The NR200 with the 3080 FE: A Great Combination

It's not surprising that we get very positive results when using the NR200 case with the 3080 FE graphics card. In fact, the NR200 tops the chart here with the 3080 FE sitting at just 71 degrees Celsius. Although this is with a room ambient temperature of just 20°C, it clearly shows that there's plenty of headroom for warmer climates and rooms. This level of performance is definitely a case where I'd recommend using the 3080 FE.

The NZXT H1: A Different Story

However, when we move on to the NZXT H1, which is a completely different ITX case altogether, things take a turn for the worse. Not only does the H1 have a sandwich layout design, which means that the second fan has only a couple of millimeters of breathing room, but also the first fan acts as a blower fan, exhausting hot air out of the case and dumping it down onto your desk. This means that all the hot air generated by the graphics card is never really actively exhausted from the H1, which relies on positive pressure building up inside the case to passively push it out.

The Result: A Bad Configuration

As a result, we end up with our worst result in the stack, and honestly, the true thermal impact here cannot be illustrated by a single bar chart. When we take a look at Hardware Info, we can see that the 3080 is downclocking to around 1700 MHz, with the memory junction temperature close to its 110°C limit. This isn't even at full GPU power, which should be around 320 watts. You definitely shouldn't pair the NZXT H1 with the 3080 FE.

The Subt Meshlicious: A Slightly Better Option

However, when we look at the Subt Meshlicious case, which has a similar graphics card orientation to the NZXT H1 but is more breathable and has room for two 140mm fans, we see that the result is nowhere near as bad. Thankfully, the result here is okay but definitely starting to get warm. It's not a configuration that I'd recommend if you can avoid it, as even though it's only one degree warmer than the Form T1, you can improve the T1's result by swapping the AIO to a pair of full thickness fans.

The Meshlicious: A Good Option with Some Caveats

I've also tested the Meshlicious in four-slot GPU mode with the spine of the case shifted over to the CPU side. This allows for more air volume on the graphics card side to be exhausted by the fans and also more breathing room for the GPU as well. Overall, if you have a Meshlicious on the way and a 3080 FE, it's definitely a workable configuration but you would be much better off with a larger graphics card with a more conventional open-air cooler design.

The 3080 FE: A Cool Design

Despite these restrictions, I still think the 3080 Founders Edition is a really cool design. It's unique and super effective for some cases, and it handles a 320-watt TDP pretty damn well in the right circumstances. There's a reason why the majority of the 3080 aftermarket cards are two-and-a-half slot plus with three fans, some of which actually offer worse cooling than the more open-flow-through design on the FE.

The Importance of Airflow Design

Calling 320 watts is absolutely no kidding, and if we're going to be doing it in a two-slot configuration, we absolutely need to make sure we have the correct airflow design for that. However, when it comes to compact cases like the NZXT H1 and the Ghost S1, which are popular among gamers, they just don't perform miserably with the 3080 FE or other founders edition cards. In fact, by swapping to a different cooler design, such as the NK7 or Cooler Master NR200, you can see huge reductions in thermals and noise levels.

