Aurora R13, best 3rd party cooling options?

   I run mine with stock cooling it came with.  I have the cryo cooling on the CPU, and the stock air on the case fans and the 3080.  I have the gpu fans set at 75%, using MSI Afterburner to set those speeds on the GPU.  Using AWCC, I have the cpu fan set with an off-set of +50%, and the rest of the case fans have a 40% off-set.  

Under normal usage, i.e. not using synthetic benchmarks, it stays under 50c on the CPU and at 60c on the GPU.  That's when gaming in 4K.

Hi mate

1) Stick to default fan setting, I would start with Balanced.

2) You will need additional screws. The mother board has an additional header for a Cpu fan, so the choice is yours how you connect if you have a spare splitter.

It’s a straight forward process.

3) Paste mod is a must, I was really sceptical about the benefits but my temp drops were huge. You can lower your GPU fan speeds a lot after this mod.

I’m on a 3090 and my temps are no where near 60c on the GPU, that’s water cooling temps for a 3090.

But I guess it’s how much power the Gpu uses at the end of the day, 

Good luck with your new machine

1. The default fan settings is good? Shouldn't I have to ramp up the RPM on the Noctuas more to compensate for the 50% of the Dell stock fans?

2. Just 4 additional regular fan screws or do I need the 4 really long radiator screws? I browsed through the user manual and I don't see this extra cpu header fan. I do see 1 but isn't that occupied by the stock cooler fan already?

3. I thought about getting the 3090 but decided on the 3080ti instead. I kinda regretting it a little right now hahaha. From just a quick youtube search, it seems like the 3090 isn't that much faster than the 3080ti in terms of gaming power?

Agreed.  

As long as your temperatures are good you don't need to do anything or upgrade anything.

I would use it for a while and check your temperatures, before ripping things apart and potentially void warranty.

Be very mindful that purchasing the “upgrade” fans that you referred as they will surely be more quiet, however pay attention to the RPM speed.

The stock fans are 4K RPM and the Noctua you referred to are max of 2K RPM. There are different industrial Noctua that are 3K RPM but again still not as fast as stock.This is assuming you care more about temps and not sound.

I run GPU fans on 3090 at 75%, with 40% offset on all pc case fans in AWCC, and my GPU temps under load during 4K gaming are 58-59C with VRAM temps at 72C.

I have not repasted GPU yet as well so I would definitely try stock cooling first before you change anything.

Not only are these fans quieter, they also outperform stock fans. It wouldn't be much of an upgrade if they didn't. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8W096R2wUk

12900 with a 120mm RAD @ 50deg 4k gaming??  Cough BS cough!

I've used several 280mm RAD's from Arctic, MSI and Corsair on the 12900kf and 4k /120 in ACC or Flight Simulator i'm hitting 60-68 with an outside air pull setup..  No way you're getting 50 deg gaming with mostly hot air in the R13 case and a 120..   

The GPU temps are more realistic.

Just keep in mind no matter what cooling upgrade you choose, it wont solve a high end CPU being instantly power throttled out of the box. Dell have also made it clear, they think doing that is acceptable and within Intel specs. Many would argue it is not, but Dell have decided otherwise and will not be fixing the issue.

In my experience the R13 is a good PC, It is certainly not the furnace mumbling Steve insists it is, but he finds fault with anything not made by Corsair his main sponsor. It rankles that Dell have taken shortcuts with the memory choice and power throttled the CPU but it is not half as bad as some of the You Tube "experts" claim it to be. For the non geeks it works perfectly well.

I watch GN for entertainment only.  Unfortunately people take his videos as gospel and pass on a purchase. His minions troll all across the net with their negativity.  Point is, run it first out of the box. If your FPS is good for you (it will be), than does not matter if the R13 is running hot or throttling. Sure it maybe underperforming to its potential specs, but at the end of the day it is working out for  you and that is all that matters. If it is not working out for you, then take the next steps.  I am not a gamer but content producer and the R13 with 12700kf and 3080 is lightning quick, runs cool, and is quiet.  

I wanted to add this somewhere to assist people searching for cooling information, as I have spent many hours researching and problem solving. I have an R13  - I9-12900F, this is not the overclocked version and was AIR COOLED from the factory with a tiny CPU sink and fan (my early 2000s PC had a bigger sink and fan on it). It was a replacement for my R12 with cooling problems and I didn't know they made an air cooled version of the R13, or would have asked.

