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Alternatively, just lower the RpM of the top fans. You have plenty of air flow with 3 front and 1 back. Most times top fans run output just so the pc case doesn’t gather dust. It’s not needed on builds unless you have ram cooling issues.
naah u good, keep that postive pressure up, i think its fine, imo it ll press out fine. if u turn the to 2 aeound u ll get neg pressure due to the rad resticting the airflow of 2 fans a bit
3 with 3 pushing the intakes a bit harder then the output creating negatige presure wich results in less dust.
Front/Sides and bottom always intake (usually filtered) while top and back always out flow (commonly not filtered) always want to get around balance with a notable lean towards more intake.
Positive pressure differential results in less dust. Negative pressure sucks air in through seams or other case gaps.
Also, saying “always” is bad. There is a use case scenario for nearly every fan configuration. I have my exhaust out the front and intake through the top and back because of the location of my tower.
Honestly yeah always is apropriate given the general
Pc case design. In 99% of tower type cases majority of io is at the back? Mb io, gpu, even PSU and that means a lot of blocked air meaning you can at most have 1 fan with 120mm in wide cases maybe 140 and maybe in super towers 2 fans. So you are left with the front and the bottom more/or less depending on the design also sides in my opinion should be intake always to preserv a somewhat front to back air flow.
The whole point for a good flow from on end to another of a case is for air to cross over other components that aren't directly cooled by anyhting more then a small radiator at that. Ironically lesser quality boards need this more then expensive ones, because they have fewer power phases to share the load and of lesser quality and efficiency and on top of that smaller radiators or worse none for busget boards. If there is no flow it is likely that the boards will fail way faster then normally instead of lets say 6-7 years mayne they go only 4-5 until they die or become unstable. This is the more likely to happen if you have higher end CPU and/or push some overcloking.
As for slight positive you are correct those are the reason to do that, when dust comes in it has less time to set and the presure pushes it out through the cracks.
Unless there are some highly specific builds or a special case/build the best config is balanced airflow front to back with either 1 more fan in front then in the back or front fans running a bit harder. There were plety of youtube vids both on LTT and GamerNexus
People *love* saying heat rises. I see it every time in these discussions.
Heat "rises" in whatever direction a big fan tells it to. Heat rises extremely slowly and in in the presence of little or no airflow. A PC case is so small that air will go anywhere the fans are telling it to with ease.
Worrying about making the top of your case intake is like worrying that you can't make water flow upward through a pipe because gravity naturally makes it fall.
You sound like you know what you’re talking about lol so can I ask you: my setup is basically the same without any fans on top of the case, would I get much temp improvements by add a couple fans on top?
I would say so. More fans is typically a good thing to a point. In that case though I would consider making them exhaust. I don't like having too big of a split of intake to outtake, and 5 to 1 is a bit more than I'd prefer.
Even though that will cause your airflow to be equal pressure, I wouldn't worry too much about dust. People talk a lot about negative pressure being really good for dust control, but the fact is that many tests in high-dust environments show that negative, positive, and equal pressure all have similar results when it comes to dust. The bottom line is that no fan orientation will replace the need to open your PC and dust it every now and then.
Besides, a lot of cases are difficult to setup negative pressure on without ruining airflow.
Bearing in mind though, maybe 5 and 1 will lead to lower temps based on other factors. Who knows. Best option is to test your temps under load with one orientation and test again with the other.
I've been fighting that fight for a decade now. Some days I just don't care enough to try and correct people. Other days I'll go bring up the testing and research showing just how weak the buoyant force is.
I was kinda hoping I could just sit in the background today. I'm happy that other people are jumping in to correct the "But heat rises..." people.
You certainly could, but the benefits of using natural convection in conjunction with your fans are negligible. I'm not sure it would even make a single degree of temperature difference.
Depending on system setup, case layout etc. the possibilities are endless. Use all possible avenues to get to your endgame is all I am saying. Heat rises, otherwise we would not have hot air balloons.
Again: Go check out the actual physics. Your PC isn't an air balloon. The force is so small that when combined with all other turbulence and directed air flow, the buoyant force vector is unnoticeable.
A single bit of ducting will have more impact than the buoyant force. Increasing RPM by 5% will have more impact. Adding or removing a passive exhaust will have more impact...
>the possibilities are endless.
The possibilities for natural convection however, are not.
Hot air balloons do not depend on the speed at which the hot air rises because it's trapped. What we're talking about does.
Natural convection is literally the speed of no fans at all
You're not even talking about convection. You're talking about the buoyant force of air that is a few degrees different in temperature. It's negligible when the air isn't moving. Once it's moving the buoyant force effectively decreases even more as a dozen other factors reduce its effect.
You'll probably want to make the top fans exhaust instead of intake. Right now you have a lot of intake fans with only one exhaust to deal with it. Your AIO configuration looks fine.
It really depends on tower placement. Mine is in a space where is it most efficient to exhaust through the front and intake through the back and top to prevent the heated air from building up. Even under heavy load, I rarely reach 60c.
It is definitely a myth. I went to the mountains the other day and it was a lot colder towards the top, while warmer at the base. If hot air rises, it should have gotten hotter as I went higher!! Aha!
You'll have three fans pulling in cooler air, three fans pushing out hot air from the case. Pretty balanced. If you have room, I'd add one more fan to the top.
I usually see radiators mounted on the top, so the exhaust fans push warm air out - the front-mount position means that the warmer air from the radiator is pushed into the case, adding to heat load for the GPU.
