Cooler Master NR200: Optimizing Air Cooling Thermals Part II: Higher TBP GPUs and the NR200P 

A few of our viewers suggested a bottom intake/top intake, rear tower cooler exhaust configuration and I did test that out. After running it, it's apparent why it doesn't work well and the reasoning is similar to why I didn't recommend it for the vented panel either, it's just much worse due to the glass panel. For the same CPU/GPU tests normalized to 25C Ambient, I got 76.4 on the CPU and 75.0 on the GPU. Not good considering the rear intake with 4X bottom to top was 68.7/74.9 and rear exhaust with 4X bottom to top was 75.3/71.5. Almost as bad as the 2X fan configuration in rear exhaust (rear exhaust with 2X bottom was 77.1/74.0). My observation on the reasoning is: 1) A top intake suppresses the GPU exhaust that would otherwise be quickly taken care of by the case fan above, forcing it into the path of the cooler fans. Though you do get fresh air from the top fans, the penalty from allowing more GPU exhaust to be taken in by the cooler is much more severe. Essentially the CPU cooler is now the only route out, short of the hot case air bypassing the cooler through the gap between the rear of the case and the cooler. 2) Running case fans like this increases pressure inside the case and reduces the efficacy of all the case fans, so total airflow is reduced as well.

Nice case you should do a couple videos on it and maybe a review.

Hey Man I just wanna say I love your channel. I love how you're focusing on the NR200/200P and just tinkering with the many different configurations. It has definitely given me a lot to think about since I have my NR200P. You have answered almost every question I have regarding this case regarding the cooling capabilities with the TG Panel vs Mesh. the AIO orientation and which one works best. and so much more. You have earned a subscriber and I hope you continue the great work.

This series is a god sent. Great work as always dude!

I just want to thank you for all your videos regarding NR200/P! Now I know what cooling setup for both mesh and TG. I'll be waiting for your Pure Rock 2 video soon to finalize my cooling solution.

SO helpful. This video and TechSource's "How to Build a PC" step by step guide are all you need to build a system in this case, even if you don't know what you're doing. Your video actually dealt specifically with my setup, which includes the 3070FE. Really appreciate all the work that went into it. I'm afraid to watch the one on the top air coolers. Don't want to find out I bought the wrong one! (ThermalRight Silver Soul 135)

Thanks! This is an amazingly detailed review and recommendation on case fan. I really appreciated your insights and loved your presentation style. :)

this channel deserves more love. and subscriptions.

Hey I would love to see an analysis of different tower coolers with the tg as I’ve seen some that fit in the vented panel no longer work with the tg. Additionally, it would be interesting to see how the diffrent tower coolers fair with the reduction of airflow from the tg. Thanks for all the great work on the NR200!

Now I won't have to worry about getting the Noctua fan black edition, thanks.

First off I love the detailed content and have a very Merry Christmas. I have an NR200p with 4 120mm Noctua fans (bottom slim) 92mm rear fan Asus X570 MB AMD RX6800 XT RYZEN 5 3600 750W Corsair 80+ platinum with sleeved cables 16GB 3600 TEAMGROUP t force dark ram. Noctua NH-L9a but looking into tower cooling. Thanks again for your hard work. FYI slim fans under my GPU WORKED WONDERS

This is exactly what I needed. Thank you!

I am loving this series of videos about the NR200... And this video just answered my doubts about the tempered glass set-up... I would love to see how the thermals will go without a high end tower radiator like the noctua, but with a low cost cooling option like the Arctic Freezer 34 eSports duo... And check if the thermals go up too much

Excellent and thorough coverage as usual! My experience with adding (2) bottom slim fans in the NR200p with my EVGA 3080 Ultra with the TG and a tower cooler (Cryorig H7 intel 6600k at 4.1GHz) was lackluster at best. It improved GPU temps by 1-2°c at most and without the bottom fans the stock fan curve the GPU seldom gets to 70°c+ This is likely due to the GIANT heatsink and 3 fan configuration. Due to the slim fans being basically against the GPU it just added turbulence and increase case noise. Fans were removed and returned. Waiting for Zen 3 to be more widely available to finish my build. The 6600k has been a trooper these last several years and it's time for an upgrade.

