsink fitted without any problem but i couldn't fit the fan on front of the front heatsink and actually i had to move it further back and then the glass panel was pushing right up against the fan so this wouldn't be a configuration i would recommend so instead in this case i went ahead with cooler masters master r ma612 stealth argb color i put two 120 millimeter fans on the side set to intake and i compared this to our best cooling configuration with the i o so far which was the front radiator with the side exhaust so take a look at the temperatures there was no difference to our cpu temperatures at idle while under the ida 64 stability test our cpu ran 13 degrees hotter with the air cooler it is also important to say that this was the only configuration where thermal throttling of our cpu was noted and this was up to six percent at times take a look at our gpu temperatures our gpu temperatures were down by one degree with the air killer both in idle and under load in terms of noise levels there was no significant difference whether it could have been one visible quarter at idle but one decibel lighter under load so that's an absolutely massive difference in terms of cpu temperatures by using an ai oh compared to an air killer so my recommendation for building this case would most definitely be to use an aio what i'm going to do now is put a thermal testing summary slide up so if you want to have a detailed look at all the different configurations i've tested go ahead and pause your video now so putting all that together my current recommendations for building in this case would be to go with a front mounted radiator set to intake and have side exhaust fans because overall that gave us the best thermal configurations but also very acceptable aesthetics as well the other advantage of this is at the front you can actually fit up to 280 millimeter radiator whereas at the side you're limited to 240 millimeter reader so you should actually even be able to get better thermal testing results than what i've demonstrated in this video so hopefully you find the video useful if you have please remember to check out my full case review and also my step-by-step build guide in this case and as well if you've enjoyed it please give it a thumbs up and if you're not currently subscribed to the channel please hit the subscribe button as well thanks for watching you

Channel: Christopher Flannigan

Views: 113,616

Keywords: lian li o11 air mini review, o11 air mini review, o11 air mini best fan layout, lian li o11 air mini best fan layout, 011 air mini thermals, lian li, lian li o11 air mini thermals, lian li o11 air mini aio or air cooler, 011 air mini, thernals, thermal testing, pc case review

Id: JB4s0RPGYXU

Length: 13min 40sec (820 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 10 2021