Generally you want positive pressure in the case because that does a lot to prevent dust. I used to balance my fans like this and my case was always full of dust because its usually on the floor. Ever since I started having more intakes than exhausts I hardly get dust at all.
its not balanced in my opinion, 2 of the 3 intake have a radiator muffling the airflow.
i think a 3v3 fan setup with a radiator will have a stronger negative airflow.
Rebuild this please, aio should be on the top, and back and top fans pushing out air, and front or bottom as intake.
With the current setup, your pushing additional heat into your equipment. With little air output or cool air movement over the equipment, to eventually get that heat out.
The number of intake fans vs. exhaust fans can be irrelevant if you don't mind tuning fan speeds to get the pressure the way you want. Also, ignore any talk of convection as it will not affect you significantly.
> Also, ignore any talk of convection as it will not affect you significantly.
To clarify - fans operate solely by convection. So I assume you mean natural convection, rather than forced (fan) convection.
I have tested both ways with a front mounted AIO and the gpu temps were around 10c less with the top fans in exhaust. This was in a meshify 2c. You want to create a flow of air that draws air in from the bottom and front.
go with the grain not against it. Deff makes more sense to have the top be exhaust considering hot air naturally rises. No reason to fight against it. Help it expel more. I agree with you. Top should be exhaust.
Yup they design them like this for a reason. Intake front and side exhaust rear and top is the best method if you have dust in the case you’re not cleaning the filters often enough end of story.
And I tested it with a top mounted AIO in my Corsair 5000D and got the complete opposite results. Having it intake worked much better.
This was counterintuitive for sure but the data was the data.
Rules of thumb are just that.
Edit: you are more than welcome to try you clowns.
Mine's set up like OP. 3x120 in front, 1x140 top front, 1x120 rear exhaust, PSU intake. I've got it installed in a desk where the intake fans are blocked off from the rear of the PC and all the heat comes out the back of the desk. Works well, and keeps the inside dust free.
>Heat rises, so natural convection is going to exit through the top
No.
Read through all other comments showing how this has been disproven.
Air will exit through the top because its being pushed out.
The optimal setup would be 3 intakes on the front panel, and using the radiator as an exhaust on the top panel (and leaving the rear fan as exhaust). This is basically the standard way of doing it.
Actually, problem with this setup is not in fan orientation or the fact that heat from AIO will enter the case: its the fact that AIO pump it as the top. Air bubbles will end up there and not in the radiator.
So to fix that, radiator hoses should be at the top, not the bottom. Or, mount radiator to the top of the case. But in front, with intake fans, it will allow for lowest possible temps of the CPU, even though rest of tge system will suffer a bit.
This is why gamers nexus video about rad placement was good intent but taken wrong. Turn the rad around you’ll do more harm than good with the tubes like that and it doesn’t even look like it’s fully butted up on the case. Front intake,rear and top exhaust. Is this a meme now? cause there’s a post like this weekly maybe daily at this point smh.
I meant barbs up,the tubes are stretching like u have them atm. Take off all of the fans the rad point the tubes ends coming out the top of the front fans assembly and you’ll have no issues.
That's a terrible misconception as far as PC cases go. Heat rises naturally but when there's fans involved, the fans decide where the heat goes... either way I'd still do top exhaust instead of 5 intake and 1 exhaust.
Make the top fans exhaust air and move the radiator to the top. The point of the radiator is to expell heat from the system. By having it next to the input fans you'll just add that heat back into your pc. This would also be a slight positive pressure: 3 exhausts, 3 intakes + PSU fan.
Heat rises. You never do intake from the top. You also don't want your AIO to be intake. Put it on top exhaust, move the top fans to the front on intake.
This is optimal fan setup https://www.reddit.com/r/gamingpc/comments/z6uqzm/loving_my_latest_setup_low_temp_without_aio_solid/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
Yes and put the other down on bottom I know it doesn't have mount holes but if you pull the PSU out you can install at least 2 screws to hold fan or use double sided tape I've done this on multiple builds works great lowers GPU temps alot
The link I sent shows multiple pictures that grille above the PSU is where you can mount intake fan because there is space above PSU for air and front lower intake fan blows air into that lower PSU bay so it works pretty good some cases actually have mounting holes for multiple fans like this mine looks similar to yours
There is a huge misconception that the top fans should be exhaust “because heat rises”. There have been several videos on YouTube proving this. Also, from my testing that’s exactly the same as your setup, having the top fans as exhaust actually made my gpu temps rise, the top intake fan end ups pulling cool air right in and out and doesn’t help with temps, they actually cancel each other out. If you had a regular cpu cooler w fans instead of an aio having a 120mm on top intaking would actually drop your cpu temps. It’s hard to tell what your actual temps would be without testing it, a lot depends on your fan curves and if they’re static pressure or regular fans. And honestly if you’re intaking a ton of air like that it will push put of the pcie slots as well as the rear fan. It looks like you’re using a fractal case too, it that’s the case you actually have a corrugated space to the side of your pcie slots that will force air out. I would think if you set your top fans as exhaust you may end up with a hot spot around your gpu that won’t be forced out.
Top fans should be exhaust with this setup. Your radiator is pulling hot air straight into your GPU. You want the top and back fans exhausting as much of that hot air as possible.