Thanks! I have a very similar setup but did not realize I could do rear intake for the cpu cooler until I saw your video! One more thing to add is that if you have a very large GPU like the 3090 FE, you should get the slim fans for bottom intake because the case fans would not fit.

Great video! I didn't know you can screw in the side panel. Good info

Last days i've performed several tests with my nr200, 7 arctic cooling fans (5: 120x25 and 2 slim ones) and 2 different CPU coolers (Noctua NH-C14S and AIO Artic Liquid Cooling 240mm). I've decided to take off the fans from GPU and use fans at the bottom. The priority was to achive lowest temps and volume using stress tests for GPU, then CPU, then during 1hr gaming sessions. My key findings: 1. Less is more. I've ended up with Noctua CPU cooler in intake position and 2 Arctic's at the bottom for GPU. With all possible set-ups in this case, this option created only 2C more on CPU but at the same the GPU had 4-5C less (strange but this is the fact, cant argue with numbers). With those 3 fans in total i'm also hearing difference in overall (better) noise. Its much more quiet in idle and stress then with 4+ fans. I was in to 1 more fan at the top (intake), but there was no diff in temps and additional fans creates more noise. 2. Aftermarket fans > GPU cooling system I strongly sugget to take off fans from GPU and use two 25x120mm fans at the bottom. This is at least 10C less and aftermarket fans are less noisy. I also strony suggest to put few anti-scratching stickers (like those for furnitures) to the bottom of the fans to make as close as possible to the GPU radiator. This made another 2-3C of a difference and the GPU is now comfortably laying on the fan (it was bending a bit). Also, as i wanted to be able to control those 2 bottom fans according to GPU temps, i've installed Argus Monitor, which a very complex software, one a very few that allows for this kind of linkeage. 3. Air Cooler > AIO's I was really into AIO. Wanted to have this kind of "modern" tech and i though it will allow for better air ventialtion inside and major improvement in CPU temps. Well.. it might be me or this particular model of Arctic Liquid Cooling 240mm but... A) The temps were a bit worse then with Noctua C14S (2-3C). B) The pump and little radiator on the mounting bracket makes calm but irritating sounds. This is very important in idle, when u're able to operate on 300rpms so literally - total silence. But unfortunately, AIO wasn't perfect. 4. RESULTS IDLE: CPU: 32C | GPU: 25C STRESS TEST: CPU: 55C | GPU: 62C GAMING: CPU 48 | GPU: 55C

Cool, I was waiting for such a video. Why haven't I watched it yet?

Thanks from Germany for this video.

Thank you for your videos! Ended up getting a fuma 2 for my 9900k in the nr200p. It’s so quiet!!

Another great and detailed video for this awesome case. Could you also recommend/test some low profile coolers with the glass panel and vertical GPU mount - that will be very interesting if you are going for the looks, but also care for airflow optimization.

convinced be to go water cooled for this case. Thankyou.

Awesome video! I helped my friend build a new NR200 air cooling recently by following your suggestion and he is very satisfied!! Hopefully you will be doing a review for Lian Li O11 mini.

Running the NR200P with TG, Scythe Mugen in rear intake, and a 5 pack of Arctic P12s. Works pretty well and no screws needed!

What I find crazy about the NR200 and a 3080 (finally came in!) is how much hot air is being exhausted out of the side panel when in the default bottom position. It's *a lot* and to think of how it stays within the case of the NR200P just kind of blows my mind since it's dumping north of 330 watts out of the box when it's put under load so it's great that you've continuously taken the extra steps to mitigate temps for both as much as possible. Even just comparing the GPU temps between both is amazing where mine rarely went over 65c out of the box with two Noctua A12x15 as intake with a pretty moderate fan curve. Since I undervolted to 1860 (which can sometimes still boost up to1890) @ 850mv temps rarely go over 56c and shaved off about ~40 watts.

