P03-630 cooling upgrades inquiry I'm up for suggestions and opinions

Hey folks, new here. I purchased my new P03-630 (i7 11700F/GTX-3070) a couple months ago and it's a great setup for my needs, I'm not a hardcore gamer or social media influencer so I don't need anything top of the line as I just can't afford it anyway, so this fit the bill. It's paired with a Dell S2722DGM monitor running everything at 1440p. So far, I've upgraded the RAM to 32GB, added a second 2TB 7200rpm HDD for gaming and upgraded the CPU cooler to the Noctua U9S chromaxblack and I'm using the glass side panel. So far the system seems to be running ok with high end games like Cyberpunk 2077 and Modern Warfare (2019), I can also play Fallout 4 all maxed out at 1440p with minimal frame drop in dense areas. But of course, I'd like some cooler temps.

So, I've been looking at different posts here to get ideas since my options are limited with such a small case. First, I'm pondering on swapping the 2TB HDD to a NVMe 2TB and using the second slot next to the RAM, and being I don't use the 1TB drive it came with, I'll simply remove the hard drive bay to open that space. Two things with this idea... First off has anyone actually seen a vast improvement with the drive bays removed? Secondly, can anyone recommend a decent NVMe 2TB drive with good read/write speeds for moderate gaming?

Next idea I have is removing the mesh behind both the front and rear fans, especially the front. I would also like to upgrade the fans to the Noctua 92mm ones, however I saw a post where someone did this and had a negative experience with it and put the Frostblade fans back in. I couldn't care less about the color changing of the fans so I'm all for performance over looks.

Lastly, with regards to the glass vs. metal side panel, while the glass is cool and flashy I am curious about the metal side panel with the mesh vents and if it would allow better ventillation. I was also considering swapping back to the metal mesh side panel and adding a fan to the inside, facing the CPU cooler to add more cool air directly to the CPU while the front fan sends more cool air to the PSU and GPU.

With these ideas, what do you all think? I'm up for suggestions and opinions, you won't offend me. Thanks folks.

[Edited the thread to add issue detail]

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billsey

So the first question is what kinds of temperatures are you seeing? You might be just pouring money down a black hole if you are already seeing reasonable temperatures. Incremental changes after the Noctua upgrades are likely only cost effective if you are really pushing the limits...

StevenGen

https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/674966/p03-630-cooling-upgrades-inquiry

If you want better case ventilation you need to add more means of sucking in and extracting hot air with adding fans, and in your case a 1x fan in the front will help that allot, but and with the mesh, the mesh is there to filter the dust and dirt from entering into the case and onto the components, so think about that also.

The PO3-630s case is limited in size and that is why it uses 90mm (OEM are the 9CM FROST BLADE RGB FAN Acer part #: DP.13411.0CX) the best 92mm case fans imo are the Noctua "NF-A9 PWM" with an airflow of 78.9 m³/h at 22.8 dB(A), Case cooling always depends on the efficiency of the case fans sucking fresh air and dispersing hot air in a crossflow pattern giving you maximum airflow.

So, and if you can fit an additional fan into the front panel then the Noctua fans will do the job to your case construction. With the glass panel the case is designed for aesthetic reasons so that users can see those silly LED lights blaring and flashing like a circus show 😂 but the sold glass or the metal side panels which the metal ones usually have vents (if Acer designed the ventilation properly) should be part of the crossflow design for best intake and exhaust of fresh to extracted hot air system, which is something that you should test and experiment with as modifying an OEM restricted case like the PO3-630s is very limited. I would leave the glass panel and increase the case fans form 2x to 3x total by having 2x front suction fans and 1x back with the PSU fan also assisting in exhausting hot air also fan (as you are very limited at the back).

With the M.2 SSD drives, the PO3-630 supports Interface PCIe V3.0 or V4.0 / SATA 3.0 and the top 5 in no particular order are as follows and depends on your budget, I prefer the Samsung 980 Pro but that iis just my opinion:

SK Hynix Platinum P41
WD Black SN850X
Samsung 980 PRO
Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus
Kingston KC3000.

bravozero588

https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/comment/1162496#Comment_1162496

This is a screenshot of PredatorSense on my phone playing Cyberpunk 2077, mostly high settings at 1440p during moderate combat, about average give or take a degree or two:

This isn't terrible by any means, but I'd like to improve it to prolong the life of the CPU and GPU. I believe removing the hard drive bay should help with the GPU temps since the air will have a straight path to the GPU. CPU isn't too bad, but then again CP2077 is a GPU intensive game. I've seen Fallout 4 CPU temps in the 70's consistently.

bravozero588

https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/comment/1162503#Comment_1162503

How would I got about adding another front fan? Doesn't seem like it's easily accomplished considering the entire front panel is closed off except the side vent holes and bottom vent slots for the front fan. Is it crazy to possibly add an angled fan where the GPU and front panel meet and have that fan angled up towards the CPU cooler? Hard to describe but it makes sense by looking at it. The fan would be inside the case though, not mounted up front drawing in fresh air, just the air brought in by the existing fan.

StevenGen

https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/comment/1162522#Comment_1162522

With adding new fans, I was telling you the advantages of this as you said about "removing the hard drive bay" so have a look wherever you can be it at the front or top of the case? That is what I based my advice on.

GotBanned

For such a cramped case your temps are pretty good. But if you don't want to use HDDs anymore remove the HDD case altogether. It's secured in place with two rivets (drill them out) and couple screws, two of which are hidden under front rubber foot.

And now some unpopular opinions:

You can either use M.2 drive or 2,5" SATA SSD. In paper the performance difference is huge, but many Youtube comparison videos will tell you that the difference in loading times is only few seconds at the most. If you get a SATA SSD, you can secure it almost anywhere with a double sided tape. so not having a SSD cage will not be a problem.

Use that ventilated side panel. It does make a difference.

If you want to make the ventilation considerably better, and at the same time lower the temps and noise even more, the meshes must go! I'd also replace the rear fan with a Noctua, but leave the front one as it is for now - removing the front mesh and HDD cage should let "a lot" more air in with less noise. Mesh restricts the airflow and increases fan noise.

In my 620 most of the noise was caused by the rear fan. I believe it's coupled with the CPU fan. So, when CPU fan speeds up the rear fan does as well. After replacing the fans and the cooler I went for NH-D9L) the little box got a lot cooler and quieter. For me it was worth it.

Here's a pic I have posted too many times on this forum. Sorry! If you remove the mesh, I recommend you to get a finger guard seen on the pic for the rear fan. Especially if you have pets or kids in the house. Oh, and ignore the gaping hole on the top. Adding a 120mm exhaust fan helped, but not as much as I thought.

bravozero588

https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/comment/1162766#Comment_1162766

Appreciate the feedback. I've already ordered a couple of WD_Black NVMe drives, a 1TB for the main drive that I'll clone the OEM 512GB to, and another 2TB for the second slot next to the RAM for games. I debated doing the physical SSD vs NVMe and just decided to go this route, we'll see how it goes. BF sales were pretty good.

With regards to the other points, I do plan on modifying the front mesh for better flow and removing the HDD rack. I can see why the rear fan is more important than the front, so replacing it with the Noctua makes sense. I'm not too concerned about noise as I use headphones for everything, and I'm far enough away from where everyone in the house sleeps when gaming at night. Regarding the side panel with the vents, how does that improve it? Just curious, I've always been told that a sealed system with fans is more efficient than a bunch of vent holes.

William_mk2

@bravozero588

Kindly go through the details from the link given below

https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/gaming/resources/pc-cooling-the-importance-of-keeping-your-pc-cool.html

GotBanned

OP, it sounds like you have a plan figured out already. Good!

From my experience ventilated side panel helps with temps. And by temps I mean chipset, VRM, M.2 drive and other components, so not only limited to GPU and CPU. I believe that even now by simply replacing or completely removing your glass side panel you'd get even better temps than you do now.

After your mod is done, you could try and see if there's any difference between the two side panels by running a few loops of CPU and GPU intensive benchmarks. For monitoring temps I recommend HWinfo64.

Not sure about you, but I find it interesting to compare results before the mod and between the panels after the mod is done.

Cheers!

bravozero588

Just an update. My second NVMe drive came in and I decided to remove the hard drive bay and modify the front fan mesh. The result is a pretty big difference in temps while gaming. Pics below of my setup and average temps. For reference, the game I’ve been playing recently is Star Wars Jedi Fallen Order, 1440p at all maxed out settings. I use a gaming headset so I run the fans on custom which is 60% for all 3 fans, don’t really hear the fans running anyway. Overall I’m happy with this, could it be better? Sure, but this is a huge improvement. I’m also using the ventilated metal side door instead of the glass door.