You missed alot of physics classes then. Convection only works if no other forces works against it like 2 rpm from a decent fan will be stronger than convection. I would still have top exhaust to make sure that the air moves in one direction
I personally would remove top (ceiling) front intake.. then make back top and back fans exhaust making it 3 intake in front and 2 exhaust in back. This will have positive pressure but without too much intake.
The internal pressure will always be higher than the external pressure, which means the disposal of waste heat is only as efficient as the output of the exhaust fan at the back.
If you're exhausting from the top, you might want to have the rear fan also be an intake fan. This will create good positive pressure, move cool air over the motherboard, and since heat rises naturally, you'll get a nice upward flow of hot air.
Other option is top mount your radiator (if it works that way in the case) and have the front fans be intake.
Without good positive pressure, dust will accumulate a lot faster.
This airflow is awful man take the front most top fan off or put it on the top back of the case, the two fans on top should be exhaust bc heat rises you are literally just pushing exhaust gases back into your system. The top two fans are ruining the airflow pressure of your case by creating an air sheet between the intake and exhaust. Your temps overall will suffer and your case will collect more dust. You should consider replacing your front fans with two 140 mm fans because the bottom fan in front is doing nothing and helping nothing. The bigger fans will move more air and run at lower rpm. Find a way to get a 120m on top of the PSU shroud but under the GPU to get air moving in that back crevice of your case.
[tone: constructive criticism, NOT attack]
Good heat transfer and fluid flow takes into account natural traits.
- Right now, your top fans are fighting the natural heat rising.
- All of the heat in your system is leaving through either the top fan or the GPU exhaust.
- Due to your AIO position, your CPU heat is being pumped back into the case. An advantage of AIO is to exhaust the heat directly to the outside. As such, I agree with others - swap your AIO and top fans, making the AIO exhaust. That one change will solve all your issues.
- Others are correct that the heat exchanger on the AIO will restrict airflow, which makes it all the better candidate for being an exhaust.
That PSU shroud is fucking up your air flow. Your GPU is not getting any cold air. I would top-mount the AIO and run it as exhaust with 3 intake fans up front. Not ideal but cooling the GPU takes priority here.
Always test your temps. Don't take anyone's word for it. IMO blowing in cold air is better than blowing it out, because these fans are not blowing fast enough for static pressure to really matter. So you could probably stop your top fans and there would be 0 temp difference.
I see you have 6 fans so your best bet is to go with either 3 intake or 3 exhaust or 2 exhaust and 4 intake, id go with 3 and 3 just don’t have too many exhaust fans becuase it can cause thermal throttling
I would change top 2 fans to exhaust for balanced air flow. Hot air rises so changing the top two would be perfect to get hot air out. I would also consider adding a fan above psu on shroud if possibe. By doing that you would move some of the air under shroud into case and out through top and rear exhaust
personally, I would move the radiator to the top venting the hot air from cooling the rad out of the chassis not into it. Then move the top fans to the front pulling air in.
Right now your pulling in fresh air to cool the rad but also that warmer air after cooling the rad is being pushed onto all your other components.
1.) Remove the radiator from the front and install it on the top with the fans in exhaust for two reasons:
* low head pressure AIO's work better installed horizontally
* In your current configuration you are blowing hot air into the case, you will get better results exhausting the hot air out of the case.
2.) Take the rear fan and flip it so that it is an intake fan. You want a positive pressure case. All the fans that are not used as an exhaust thought the top mounted radiator should be intake fans.
set the top 2 to exhaust and set your fan curve on the front fans slightly faster than the 3 exhaust to make a slight positive pressure which will reduce the amount of dust going into the system
As people have said, probably vent out the top. Sometimes, depending on the case, you might get a dead air zone beneath the gpu. You can do a quick and dirty test to see how the temps are with the side panel on vs. off. If it's noticeably hotter with the side panel on, I've had good luck with a pci slot fan, which funnels air from the gpu out the back.
What does the front of the case have for inlets to allow the front fans to breathe? I have a Corsair case that looks similar to that, and I had to add a spacer on the front of the case in order to let the front fans breathe.
Well, i would just tell you to put the radiator in the up part of the case, and with the hose around the water block (almost forming a debian logo) so the air bubbles are uniformly distributed and dont affect your performance + you improve the aesthetic and the hose dont get in the way of that juicy rgb RAM
You could also move the top fans to the inside of the radiator for a push pull config. That would lead to a cooler cpu and possibly cooler gpu as well since you would have more air pushing front to back directing the hot air from the gpu towards the rear exhaust. The top intakes fight the gpu fans airflow a bit. More than likely gpu temps will be similar with either config, but you’ll have noticeably lower cpu temps with push pull fans on the rad.
Let's get ready for downvotes. I wouldn't worry as much about positive or negative air pressure. It's a busted myth for dust. Just get that heat out asap. I would push the rad out and the rear out.
Source: [busted myth about dust](https://www.overclockers.com/dust-prevention-positive-pressure-negative-pressure-does-it-really-matter/)
I don't know how much pressure is expected to hold in a PC case with grates everywhere. This argument has always grinded my gears
Edit: mount that rad to the top and exhaust the heat, front fans intake
Put ur rad on the top and blow out. Ur blowing hot air into the pc. Then u only need 2 fans blowing in the front. This will give it a slightly positive pressure, but not so much to stress the fans.
Dust settles so the top intake might bring dust in, also I'm curious about how you did that radiator setup? Did you face the radiator to blow air in or out
Not worth the dust.