For the past 12 years i have been using gaming laptops. And when i finally made my first desktop build after selling those laptop off, i fell in love with your NR200's reviews. I am pretty content with NH-U12A as exhaust, and Four NF-A12X25, 2 exhaust on top and another 2 intake from the bottom. I used the same specs, with Deshrouded and dowvolted 100mv 1890Mhz Zotac 3080 OC and so far it has been serving me well, and i am satisfied with the performance that this setup provides. It's overkill, but since i am living in the tropics, temps are the only factor i need to take in. Thank you good sir for your wonderful review and suggestions.

Your in depth NR200 videos are really helping me decide on my next system. I will be getting a NR200P to give me the best total options and I like to see my gear. I will have a Ryzen 5 3600 and GTX1660 Super so TDP will be low so maybe will stick with stock fans on bottom and maybe a U12S (harder to get the ID cooling unit in my country). I will have some spare Cooler Master case fans from my current NR400 to add to the top. Or maybe some matching Noctuas for the top.

i have no idea what im doing and i cant tell you how helpful this info is! thanks to your testing i may not fry my new computer lmao

Thank you again.

Very informative! Your content has been invaluable to me as I start to build in the nr200p Great work! Keep it up. I hope your channel grows quickly :)

Hey, thanks for all your coverages of this case. This has been extremely helpful for a first time SFF PC builder like me. What are your thoughts on the Fuma 2 with 2 bottom sickle flow intake and 1 top Noctua NF-A12x25 exhaust? Planning to use the tg panel as well.

Thanks for testing all these configurations, really excellent work here! I have two possible improvements/tests that could be worth testing. 1) The NH-U12A is simply too big for the NR200P and the air flow is not optimal as it break the bottom to top airflow. Having two fans perpendicular is not ideal too. Pairing it with a NH-U9S instead and using "small brackets" to put the fan/intake at the bottom would keep the airflow bottom/top. Wonder the NH-U12A is really needed here, especially if paired with a 65W TDP processor like AMD 3700X/5600X. 2) I also wonder if slim fans like the NF-A12x15 would yield better result in the bottom too by giving airflow channel 1 more centimeter. This is the configuration I will try, but unfortunately waiting for the 5600X to be delivered and worst, the RTX3070FE to be available for real.

13:00 Finally, people are catching onto the flaws of the Arctic fans. They do growl at high RPMs, especially the 140mm version. And another disadvantage that no one mentions is that they aren't padded with any damping material, so they can induce vibrations in a case. I highly recommend mounting them using "rubber fan screw mounts." The NR200's rubber grommets work well, too.

Very cool video. Could you try deshrouding the gpu, and running the bottom fans (and rear) as exhaust? Also - were you able to try both tall and slim gpus? i feel like distance between the card and the tempered glass panel should matter quite alot for the airflow.

Great, informative and straight to the point! Have been enjoying your videos for the past 2 months while waiting to actually get my NR200P here in Germany. It finally arrived today- so this is great timing. Now all I need is for my 5900X to arrive and to try and get a 6800XT and will be good to go. Would there be any changes in fan recommendation with this build and the tempered glass? Seems pretty consistent with what you shared in this video? If only the U12-A came in black as well!

A work around for using the Noctua cooler is to use low-profile motherboard stand off screws. That should give you the few mm clearance to use the glass panel.

Great video. I was just about to pull the trigger on a Fuma 2 for my NR200 (non-P) setup but will now wait for your next video. Seeing as I got the NR200, I only got one of the 120mm fans, was looking at grabbing 2x Arctic Cooler for the bottom already and possibly the top. My system isn't all that great, i5-8400 stock with an RX580 8GB Gaming X (use the system as a dual boot hackintosh) so I don't really need a whole lot. I only game on rare occasion (LoTRO, GW2) and don't run anything at super high detail or anything but want to keep the system cool and quiet as possible. So with that said, new tower cooler will be in the works based on your next video (potentially Fuma2) in intake mode, with 4x 120mm running via PWM at 800rpm? Sounds like a fairly quiet and cool setup.

