Corsair H50 and Thermaltake armour advice

Hello,

I'm looking to grab myself a new I7 setup from scan this weekend, but am running into issues with cooling. I would appreciate any advice you can give me about this stuff.

A quick run through of what I'm going to replace in my current system:
cpu: e6600
mobo: asus p5k mobo
ram: 4gig geil ram
cooler: cnps9700 zalman hsf

This is all housed in a wonderful thermaltake armour case that I've grown rather attached to over the years.

I'm currently looking at these replacements:
cpu: 920 (with D0 stepping shenanigans)
mobo: asus p6t
ram: 6gig xms3 1600 8cas

Cooling-wise is where I run into issues.

I was originally looking at the Noctua NH-U12p air cooler. However, I realised there were most likely going to be issues with space inside the case. The thermaltake armour is pretty big (22cm wide), but the side-window fanguard cuts in pretty deep (say 4cm), and I know that the 15.4cm tall fan is going to end up at least pushing on the fanguard, if not disabling me from closing the side of the computer. This would be less than ideal. If anyone has the same cooler and case (unlikely I admit), then any advice there would be great.

Therefore I started to look at other options with similar cooling power that weren't too tall for the case (and that bloody fanguard) and my eye was rather caught by the Corsair H50 water cooler. It looks rather wonderful and simple for someone who has wanted to try water cooling but been too nervous, whilst it has also garnered good reviews for its noise level and cooling ability.

However, every review I read says that corsair wants the fan taking air into the case through the radiator, and this presents a problem. The armour case is set up for front -> back cooling, with the side fan adding more intake to cover most of the motherboard and ram. I'm not sure about my ability to change the directions of the front fans and I'm almost certain I can't change the side-fan's direction. This means that there would be lots of hot air shunted straight into the middle with no real outtake except to drift through the fanless top.

Indeed, the idea of taking cool air in through the back to the radiator seems somewhat farcical considering I have a rather hot 295gtx positioned directly below where the H50 would be taking in air.

Therefore I really wanted to ask whether I would be right to have the radiator fan taking air out from the case? With the possibility of adding another fan to have push-pull through the radiator and out the case. I feel fairly comfortable of the room requirements of having fan|radiator|fan with the p6t and case but I really want to make sure I'm not setting myself up for disappointment and failure by taking air out of the case through the radiator rather than into the case through the radiator.

Also, if I'm looking at a fan|radiator|fan option for pushing the air out of the case, should I investigate getting "better quality" fans? indeed, with fan|radiator|fan do I need to have both fans with the same airflow/speed or something? I admit I am rather lost when it comes to the niceties of different fan models and airflow and any help would be much appreciated.

I am also up for any other recommendations for cooling around or under the £50 mark which fit in my case, though I would appreciate if they were available on scan.co.uk for ease's sake.


TL;DR version:
1. Will I be ok to ignore corsair's advice about the H50 and use it as outtake rather than intake for my thermaltake armour case?
2. Is fan|radiator|fan a better solution than fan|radiator and do I need to be careful with fan speeds to accommodate having two fans?
3. Should I be looking at "better" (noise and cooling) fans than the H50 supplied one and my old case one?
4. Are there other coolers I should be looking at instead?


Again, any advice or suggestions offered would be greatly appreciated.
Sincerely yours,
Zhou Yu.

Having read around a little more I'm also interested in the (apparently sensational) TRUE cooler, though the articles I've found are a little old (no mention of 1366 anywhere) and I'm still worrying about height as it looks to be a tall bugger, and I had real issues with scratching the top of the HSF and closing the side door with a Tuniq tower I tried for a while (before it broke).

It won't fit I reckon. Best fan to use is the scythe gentle typhoon. Just use it as an intake. it'll be fine.

Shouldn't be any real issue having mounted on the back with the fan blow air out through the rad.
Your best bet is ask in our handy Corsair care section ;)
http://forums.hexus.net/water-cooling-systems/

If you have the Armour with the side panel fan then it's probably going to get in the way of any 120mm fan based tower cooler as they are all roughtly the same height.

Yeah, I saw the corsair forum but assumed they wouldn't be reading it over the weekend ^^

In any case I've now ordered the H50 with a scythe s-flex 1600rpm fan (the gentle typhoon was on preorder unfortunately) and it should all arrive on Tuesday.

Thanks for the help guys.

I'm not sure what the stock fan is with the H50 but it's probably correctly ballanced for the rad
One thing to note is that the supplied fan is a 4pin PWM fan so can be regulated by the motherboard where as a 3pin fan may not be (depending on motherboard)