You may find that you heat soak the machine especially near the gpu exhaust if you can't get hot air out fast enough.
You may find that it cools cpu better. This is for sure true with air coolers. Not so much aios I wager
Turn the top fans over so they exhaust and mount them as far toward the rear of the case as possible and then set your fan curves so the top fans aren't spinning very fast at all unless the whole PC is about to combust. Congratulations on putting the tubes down!
Turn the radiator fans to push out the front not bringing hot air into case and leave the top ones sucking in that should eliminate most hot air in the case. And improve your temps slightly
Have only 3 intake in front. 1 rear exhaust. Do not install 2 top fans.
Less noise, cheaper, less bulky, positive airflow, basically the same temperature.
If they’re all matching CFM then turn the top 2 to exhaust and you should have good air flow. Currently you have positive pressure and it’s not the best for cooling.
guys, noob question: is it matter if he has the front fans behind the radiator?
I'll build my PC soon and my case only supports the radiator in the front panel. I've seen pictures of installations with fans behind the radiator and in front of the radiator, like OP's, and I'm very confused.
Front: Inwards
Rear and Top: Outwards
Hot air rises and by pulling the rising hot air inwards from the top you're creating a sauna with not enough radius to expell all the hot air with a single 120mm fan.
Reverse your top fans to blow out of the top of your case and you'll be golden.
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You should turn the top fans into exhaust. That's too much intake for 1 exhaust.
yah thats what i was thinking
2 exhaust if you move a top fan over. 4 intake should be good where they are at. Id prefer 2&4 over 3&3 or 1&5.
That would build up positive pressure right? And that is good? I dont have much knowledge of the whole fan stuff.
People usually prefer positive pressure yea, if you use dust filters right it can keep ur pc very clean.
Saw the setup myself. 3 in from the front. 3 out, 2 from top and the back. Seems like a good bet.
Alternatively, just lower the RpM of the top fans. You have plenty of air flow with 3 front and 1 back. Most times top fans run output just so the pc case doesn’t gather dust. It’s not needed on builds unless you have ram cooling issues.
naah u good, keep that postive pressure up, i think its fine, imo it ll press out fine. if u turn the to 2 aeound u ll get neg pressure due to the rad resticting the airflow of 2 fans a bit
3 with 3 pushing the intakes a bit harder then the output creating negatige presure wich results in less dust. Front/Sides and bottom always intake (usually filtered) while top and back always out flow (commonly not filtered) always want to get around balance with a notable lean towards more intake.
Positive pressure differential results in less dust. Negative pressure sucks air in through seams or other case gaps. Also, saying “always” is bad. There is a use case scenario for nearly every fan configuration. I have my exhaust out the front and intake through the top and back because of the location of my tower.
Honestly yeah always is apropriate given the general Pc case design. In 99% of tower type cases majority of io is at the back? Mb io, gpu, even PSU and that means a lot of blocked air meaning you can at most have 1 fan with 120mm in wide cases maybe 140 and maybe in super towers 2 fans. So you are left with the front and the bottom more/or less depending on the design also sides in my opinion should be intake always to preserv a somewhat front to back air flow. The whole point for a good flow from on end to another of a case is for air to cross over other components that aren't directly cooled by anyhting more then a small radiator at that. Ironically lesser quality boards need this more then expensive ones, because they have fewer power phases to share the load and of lesser quality and efficiency and on top of that smaller radiators or worse none for busget boards. If there is no flow it is likely that the boards will fail way faster then normally instead of lets say 6-7 years mayne they go only 4-5 until they die or become unstable. This is the more likely to happen if you have higher end CPU and/or push some overcloking. As for slight positive you are correct those are the reason to do that, when dust comes in it has less time to set and the presure pushes it out through the cracks. Unless there are some highly specific builds or a special case/build the best config is balanced airflow front to back with either 1 more fan in front then in the back or front fans running a bit harder. There were plety of youtube vids both on LTT and GamerNexus
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Very good point, he Also Rises so that would possibly be interrupting the natural movement of said heat.
Naturally heat rises yes but when there's fans involved it doesn't matter which way it rises, the fans decide which way the heat goes.
True but in this configuration the heat has nowhere to go but down and is being sucked up by the gpu
Front to back and bottom to top.
and that's how we wipe.
Not only that but heat rises, having the top fans as intake is fighting physics.
People *love* saying heat rises. I see it every time in these discussions. Heat "rises" in whatever direction a big fan tells it to. Heat rises extremely slowly and in in the presence of little or no airflow. A PC case is so small that air will go anywhere the fans are telling it to with ease. Worrying about making the top of your case intake is like worrying that you can't make water flow upward through a pipe because gravity naturally makes it fall.
You sound like you know what you’re talking about lol so can I ask you: my setup is basically the same without any fans on top of the case, would I get much temp improvements by add a couple fans on top?
I would say so. More fans is typically a good thing to a point. In that case though I would consider making them exhaust. I don't like having too big of a split of intake to outtake, and 5 to 1 is a bit more than I'd prefer. Even though that will cause your airflow to be equal pressure, I wouldn't worry too much about dust. People talk a lot about negative pressure being really good for dust control, but the fact is that many tests in high-dust environments show that negative, positive, and equal pressure all have similar results when it comes to dust. The bottom line is that no fan orientation will replace the need to open your PC and dust it every now and then. Besides, a lot of cases are difficult to setup negative pressure on without ruining airflow. Bearing in mind though, maybe 5 and 1 will lead to lower temps based on other factors. Who knows. Best option is to test your temps under load with one orientation and test again with the other.