So I've finally finished my build in the nr200 thanks to your amazing vids on the case. I've got myself a 3700x with an L12S and all the optimal fan placements you recommend in your low profile vids, and have a 1660 super atm (two top exhausts, side panel mounted fan pointed at a rotated L12S with the fan on top blowing air towards mobo, two bottom fans below gpu as intake, mesh side panel). Reckon I could get away with upgrading to a 6800xt/3080 down the line without changing anything else in the build (got an sfx 750w plat psu)?

Greta videos and very informative! I have a question though, I plan on using the lian li 240 aio. Is the top fan supposed to be an intake fan and the rear one exhaust, correct? And if I wanted to add another one up too would I have to change any air flow direction with my case fans? I plan on only having 2 or 3 case fans tops.

How about gluing some neodymium magnets to the side panel for a magnetic hold? The magnets would also add a little thickness to help with the glass panel hitting the heat pipes. You sould use two stacked magnets if you needed even more space. I use neodymium magnets with my Nouvolo Steck as the stock magnets suck.

Great content again, thank you! Will you be testing any of new ryzens in NR200?

Great videos, huge help, specially in cooling solutions. If I wanted to put 2 top case fans exhausting (P12), how far should the case be from a surface flat? The nr200p fits really nice in a shelving near my desk, but it only has 4.5cm to the upper shelf.

I support this content.

With the Fuma 2, would you rotate the cooler to have the slim fan face the rear of the case when doing CPU intake or do you think it could handle it fine facing the "normal" way?

Have you posted a video or do you plan on posting a video testing air cooling with the vertical gpu setup?

Very nice Video , much Information for me :) , i will stick with Fuma2 or Frost spirit 140 for the Nr200p and hell yeah i sticked with the Halo's too .. you read my brain damn :D

Big shuriken 3 + 4 fans + rear exhaust + side gpu. Winner.

Hey Machines & More :) Love your coverage of this case ! I am wondering, can you mount an AIO on top ? Even with that top palen, is it possible? And if it works... could one use ANOTHER AiO on the regular mesh sideplate ? kreygazm.....!

After watching few of your videos I got this maybe crazy idea - if it would be possible to fit AIO on the bottom, deshroud GPU and stick some slim fans between them. Then rest of the case is free and other fans could intake/exhaust air depending on setup on the bottom. What do you think?

Have you considered rotating a tower cooler by 90 degrees and putting a fan on the bottom side for a push configuration? My intuition is saying it might fit the bottom to top airflow the best.

Number One!!!

Would it make sense to use a tower with one pull fan and then a 120 fan installed to the back of the case as exhaust? That way it is pulling the cooler exhaust as well as other exhaust?

What is the clearance compatibility like with high TDP cards and placing the stock fans on the bottom?

You could flip the right Top fan for intake and the left for exhoust and cooloer exhoust

Thank your for all the work you put into your videos, super helpful. What would you suggest for the *quietest* AND most efficient air cooling setup for an NR200, with say an RTX 3080 and a 5800x? I've watched the series but still left wondering about this.

have you tested the air setup with the cpu cooler facing up/down with air flow going up? this would encourage the bottom to top air flow as the case was designed.

I plan on running a BeQuiet! Shadow Rock LP CPU air cooler with Noctua LP fan, giving me just over 10mm space from the vertical GPU. My take is that the intake fans from bottom should be able to provide enough air for both CPU and GPU as air would be able to go through the gaps between CPU cooler/GPU backplate and GPU fans/glass panel. What do you think?

i have seen an mod that u can make able to fit an aio on top with slim fans that will be used as intake, small fan in the back and fan intakes in the bottom and the cooling is nice he said so is it a good idea to do the same?

Love your work man! Do you think the noctua s12a or the nfa12 are most optimal for top exhaust fans? Which is the quietest and is the quiter option optimal for airflow in this case?

I have Scythe Fuma 2 that combined with MSI B450I has enough space to fit two full size 25mm fans at top with about 1 CM of clearance in between in NR200. With this in mind, would I better off with having 2 fans (the ones included with the NR200P) mounted at the top or at the bottom? Thank you

Would really like to see a Noctua cooler push/pull from the bottom up.