A K-Swap is Worth Considering

If you're running one of these cases paired with the 3080 FE or another founder's edition card, I'd definitely recommend considering a k-swap for your system. You'll see huge improvements in thermals and noise levels, not to mention overall system performance. This doesn't just go for the 3080 FE but pretty much all of the founders edition cards out there, and it gets worse as the TDP climbs higher.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enin part one of this video we found that this is actually a pretty bad idea the flow-through cooler design on the rtx 3080 fe can be a big problem when it comes to some itx cases and it's really those sandwich layout cases like this that are the big problem here the ones with the motherboard on one side graphics card on the other and the spine down the middle which separates the two which ends up choking and blocking the secondary flow-through fan on this new cooler design what that means is that you end up with a much louder and hotter system which is potentially down clocking itself to stay within a safe thermal range so today we're adding a few more cases to this testing the cooler master nr200 the nzxt h1 and the suppt meshlicious the last two of which are case designs which completely oppose the intended airflow path of this cooler design with really interesting results as well and i do think this is a relevant topic to bring up right now because the subs meslicious will be shipping out after the pre-orders quite soon and with a rumored 3080 ti around the corner at least for the founders edition you definitely don't want to pay that graphics card with the wrong itx case so let's quickly recap the results so far some of these cases support this cooler design really well and others will leave you with a system that is screaming for mercy it's kind of like two extremes depending on which case you go with and this isn't just for the rtx 3080 fe this goes for pretty much any of the rtx 30 series fe designs although there are some exceptions a 30 70 fe for example in the velka 7 is a pairing that shouldn't really work due to the case design but although it isn't optimal it is definitely doable another exception is the formed t1 case where you can offset the power supply to then create a gap for that flow-through fan and you can get significantly better results compared to a case where you can't do that like the ghost s1 so with all of this in mind how then does something like a cooler master nr200 perform well given that the layout is right in the middle of the encase m1 and the johnsplus i-100 pro it's not surprising that we get very positive results in fact the nr200 tops the chart here with the 3080 fe sitting at just 71 degrees c although this is with a room ambient of just 20c i think this clearly shows that it leaves plenty of headroom for warmer climates and rooms also keep in mind that if we were to balance the fan speeds of the nr200 to give us a noise result closer to that of the m1 or i-100 we'd probably get similar thermal results to those cases as well overall though really excellent performance here this is definitely a case i'd recommend for this graphics card design as for the nzxt h1 though it's a completely different itx case altogether not only is it a sandwich layout case which means that the second fan has only a couple millimeters of breathing room but also the first fan that acts as a blower fan exhausting hot air out of the case it ends up dumping all of that hot air down onto your desk what this means is that the hot air generated from the graphics card is never really actively exhausted from the nzxt h1 this case doesn't have any exhaust fans for one and both of the exhaust airflow paths of the gpu are completely blocked so all of that heat here generated from the rtx 3080 relies on positive pressure building up inside the case to passively push it out and we end up with our worst result in the stack by far and honestly the true thermal impact here can't really be illustrated by a single bar chart when we take a look at hardware info we can see that the 3080 is down clocking to around 1700 megahertz the memory junction temperature is close to its 110c limit and this isn't even at full gpu power which should be around 320 watts you should definitely not pair the nzxt h1 with the 3080 fe but what about the subt meshlicious seeing as this is a case that has the same graphics card orientation as the nzxt h1 but it's a lot more breathable and does have room for two 140mm fans well thankfully the result is nowhere near as bad as the nzxd h1 so that's a good start and the result here is okay but definitely starting to get a bit warm overall it's not a configuration that i'd recommend if you can avoid it sure it's only one degree warmer than the form t1 but you can improve the t1's result by swapping the aio to a pair of full thickness fans and the subt is a bit louder and also roughly 50 larger in volume i'll also note that i've tested the meshlicious in four slot gpu mode with the spine of the case shifted over to the cpu side this allows for more air volume on the graphics card side to be exhausted by the fans and also more breathing room for the gpu as well so bottom line if you have a meshlicious on the way and a 3080 fe it's definitely a workable configuration but you would be much better off with a larger graphics card with a more conventional open air cooler design despite these restrictions in some cases i still think the 3080 founders edition is a really cool design it's unique super effective for some cases and for a two slot card it handles a 320 watt tdp pretty damn good in the right circumstances there's a reason that the majority of the 3080 aftermarket cards are two and a half slot plus with three fans some of them actually offering worse cooling than the more open flow through design on the fe calling 320 watts is absolutely no kidding and if we're going to be doing it in two slots we absolutely need to make sure we have the correct airflow design for that but it's cool and compact as the 3080 fe is and all of the other 30 series founders edition cards are as well which are pretty compact given their class uh they just perform miserably when it comes to some of these itx cases like the ncxd h1 and the ghost s1 and i know for certain that some of you out there are running those cases paired with these graphics cards and cooler designs and if that's the case and you spend a lot of time gaming you should definitely consider a k-swap for your system you will see huge reductions in thermals and noise levels as well by swapping to an nk7 or cooler master nr200 for example the cooler design can be supported a whole lot better and your system will thank you for it again this doesn't just go for