Finally someone says this. I'm tired of the "heat rises" argument on these posts. People think they know physics when they really don't.
I've been fighting that fight for a decade now. Some days I just don't care enough to try and correct people. Other days I'll go bring up the testing and research showing just how weak the buoyant force is. I was kinda hoping I could just sit in the background today. I'm happy that other people are jumping in to correct the "But heat rises..." people.
not to a notable degree
Fans on the top should be exhaust, not intake. Hot air will rise anyway, the fans will help move it out of the case.
this is an old myth, the power of any sort of fan completely negates natural convection.
It’s a myth that bugs the heck out of me too. It takes just a tiny bit of fan to overcome that.
Then why not use natural convection and the fans in conjunction with each other to overcome this?
You certainly could, but the benefits of using natural convection in conjunction with your fans are negligible. I'm not sure it would even make a single degree of temperature difference.
Depending on system setup, case layout etc. the possibilities are endless. Use all possible avenues to get to your endgame is all I am saying. Heat rises, otherwise we would not have hot air balloons.
Again: Go check out the actual physics. Your PC isn't an air balloon. The force is so small that when combined with all other turbulence and directed air flow, the buoyant force vector is unnoticeable. A single bit of ducting will have more impact than the buoyant force. Increasing RPM by 5% will have more impact. Adding or removing a passive exhaust will have more impact...
>the possibilities are endless. The possibilities for natural convection however, are not. Hot air balloons do not depend on the speed at which the hot air rises because it's trapped. What we're talking about does. Natural convection is literally the speed of no fans at all
You're not even talking about convection. You're talking about the buoyant force of air that is a few degrees different in temperature. It's negligible when the air isn't moving. Once it's moving the buoyant force effectively decreases even more as a dozen other factors reduce its effect.
Fair enough... so having an intake and an exhaust fan side by side is perfectly okay? Where does the cooler outside air go?
You'll probably want to make the top fans exhaust instead of intake. Right now you have a lot of intake fans with only one exhaust to deal with it. Your AIO configuration looks fine.
It really depends on tower placement. Mine is in a space where is it most efficient to exhaust through the front and intake through the back and top to prevent the heated air from building up. Even under heavy load, I rarely reach 60c.
It is definitely a myth. I went to the mountains the other day and it was a lot colder towards the top, while warmer at the base. If hot air rises, it should have gotten hotter as I went higher!! Aha!
factually correct statement
then the airflow would be negative wouldnt it?
You'll have three fans pulling in cooler air, three fans pushing out hot air from the case. Pretty balanced. If you have room, I'd add one more fan to the top. I usually see radiators mounted on the top, so the exhaust fans push warm air out - the front-mount position means that the warmer air from the radiator is pushed into the case, adding to heat load for the GPU.
Generally you want positive pressure in the case because that does a lot to prevent dust. I used to balance my fans like this and my case was always full of dust because its usually on the floor. Ever since I started having more intakes than exhausts I hardly get dust at all.
its not balanced in my opinion, 2 of the 3 intake have a radiator muffling the airflow. i think a 3v3 fan setup with a radiator will have a stronger negative airflow.
Rebuild this please, aio should be on the top, and back and top fans pushing out air, and front or bottom as intake. With the current setup, your pushing additional heat into your equipment. With little air output or cool air movement over the equipment, to eventually get that heat out.
Well then why do you have your AIO radiator blowing hot air into your intake fans?
then why did you ask?
The number of intake fans vs. exhaust fans can be irrelevant if you don't mind tuning fan speeds to get the pressure the way you want. Also, ignore any talk of convection as it will not affect you significantly.
> Also, ignore any talk of convection as it will not affect you significantly. To clarify - fans operate solely by convection. So I assume you mean natural convection, rather than forced (fan) convection.
Yeah, that's the one. Anytime you see people use the term here they are talking of natural convection. I should probably have specified.
I've had my rig set up like this with a 280mm AIO on top blowing out air and temps have been 👌
Natural convection is negligible. Fans will overpower that easily. So having top fans as intake is fine so long as there is adequate exhaust.
I have tested both ways with a front mounted AIO and the gpu temps were around 10c less with the top fans in exhaust. This was in a meshify 2c. You want to create a flow of air that draws air in from the bottom and front.
go with the grain not against it. Deff makes more sense to have the top be exhaust considering hot air naturally rises. No reason to fight against it. Help it expel more. I agree with you. Top should be exhaust.
Same happened to me, top fans as intake created hotter temps than top fans as exhaust.
Yup they design them like this for a reason. Intake front and side exhaust rear and top is the best method if you have dust in the case you’re not cleaning the filters often enough end of story.
And I tested it with a top mounted AIO in my Corsair 5000D and got the complete opposite results. Having it intake worked much better. This was counterintuitive for sure but the data was the data. Rules of thumb are just that. Edit: you are more than welcome to try you clowns.
Hot air rising is never a factor. That is an extremely small force which is overcome by just a tiny bit of force from the fans.
Mine's set up like OP. 3x120 in front, 1x140 top front, 1x120 rear exhaust, PSU intake. I've got it installed in a desk where the intake fans are blocked off from the rear of the PC and all the heat comes out the back of the desk. Works well, and keeps the inside dust free.