Factor air cooled fan locations: Side fan (on the rear exhaust), CPU fan pushing air towards the MB, Front fan and Mid fan are intake fans on the front of the machine, and NO TOP exhaust FAN in this configuration.

At this time the 120mm AIO are unusually hard to find. I wanted to improve cooling, not have to do a lot of modifications, and not have to deal with bios errors on loading. I also was shocked the average AIO life span was 1-5 years. My R12 survived 8 months, I'm not impressed and have never had an air cool fail.

Solution: Noctua Chromax NH-U12A. 

Problems: The Noctua LGA 1700 kit is comes with supplied backplate as an integral part of the installation. The R13 backplate appears to be attached to the case itself and will require more case modification that I liked, plus I didn't feel like removing the MB to get to it. There is another guy on Reddit that placed a larger  Noctua CPU cooler and cut the interior layer of the side panel to fit it. I believe he had fan error but he also replaced the other OEM case fans.  

Solution: Purchase 4 x M3-0.5 x 20mm bolts with 4 x M3 washers (I went to Ace Hardware - around $5 bucks) - it will allow a direct attachment of the supplied brackets. (This size is annoyingly hard to find) Some have reported the offset screws from other AIO kits fitting but I wanted to use the LGA 1700 spacer to make sure my distance was more exact.

Problem 2: Gathered from a LOT of reading. It appears the bios errors may be tripped by fan RPM speeds that are too far off the OEM fans. This also depends on the mood of Dell's bios versions.  

Solution 2: Purchase a 3 way, 4 pin fan splitter, removed the existing CPU fan and attach it to the 4 fin that has the 3rd pin for the tach. Place the fan wherever you like. I placed my in an exhaust location in the place the top fan would normally go. NOTE: This was not considered an "overclock" machine and does not include a top fan originally configured. Also note this fan has a 0.75amp rating, very HIGH but it's supposed to also be a 4k fan (its also VERY LOUD). I've gathered a max of about 1amp is safe per motherboard fan plug, the combined amperage between all fans is slightly below 1amp at max draw. It is connected the the CPU fan socket - NOT THE PUMP FAN socket. Again, this is only needed if whatever version of Dell Bios at the time is being finicky enough to throw fan errors. 

Note: I don't have anything attached to the pump fan location, or top fan plugs. 

I'm not going to bother with posting thermal numbers ect... Games I play regularly were hitting the mid 80s with the fan running in the high 80s - it was loud, hot, and throttling a lot. Afterwards: It is running in the mid/low 70s with the fan never going above 30%. It is  much quieter, much cooler, no errors, and throttling is not as obvious. 

Pros: reliable, low cost, no major modifications needed,  greatly improved thermals, and quieter

Cons: It's not as clean or trendy as a liquid cool AIO

fans running at 4000 rpm are EXTREMELY loud, you might as well use a gas powered leafblower as cooling solution.

Such are the options for improving CPU liquid cooling.
Exchange for other fans is nonsense, as DELL OEM fans have 4000 RPM!

Nocuta or Crosair or others have a max of 2000RPM!
The fans must be set well in ACC!

I was having 100 degree spiking in AC Odyssey, on a R13 with i7.  I added a single Noctua nf-a12x15 on the radiator in push/pull with the stock fan. This slim fan does not block the vr heatsink, and is within 8cmf of the larger noctua. I placed the included Y splitter on the top-fan header. I removed pin #4 from the included LNA cable, this way the fan runs at a constant 80%, and is totally silent. I was originally going to Y off the cpu fan, but as the noctua runs at a lower rpm, I felt it would not pull enough air while matching the stock fan running at 20-60%. I found the stock fans to be a mix of avc and foxcon with a rating of 1.02amp and 1.2 amp. With an avc fan on top, even with the extra noctua I am under a stock 1.2 fan load on the header. For mounting, I connected it to the radiator bracket with 6-32x7/8" screws.  Temp spike has been reduced from 100deg to 95deg during AC_Ody gaming. CPU fan speed spike reduced from 85% to 70%. 

What matters more to radiator airflow is hydrostatic pressure. Higher RPM and airflow is not always better for cooling. The air needs time to absorb the heat from the cooling fins, and that takes time.

If you generate to much airflow, you will limit the transfer time and actually cool less.

So you have to make sure you fine tune the system for optimal cooling performance.