WE TACKLE TOUGH READER QUESTIONS ON...

> Rad locations

> Inching ahead

> Musical PCs

> SSD beats HDD

Mounting pressure In your July 2024 cover build (Build this AMD Marvel), I’m curious as to why the heat exchanger is mounted to the bottom of the PC, and not the top.

Aren’t you adding heat into the case? Why isn’t this mounted at the top, like all other PCs?

It would also be nice to indicate the companies selling the items at prices you mention during the builds. You used to do that, and it made life so much easier to shop around for better pricing.

–V. Champlin

CONTRIBUTOR, ZAK STOREY, RESPONDS: This is something Guy and I discussed in the video of our Story of the Build for that issue (which you can click a link from on page 17 of the magazine, every issue).

Effectively, you can either increase your CPU temperature because your GPU heats up the air, or increase your GPU temperature because your CPU heats up the air.

The difference is usually around 6-7 degrees Celsius or so.

Given how hot Intel chips are these days (being safely rated to over 100 C) and how chilled GPUs are (still floating around the 80 C mark for most Nvidia cards), you’re better off leveraging that to your advantage, and using the rad as an intake with some hefty static flow fans.

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, GUY COCKER, RESPONDS: As Zak notes, there are advantages and disadvantages to using the bottom, front, or top of your case to mount a radiator. The good news is you can’t really go wrong— just be sure to monitor the system temperatures when running a game, and make sure everything’s within healthy limits (I use NZXT’s CAM software, but that’s because I currently have one of their motherboards).