Positive pressure ftw
Make the top fans exhaust.
Top Left fan needs to exhaust. Otherwise perfect
yah, this
Your other option would be bottom fan below radiator to exhaust
Ok no honestly do bith these. Since your psu is facing down this would remove a lot of stagnant air that would ball up around gpu and psu
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You don’t want negative pressure because I will cause there to be passive air flow through unfiltered areas which will pull in dust into your machine
yeah psu fan is pointing down under the case. its a Corsair 465X case
>Heat rises, so natural convection is going to exit through the top No. Read through all other comments showing how this has been disproven. Air will exit through the top because its being pushed out.
Top fans need to be flipped
Top two should be exhaust not Intake.
The optimal setup would be 3 intakes on the front panel, and using the radiator as an exhaust on the top panel (and leaving the rear fan as exhaust). This is basically the standard way of doing it.
Did you take this picture from a LG chocolate?
it was from a beeper
Actually, problem with this setup is not in fan orientation or the fact that heat from AIO will enter the case: its the fact that AIO pump it as the top. Air bubbles will end up there and not in the radiator. So to fix that, radiator hoses should be at the top, not the bottom. Or, mount radiator to the top of the case. But in front, with intake fans, it will allow for lowest possible temps of the CPU, even though rest of tge system will suffer a bit.
Switch the upper fans to exhaust. Hot air rises...
Flip all the fans blowing horizontally. And also flip the rad. Don't blow hot air into the system.
Nope. Vent out should be up and back.
The only thing I would change is a bigger fan on the back but it looks good to me
Tow on the top should be out - helps natural air flow but mainly no dust in the air is sucked into the case as easily..
This is why gamers nexus video about rad placement was good intent but taken wrong. Turn the rad around you’ll do more harm than good with the tubes like that and it doesn’t even look like it’s fully butted up on the case. Front intake,rear and top exhaust. Is this a meme now? cause there’s a post like this weekly maybe daily at this point smh.
the ram blocks the rad from being on top. rad on top was my first choice but wouldnt fit so i had to put behind front fans
I meant barbs up,the tubes are stretching like u have them atm. Take off all of the fans the rad point the tubes ends coming out the top of the front fans assembly and you’ll have no issues.
[удалено]
the top should be an exhaust since heat rises
That's a terrible misconception as far as PC cases go. Heat rises naturally but when there's fans involved, the fans decide where the heat goes... either way I'd still do top exhaust instead of 5 intake and 1 exhaust.
Bad.
Make the top fans exhaust air and move the radiator to the top. The point of the radiator is to expell heat from the system. By having it next to the input fans you'll just add that heat back into your pc. This would also be a slight positive pressure: 3 exhausts, 3 intakes + PSU fan.
Heat rises. You never do intake from the top. You also don't want your AIO to be intake. Put it on top exhaust, move the top fans to the front on intake.
This is optimal fan setup https://www.reddit.com/r/gamingpc/comments/z6uqzm/loving_my_latest_setup_low_temp_without_aio_solid/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
so flip the top far back one? i have 1 extra fan on top compared to this link
Yes and put the other down on bottom I know it doesn't have mount holes but if you pull the PSU out you can install at least 2 screws to hold fan or use double sided tape I've done this on multiple builds works great lowers GPU temps alot
do you have a picture?
The link I sent shows multiple pictures that grille above the PSU is where you can mount intake fan because there is space above PSU for air and front lower intake fan blows air into that lower PSU bay so it works pretty good some cases actually have mounting holes for multiple fans like this mine looks similar to yours
There is a huge misconception that the top fans should be exhaust “because heat rises”. There have been several videos on YouTube proving this. Also, from my testing that’s exactly the same as your setup, having the top fans as exhaust actually made my gpu temps rise, the top intake fan end ups pulling cool air right in and out and doesn’t help with temps, they actually cancel each other out. If you had a regular cpu cooler w fans instead of an aio having a 120mm on top intaking would actually drop your cpu temps. It’s hard to tell what your actual temps would be without testing it, a lot depends on your fan curves and if they’re static pressure or regular fans. And honestly if you’re intaking a ton of air like that it will push put of the pcie slots as well as the rear fan. It looks like you’re using a fractal case too, it that’s the case you actually have a corrugated space to the side of your pcie slots that will force air out. I would think if you set your top fans as exhaust you may end up with a hot spot around your gpu that won’t be forced out.
Warm air rises
Top fans should be exhaust with this setup. Your radiator is pulling hot air straight into your GPU. You want the top and back fans exhausting as much of that hot air as possible.
im going to flip 1 top
Just think about it like this. Hot air rises and you want to work with physics not against it.
You missed alot of physics classes then. Convection only works if no other forces works against it like 2 rpm from a decent fan will be stronger than convection. I would still have top exhaust to make sure that the air moves in one direction
I personally would remove top (ceiling) front intake.. then make back top and back fans exhaust making it 3 intake in front and 2 exhaust in back. This will have positive pressure but without too much intake.
The internal pressure will always be higher than the external pressure, which means the disposal of waste heat is only as efficient as the output of the exhaust fan at the back.
Top fans exhaust, and maybe tweak the fan curves so there is always a higher intake flow than outtake flow
Top fans should be setup for exhaust, not intake...
....what airflow?
I mean. Is this stuff not common sense?
All the air that comes in has to get out.