Great video, too bad this review is sorely missing the vertical GPU mounting position.

same. i do back intake cpu cooler, fan in from bottom and out from top. cpu temp goes down about 5-10 compare to cpu exhaust. probably because it dows use hot air from gpu and use cool air from the back of the case instead. gpu temps stay trhe same.

I'm still a little confused as to the best configuration for my upcoming build. Will be running a Ryzen 5600x and RTX3080 in the normal vented side configuration (no TG panel). From what I can understand around the 3 minute mark, I should be running a tower cooler in intake configuration, 2 exhausts at the top, and 2 intakes at the bottom. Is that correct? If so, that should work well as I'll likely look to deshroud the GPU in future, which will cause less turbulence conflict with the intakes at the bottom.

Hey, I’m using the u12a on a 9700k with a 3070 gaming x trio in this case, and im considering what to do. since i can’t get fans in the bottom with the stock shroud, what should my fan layout look like? Also would it help to deshroud the gpu to put some p12s down there? Thanks!

If you run a blower style card then running rear intake would be a bad choice sinds you intake all the hot air of the gpu. Have you tested temps with a blower style card also or just regular cards witch exhaust into the case?

Thanks for this content. will be building with the nr200p but am still waiting for AIB RX 6000 series. Was planning to do a vertical GPU mount. Do you have tests on this kind of setup?

I have the NR200 Non-Glass Panel and I'm looking for a pure Air Flow setup. I'm considering 2 140s as an intake for the side panel and 2 exhaust top, 2 intakes at the bottom, and 1 rear exhaust. as for CPU cooler, I'm sticking with Stock for the time being and may switch to non-Tower cooler later on. Thoughts? Opinions? Advice?

I'm building one NR 200, with 3070 Ti, Bottom Intake, 2 x Noctua nf12x15, Rear Intake 92 mm Sickleflow case fan, Top exhaust 2 x 120 mm p12s, My CPU tower is vertical mounting meaning the U12s faces upwards, with 120 mm NF12 pushing air upward and that 92 mm sickleflow pulling inwards. Its a bit of a mix and match from all of your AIR cooling solutions for NR200 so far.

so do you make the bottom fans intake and the top fans exhaust?

Amd i able to combine fan splitters to split a splitter? Or is this bad?

What If I only have two 120mm case fans and use one case fan as a top exhaust and one fan as a bottom intake? Or should I use both fans in a single 2X config? atm I only have a two-fan RTX2060

What do you think of the Cooler Cpu Id Cooling Se-226-xt?

What is the optimal airflow for NR200 (vented side panel), 6 core CPU and 3080 non FE model? Should we use C14S or U12A? Should we try to find gpu with cut backplate (visible heatsink from the back) like Asus TUF model or it doesn't matter? Should we deshroud the gpu, and did you test using bottom fans as exhaust on deshrouded gpu?

Nice video! May I ask if the provided case fans will fit at the bottom of the case if you have a 52mm graphics card? If not, what fan would you recommend as bottom fans for the gpu size I mentioned?

I have to say these small cases sure does get your mind going on what's the best way to cram everything in to get good airflow and I'm to the point it's time to separate the GPU from the rest of the case to get best airflow

I have a Arous Extreme 3080, Ryzen 5 5600X and a Vetroo U6 Pro, intake on the rear, cpu cooler fans as well intake and both on top exhaust, cant fit on the bottom since the card is massive, i manage to get temp no higher tan 65C on the CPU and the GPU is undertvolt so is around the same 65c to 70c on full load. Wonder is a lower profile cpu cooler will provide better aire flow since the vetroo is big

Honestly, from your previous videos it didn't look like bottom gpu fans were this important, but now they almost look necessary. My planned build has 5600x, U12a as an intake and probably a 3080 with no bottom fans, but now i should reconsider the airflow direction of the heatsink

I changed to from rear exhaust to rear intake and it dropped my under load CPU temps 17c! GPU temps only increased by 2C under load. Card is a 3070 strix, no bottom intake fans. Tempered Glass Panel.

i have two fans on top (exhaust) and two slim Noctua fans on bottom (intake) and a 92mm Noctua (as exhaust for now) with a CPU Cooler Mugen 5 with fan exhausting out. Lots of Fans! Machines & More. What are your thoughts?

