So here's the spec: I7 5820k at about 4.4ghz at 1.26v Msi x99a gaming 7 Corsair h100i with 2 corsair sp120 led fans in the top push mounted for exhaust Rm1000 psu Gtx 980ti lightning still playing with the OC 140mm exhaust and 2 front intake, stock case fans from corsair.
At the moment I have 1 drive cage on the bottom but I'll be removing that soon so essentially a completely open airflow path through the case. It is the airflow edition 750d by the way.
So at that oc the cpu hits about 80 on the hottest core during a run of aida64 as long as I have the AC on in the room... It's a room in a garage with a window ac. Unfortunately the best I can do for the moment because of some remodeling in the house. I play mostly at night anyway so it's usually cooler to begin with. I figure at this point the h100i is at it's limit and was curious if the only real step up is a custom loop for "noticeable" better temps.
The case fans are 1200rpm if I remember correctly and aren't too loud but I'm sure there's way better options.
So just looking for thoughts and suggestions, should I move things around, swap fan locations etc etc.
Thinking about going custom cooling myself. I have two H100i AIO coolers in my PC, one for my 4790k and one for my 980ti. My GPU gets up to about 45c in games, but boy does my CPU heat up. It gets up to about 72c.
Honestly... I'm not impressed with the performance of AIO liquid coolers...
Maybe, if you don't want to go through the hassle of building a custom water cooling system you might try the EKWB Predator 360mm. Would be a pretty significant boost in cooling I guess and would leave you room to expand or do maintenance on it to keep it working in the future.
I considered the Predator and am hanging on that decision for one reason. Pure ascetic. If I'm going to do a custom loop I'm gonna do it right and match it to my build. I have a dominantly yellow scheme going with my Lightning at center stage. Custom Cable Mod cables in black and yellow, corsair peripherals in RGB set to a yellow and white breathing effect. I feel like the look of the predator would take away from the look and after I started from a prebuilt in a black box that looked like someone threw components inside and called it a day, and have now moved to a fully custom built and very personal machine that is basically a reflection of my own personal growth in the last 2 years I don't want to tarnish it or look at it on my desk and say "I wish I hadn't bought that damn thing"
So for the moment I'm sitting on, custom loop, wait for future hardware to come out, or dial the OC down slightly to maintain slightly more preferable temps and just upgrade the fans to some with a bit more umph
I'd say your getting to the point where you want to move over to custom cooling. When you have the know-how and ASIC-quality to get substantial OCs you don't want to be held back by your cooling. AIOs (except maybe the Pred. or the Swiftech one) won't give you that enthusiast level performance.
My roommate has basically the exact same build in a 750D. Same OCs and all. His custom loop has a single 360mm rad with fans in push. The radiator is about double the thickness of a standard size rad. He's never had an issue with temp that I can recall.
Maybe look into one of the "loop in a box" kits with a D5 that EK puts together? Should get you a better aesthetic than the Predator with better pump performance, for not a ton much more.