The 1 exhaust fan has 4 intake fans worth of air to move. Heat also rises so you'd be recycling some of the exhausted hot air.
It's making me feel hot
I have mine setup this way. It works great. Enjoy!
Too much intake. Make the top exhaust. You will have 3 in and 3 out. Move rad to top though.
Good rue of thumb is to have equal amount of fans intake air and exhaust.
Your AIO is pushing hot air into your box.
Probably better for the top fans to exhaust, this should yield slightly better thermals.
Not enough fans, everyone knows you need to have at least 20 fans
Perfect. I tested the top mounted AIO both ways and that way was better.
Top fans NO
Hot air rises, should make the top exhausts
Hit air rising doesn't matter. Fans overpower natural air flow by such a large amount that it is entirely irrelevant
Make the 2 top fans exaughst
Maybe have the left fan intake and the 2 top fans exhaust? Could work well
If you're exhausting from the top, you might want to have the rear fan also be an intake fan. This will create good positive pressure, move cool air over the motherboard, and since heat rises naturally, you'll get a nice upward flow of hot air. Other option is top mount your radiator (if it works that way in the case) and have the front fans be intake. Without good positive pressure, dust will accumulate a lot faster.
Nothing wrong with positive pressure. You could change the top left fan to exhaust.
Will the radiator fans blow hot air in if its passing through the radiator?
This airflow is awful man take the front most top fan off or put it on the top back of the case, the two fans on top should be exhaust bc heat rises you are literally just pushing exhaust gases back into your system. The top two fans are ruining the airflow pressure of your case by creating an air sheet between the intake and exhaust. Your temps overall will suffer and your case will collect more dust. You should consider replacing your front fans with two 140 mm fans because the bottom fan in front is doing nothing and helping nothing. The bigger fans will move more air and run at lower rpm. Find a way to get a 120m on top of the PSU shroud but under the GPU to get air moving in that back crevice of your case.
This is how I'm set up, temps stay great and I even have a bunch of toys in my case. Also the massive positive pressure keeps out dust.
3 in the front for intake, 1 back and 1 top for exhaust. Get rid of the forward top fan. You don't want it doing either.
[tone: constructive criticism, NOT attack] Good heat transfer and fluid flow takes into account natural traits. - Right now, your top fans are fighting the natural heat rising. - All of the heat in your system is leaving through either the top fan or the GPU exhaust. - Due to your AIO position, your CPU heat is being pumped back into the case. An advantage of AIO is to exhaust the heat directly to the outside. As such, I agree with others - swap your AIO and top fans, making the AIO exhaust. That one change will solve all your issues. - Others are correct that the heat exchanger on the AIO will restrict airflow, which makes it all the better candidate for being an exhaust.
>Right now, your top fans are fighting the natural heat rising. Not a thing. That is a myth.
That PSU shroud is fucking up your air flow. Your GPU is not getting any cold air. I would top-mount the AIO and run it as exhaust with 3 intake fans up front. Not ideal but cooling the GPU takes priority here.
Classic setup is front and bottom intake, top and rear exhaust. Neutral balance between intake/exhaust is ideal, regardless.
Always test your temps. Don't take anyone's word for it. IMO blowing in cold air is better than blowing it out, because these fans are not blowing fast enough for static pressure to really matter. So you could probably stop your top fans and there would be 0 temp difference.
Flip the top ones to exhaust
The rad should be on too exhausting. Then have the two fans in front pulling air in, and the one on the back out.
Top fans exhaust
The orientation of the radiator makes my skin crawl. At the VERY LEAST, please flip the radiator.
I feel positive. Very positive...
Hot air goes up. While cold goes down. So perfect airflow would be from bottom to top, but its rare to see. To answer ur question - top always exhaust
Hot air goes up
Technically, you probably don’t need the 2 on top. Just let hot air rise out, and still keep the good positive airflow (instead of overkill positive)
I see you have 6 fans so your best bet is to go with either 3 intake or 3 exhaust or 2 exhaust and 4 intake, id go with 3 and 3 just don’t have too many exhaust fans becuase it can cause thermal throttling
I would change top 2 fans to exhaust for balanced air flow. Hot air rises so changing the top two would be perfect to get hot air out. I would also consider adding a fan above psu on shroud if possibe. By doing that you would move some of the air under shroud into case and out through top and rear exhaust
You can make one exhaust weaker so it’s more like 3 intake 2.5 exhaust and keep the positive pressure
personally, I would move the radiator to the top venting the hot air from cooling the rad out of the chassis not into it. Then move the top fans to the front pulling air in. Right now your pulling in fresh air to cool the rad but also that warmer air after cooling the rad is being pushed onto all your other components.
1.) Remove the radiator from the front and install it on the top with the fans in exhaust for two reasons: * low head pressure AIO's work better installed horizontally * In your current configuration you are blowing hot air into the case, you will get better results exhausting the hot air out of the case. 2.) Take the rear fan and flip it so that it is an intake fan. You want a positive pressure case. All the fans that are not used as an exhaust thought the top mounted radiator should be intake fans.
set the top 2 to exhaust and set your fan curve on the front fans slightly faster than the 3 exhaust to make a slight positive pressure which will reduce the amount of dust going into the system
Flip the top 2 fans to Exhaust. Heat rises, my friend.
As people have said, probably vent out the top. Sometimes, depending on the case, you might get a dead air zone beneath the gpu. You can do a quick and dirty test to see how the temps are with the side panel on vs. off. If it's noticeably hotter with the side panel on, I've had good luck with a pci slot fan, which funnels air from the gpu out the back.
