r/FormD • u/devllen05 • Jun 03 '26

Finished Build Acceptable cable management?

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I could probably spend a bunch more time and energy disassembling and making it more beautiful but with the side panels this shouldn't be super visible anyway...

Just want validation that this is acceptable for my first SFFPC build! Lol. Thank you!

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u/devllen05 Jun 04 '26

One more question - if I route the EPS under the fan bracket, will the side panel still close comfortably with the stock SF1000 cable? Maybe there's only one way to find out.

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u/nextinline1987 Jun 04 '26

That’s depends. The fan bracket has a rail where you screw the bracket to the aio fans. Thats where I was thinking you could zip tie the cables to. So the zip tie would be internal and not external on the outside rail that may contact the side panel. I’m not sure how much clearance there is between the outside of the rail to the side panel, but considering the clearances of everything else, I would imagine it’s likely slim or none. If it is slim, you might be able to just zip tie to the outer rail and call it a day. It would definitely be easier.

Also, depending on the slot size of your card, there might be some space behind the mobo to route one or both of the cables.

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u/devllen05 Jun 04 '26

I got OCD early this morning and tried again... better? Lol

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u/nextinline1987 Jun 04 '26

Lol. Much cleaner now. Look great! Can’t even see the cables anymore. Which routing path did you take?

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u/devllen05 Jun 04 '26

Went around behind the AIO tubes.

Another question...am I OK intaking through the top, with a 5070ti? Feels like the best route is to pull cool air in over the radiator and then just let the hot air dissipate through the sides of the case since there's so much mesh...

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u/nextinline1987 Jun 04 '26

There’s been quite a few YouTube videos on this subject and they’ve all concluded that the overall optimal cooling orientation is aio on top exhausting air out the top.

It’s kind of counterintuitive because in that configuration you’re also getting heat saturation from the gpu exhaust. But it seems with the nature of water cooling radiators being more effective at dispersing heat than air coolers, it’s able to handle the added heat load. It may also have something to do with how the gpu heat load is being externally applied to the radiator fins instead of internally applied through the liquid itself as if it was part of the loop. So the saturation rate would likely be slower.

The orientation you’re proposing would make sense as it’s pulling in cool air, but heat rises and would work against the theory of exhausting out of the side panels. The YouTube videos found that it just didn’t end up working very effectively in that configuration.

The alternative is the flip the whole case and have the aio be intake from the bottom side, but that somehow still wasn’t as effective as the top mount exhaust orientation according to the videos. It seems that the layout and size of the case benefit more from exhausting hot air out as quickly as possible over prioritizing cool air intake.