the 3080 fe but pretty much all of the founders edition cards out there and of course it does get worse the higher that tdp climbs so really hope this helped you out as always a huge thanks for watching and i will see you all in the next onein part one of this video we found that this is actually a pretty bad idea the flow-through cooler design on the rtx 3080 fe can be a big problem when it comes to some itx cases and it's really those sandwich layout cases like this that are the big problem here the ones with the motherboard on one side graphics card on the other and the spine down the middle which separates the two which ends up choking and blocking the secondary flow-through fan on this new cooler design what that means is that you end up with a much louder and hotter system which is potentially down clocking itself to stay within a safe thermal range so today we're adding a few more cases to this testing the cooler master nr200 the nzxt h1 and the suppt meshlicious the last two of which are case designs which completely oppose the intended airflow path of this cooler design with really interesting results as well and i do think this is a relevant topic to bring up right now because the subs meslicious will be shipping out after the pre-orders quite soon and with a rumored 3080 ti around the corner at least for the founders edition you definitely don't want to pay that graphics card with the wrong itx case so let's quickly recap the results so far some of these cases support this cooler design really well and others will leave you with a system that is screaming for mercy it's kind of like two extremes depending on which case you go with and this isn't just for the rtx 3080 fe this goes for pretty much any of the rtx 30 series fe designs although there are some exceptions a 30 70 fe for example in the velka 7 is a pairing that shouldn't really work due to the case design but although it isn't optimal it is definitely doable another exception is the formed t1 case where you can offset the power supply to then create a gap for that flow-through fan and you can get significantly better results compared to a case where you can't do that like the ghost s1 so with all of this in mind how then does something like a cooler master nr200 perform well given that the layout is right in the middle of the encase m1 and the johnsplus i-100 pro it's not surprising that we get very positive results in fact the nr200 tops the chart here with the 3080 fe sitting at just 71 degrees c although this is with a room ambient of just 20c i think this clearly shows that it leaves plenty of headroom for warmer climates and rooms also keep in mind that if we were to balance the fan speeds of the nr200 to give us a noise result closer to that of the m1 or i-100 we'd probably get similar thermal results to those cases as well overall though really excellent performance here this is definitely a case i'd recommend for this graphics card design as for the nzxt h1 though it's a completely different itx case altogether not only is it a sandwich layout case which means that the second fan has only a couple millimeters of breathing room but also the first fan that acts as a blower fan exhausting hot air out of the case it ends up dumping all of that hot air down onto your desk what this means is that the hot air generated from the graphics card is never really actively exhausted from the nzxt h1 this case doesn't have any exhaust fans for one and both of the exhaust airflow paths of the gpu are completely blocked so all of that heat here generated from the rtx 3080 relies on positive pressure building up inside the case to passively push it out and we end up with our worst result in the stack by far and honestly the true thermal impact here can't really be illustrated by a single bar chart when we take a look at hardware info we can see that the 3080 is down clocking to around 1700 megahertz the memory junction temperature is close to its 110c limit and this isn't even at full gpu power which should be around 320 watts you should definitely not pair the nzxt h1 with the 3080 fe but what about the subt meshlicious seeing as this is a case that has the same graphics card orientation as the nzxt h1 but it's a lot more breathable and does have room for two 140mm fans well thankfully the result is nowhere near as bad as the nzxd h1 so that's a good start and the result here is okay but definitely starting to get a bit warm overall it's not a configuration that i'd recommend if you can avoid it sure it's only one degree warmer than the form t1 but you can improve the t1's result by swapping the aio to a pair of full thickness fans and the subt is a bit louder and also roughly 50 larger in volume i'll also note that i've tested the meshlicious in four slot gpu mode with the spine of the case shifted over to the cpu side this allows for more air volume on the graphics card side to be exhausted by the fans and also more breathing room for the gpu as well so bottom line if you have a meshlicious on the way and a 3080 fe it's definitely a workable configuration but you would be much better off with a larger graphics card with a more conventional open air cooler design despite these restrictions in some cases i still think the 3080 founders edition is a really cool design it's unique super effective for some cases and for a two slot card it handles a 320 watt tdp pretty damn good in the right circumstances there's a reason that the majority of the 3080 aftermarket cards are two and a half slot plus with three fans some of them actually offering worse cooling than the more open flow through design on the fe calling 320 watts is absolutely no kidding and if we're going to be doing it in two slots we absolutely need to make sure we have the correct airflow design for that but it's cool and compact as the 3080 fe is and all of the other 30 series founders edition cards are as well which are pretty compact given their class uh they just perform miserably when it comes to some of these itx cases like the ncxd h1 and the ghost s1 and i know for certain that some of you out there are running those cases paired with these graphics cards and cooler designs and if that's the case and you spend a lot of time gaming you should definitely consider a k-swap for your system you will see huge reductions in thermals and noise levels as well by swapping to an nk7 or cooler master nr200 for example the cooler design can be supported a whole lot better and your system will thank you for it again this doesn't just go for the 3080 fe but pretty much all of the founders edition cards out there and of course it does get worse the higher that tdp climbs so really hope this helped you out as always a huge thanks for watching and i will see you all in the next one\n"