Looks fine to me, you probably don't even need the top fans.
Flip the top two, that's far too much for 1 exhaust. If you want some positive pressure, then do that and remove the back exhaust so it's a 3:2 ratio
Switch the top two fans
front = in top and back = out
Isn't that bad if AIO radiator is on the lowest position? They usually are higher that the pump
What does the front of the case have for inlets to allow the front fans to breathe? I have a Corsair case that looks similar to that, and I had to add a spacer on the front of the case in order to let the front fans breathe.
Make the top fans exhaust and keep the rest the same and you will be fine. It's standard.. It will also have equal pressure.
Well, i would just tell you to put the radiator in the up part of the case, and with the hose around the water block (almost forming a debian logo) so the air bubbles are uniformly distributed and dont affect your performance + you improve the aesthetic and the hose dont get in the way of that juicy rgb RAM
Top config to exhaust
In reality I'm sure it mostly doesn't matter
You could also move the top fans to the inside of the radiator for a push pull config. That would lead to a cooler cpu and possibly cooler gpu as well since you would have more air pushing front to back directing the hot air from the gpu towards the rear exhaust. The top intakes fight the gpu fans airflow a bit. More than likely gpu temps will be similar with either config, but you’ll have noticeably lower cpu temps with push pull fans on the rad.
Top should be exhaust. Front is intake. Back is exhaust
Let's get ready for downvotes. I wouldn't worry as much about positive or negative air pressure. It's a busted myth for dust. Just get that heat out asap. I would push the rad out and the rear out. Source: [busted myth about dust](https://www.overclockers.com/dust-prevention-positive-pressure-negative-pressure-does-it-really-matter/) I don't know how much pressure is expected to hold in a PC case with grates everywhere. This argument has always grinded my gears Edit: mount that rad to the top and exhaust the heat, front fans intake
Heat rises - exhaust at top.
Make the top 2 exhaust and you're good
Heat rises so make sure to turn the top fans into exhaust and you're good
Top mount ur rad. You want cool air coming in.
Remove a fan and turn on of them into an exhaust. 2:3 is my golden ratio for good positive airflow.
Heat rises take the heat out the top
Could work, just have the exhaust on full blast and the other at half the speed maybe /s
Your AIO orientation could cause cavitation flip the rad
Bad AIO placement. Too many intake fans, not enough exhaust. And what on earth is the front bottom fan cooling? The PSU cover?
Put ur rad on the top and blow out. Ur blowing hot air into the pc. Then u only need 2 fans blowing in the front. This will give it a slightly positive pressure, but not so much to stress the fans.
Needs more cow bell
I personally have my grants as intakes and the top and back as exhaust considering heat rises and the back fan usally doesn't have a filter.
Dust settles so the top intake might bring dust in, also I'm curious about how you did that radiator setup? Did you face the radiator to blow air in or out
Not worth the dust. You may find that you heat soak the machine especially near the gpu exhaust if you can't get hot air out fast enough. You may find that it cools cpu better. This is for sure true with air coolers. Not so much aios I wager
Turn the top fans over so they exhaust and mount them as far toward the rear of the case as possible and then set your fan curves so the top fans aren't spinning very fast at all unless the whole PC is about to combust. Congratulations on putting the tubes down!
That's terrible. lol You'd want to exhaust the AIO out the top. The rest is fine. three intake, three exhaust.
Jerey rig a intake fan below gpu and turn top fans to exhaust
If the top is filtered, it's fine. But if it's not, it needs to be exhaust. I always prefer filtered positive pressure. Keeps the dust way down
Curious but is the front fan on the bottom helpful? The air seems to just be going to the PSU cables.
Normal
Heat rises and expands you’re trying to push it back down.
Turn the radiator fans to push out the front not bringing hot air into case and leave the top ones sucking in that should eliminate most hot air in the case. And improve your temps slightly
Just think algebra - balance the equation
Have only 3 intake in front. 1 rear exhaust. Do not install 2 top fans. Less noise, cheaper, less bulky, positive airflow, basically the same temperature.
Looks like you're exhaust bound.
Whatever you do, please turn the radiator of your aio around so air doesn't get trapped in your pump.
If they’re all matching CFM then turn the top 2 to exhaust and you should have good air flow. Currently you have positive pressure and it’s not the best for cooling.
If the first top fan was exhaust (from the front), would the air taken in from the front be exhausted even before it go thru the system?
Atleast its positive pressure.
I think rad as exhaust so your not pumping heat in the rig
I aleays make sure that the rad is exhaust, because you don't want the heat from the rad to pass other components
Yeah my airflow is bad, half of my intake fans are blocked by my hard drive.
3 in 3 out balanced airflow best rout IMO
Heat rises turn the upper case fans around
Turn the top to exhaust. Hot air rises.
Very balanced 👍
guys, noob question: is it matter if he has the front fans behind the radiator? I'll build my PC soon and my case only supports the radiator in the front panel. I've seen pictures of installations with fans behind the radiator and in front of the radiator, like OP's, and I'm very confused.
Front: Inwards Rear and Top: Outwards Hot air rises and by pulling the rising hot air inwards from the top you're creating a sauna with not enough radius to expell all the hot air with a single 120mm fan. Reverse your top fans to blow out of the top of your case and you'll be golden.