What about a high power card with a blower style cooler like a 1080 FE?

What do you recommend when bottom fans don't fit with the GPU?

Would you still recommend the C14S over the U12A with a higher TBP GPU?

What about a cpu mounted vertically exhausting out the top?

isnt rear intake gonna make dust build up faster ?

I wonder if 2 bottom fans (intake), 2 top fans (exhaust) was your base setup...would 2 more fans on the side panel (intake) makes a difference?

Please in next tower coolers with TG panel comparison take in consideration the Cryorig H7 too! It’s the one I want to buy because I’m concerned about all this heatpipe touches the glass thing with coolers like Scythe Fuma 2, Mugen 5 and Noctua NH-U12A itself: I think the glass panel can come off and scratch/shatter when transporting the case, even if holded in place with the screws. I come from a nr200 vented panel-aio configuration, but it has bored me because the radiator on side panel doesn’t allow to show components inside the case, so I want to switch to a TG panel-aircooled configuration. As always, excellent job!

I ditched the TG altogether, bottom is slim 240 rad with two A12x15 fans as intake, top is two A12x25 as exhaust, side is single slim 120 rad with A12x25. Cooling 5900X with RTX 2080 Ti. Quite happy with thermals (tolerable, considering rather conservative t/RPM curve) and more than acceptable acoustics.

Machines, NR200, & more

Since the optimal airflow is from bottom to top, I wonder why they went with the choice to not put a easily removable dust filter on the top. My case top gets dirty very fast and it annoys me a lot! The top panel is not easy to remove unlike the other side panels and often the fan pins keep falling out. Shouldve made the top and bottom just like the side panels.

Does the performance change when you rotate the CPU cooler, having 2 fans pointing upward instead? Or is it not possible?

Sorry if you mentioned this in the video... does the x570 aorous have the same higher cpu socket placement that the B550i aorous? There's lots of reports of not being able to fit in a 25mm exhaust fan on top of the cpu using larger heatsinks e.g. Fuma 2, Mugen 5 etc... did you experience this?

Does the NH-U12A allow top fans with the higher offset cpu socket on the MSI and gigabyte aorus 550 mobos? Great information as usual btw! Your series on the NR200 is amazing.

Hi, so I don’t know whether you are going to react on this. I love your series as I tend to get the nr200 myself. I’m going to get a i9 9900k with a 3070 when it’s available. I don’t really use that many cpu heavy tasks, so my gpu is the main thing that has to stay cool. The thing is: where I live, the C14s(109€) is more expensive than the U12a(98€). I don’t mind spending more money if it works better. So I also looked at your aio vids and found the nzxt kraken x63 and ther Corsair H115i. I’m a little worried that an aio in this case wil get malfunctions due to little space. What would you, or anyone else recommend? Have a nice day and thanks again for the series, you’ve helped me out tremendously

I recently got a Be Quiet! Pure Loop AIO and with it's decoupled pump, I was thinking it could be the best AIO for bottom-mounting in the NR 200. I was wondering if you can test that out. Since the pump is located on the tubes, theoretically it would not run into the problems that GN had mentioned with bottom-mounting. I am also considering trying to mod the case to fit a 280mm in the bottom, wondering how feasible would that be.

I found that when I put the upper fans with one exhaust on top of the cpu and the other for intake would make the cpu temp lower by 1-2 degrees. I do have two intake fans at the bottom for gpu and one 90mm fan for rear exhaust. That seems to be the perfect temp setup for me.

Thanks for all your in-depth work with this case. For a 3080 FE and vented panel, is this NH-U12A intake setup preferable over the previously recommended C14S, or is that still the best way to go?

Tbh this makes me extremely curious if there's any way to get shorter motherboard standoffs so you can fit the cooler

Is it possible to run the Arctic Cooler 120mm AIO instead with the glass panel for better thermals? Seems like the U12A fits, but would a 120mm AIO be a better choice space wise? The exhaust fan would be back vented.

For the 4x fans, how about a comparison of all fan intake with CPU tower as exhaust vs bottom intake, top exhaust with CPU tower as intake