how important is airflow?

[Phoenix70]

Ive heard it can make or break your computer's temperatures; like on the gigabyte r9 285 ( i think that was the card) where the heatsink is open and air can be blown directly to it. But what about in something closed like an r9 290x reference card or hell a 780? What about the motherboard and CPU temps?

[loccilucas]

Ive heard it can make or break your computer's temperatures; like on the gigabyte r9 285 ( i think that was the card) where the heatsink is open and air can be blown directly to it. But what about in something closed like an r9 290x reference card or hell a 780? What about the motherboard and CPU temps?

Its important, but its not gonna make or break your system. Obviously you need abit of airflow, but have absolutely perfect airflow is not gonna affect temps by loads.

[Guest Kloaked]

Don't listen to anyone else, airflow is not important at all. You can block your fans all you want! You can leave your PC right up against a wall to build up dust and block the exhaust altogether! If something bad happens, just blame it on the next person who tries to fix your PC. Tell them that they gave your PC a virus and you demand compensation!

 

 

 

 

 

I'm kidding, that's bullshit. Airflow is very important. You always want fresh air coming into the case or bad things will happen. Good temps for CPU's (on load) are >80C-ish. If it's anything above 80C then you need to investigate your cooling or even upgrade your cooling.

 

GPU temps (as far as I know) are good at >90C on load, but it's good to use V-sync of a frame limiting option in games so that your GPU doesn't render more frames than your monitor can display, leading to an overworked GPU.

[BaSkA]

The faster the cool air gets in and the hot air gets out, the better.

 

As @loccilucas said, it'll make a difference but it won't "make or break" it. I think that the important thing here is dust.

 

You definitely want to filter your intakes and, if possible, have a positive pressure for the lowest amount of dust possible.

 

Airflow depends on your case, your cpu/gpu cooling solution and your budget, so don't worry too much but take your time planning/doing it!

[Admire]

Depends on whether we talk good airflow or airflow all together. You can survive shit airflow, but no airflow is like no breathing.

[Trik'Stari]

Get the Corsair Air 540 and you will never have to worry about air flow. I plan on filling mine with 3000 rpm noctua industrial fans.

[Judist]

Inner-case temps are only somewhat important. Realistically you can run a computer fine in a 100+ degree Fahrenheit environment.

Most enthusiast cases (especially airflow optimized) can damn-near match case temp with room temps. 70 out 70 in, hardly ever an issue.

The only time problems occur are with flow restriction and temperature buildup. Air isn't very good at transferring heat and you can cycling effect when case-ambience gets too hot.

Air heats, transfers poorly, air heats more, transfers very poorly, air reaches scorching, nearly no heat transferred, components thermal throttle/shutdown.

This is mostly limited to 1) super dusty filters 2) laptops 3) enthusiast rigs within low-flow sound dampening cases.

[ohJey]

Get the Corsair Air 540 and you will never have to worry about air flow. I plan on filling mine with 3000 rpm noctua industrial fans.

RIP ears

[LogicalDrm]

For me going for bad airflow case to current one lowered temps by 10C. Previous case had 1x80mm intake, additional space for 1x120mm intake on side and 1x120mm exhaust. Current has passive side, 200mm intake and 2 140mm exhaust on top.

 

As for components, how you setup your airflow to gain most depends on cooler types on GPU and CPU. With tower heatsinks airflow is bit more important than with rads, since latter are usually used as exhaust by themselves. With single tower heatsinks you can choose between rear and top exhaust, with dual towers you can even add extra intake with front top slot. Then there is stock cooler which is exhausting towards side panel. With that best solution would be adding side exhaust to aid it. But that is more depending if case has sidepanel slots.

 

With GPUs amount of cards is more important than cooler itself. All (correct me if I'm wrong) GPU cooler fans are intaking ones. With reference they are blower types which exhaust straight out of case. With aftermarket they exhaust all over the case. In both situations you want to have intake to aid them. This is usually either side slot or sometimes bottom.

 

Then there are components which either don't need extra help by airflow but have somewhat effect on it. HDDs and PSU. PSUs have own intaking fan. With top mounted PSUs you don't have choice how to position it, but with bottom mounted its either intake outside or inside. Outside intake is imo better as then it doesn't compete with GPU on fresh air. There is some exceptions with cases that have bottom side mounted PSU slots. As for HDDs, they are passively cooled by front intakes. As you see I didn't mention those earlier since they should always be there. Other fans can be swingled around but front should always be intake.

[Opcode]

Without it your machine will be a hot box, with poor configured air flow it will also have hot spots. So air flow is quite critical for keeping the machine cool. Tho usually if you just slap in fans in the case where they belong flowing in the logical direction it's usually never a problem.

[Trik'Stari]

RIP ears

Surround sound, and headphones.

 

At first I thought that was a 540mm fan

That would be massive....

[DigitalHermit]

It's important up to a certain extent...

 

You'd want air to at least flow through your case so that it can carry the heat out...

 

Too much airflow is not bad but there'll be faster dust buildup if there are no fan filters on your case...

[ManWithBeard1990]

Of course it's important. With reference cards it gets easier to manage because hot air gets exhausted right away. That means there's no need to be clever about how you're going to prevent recirculation of hot air. Still, you want at least about two 140mm fans worth of intake air to keep such a system happy. For a nonreference card with the same power consumption you'll want more though.

[Phoenix70]

Of course it's important. With reference cards it gets easier to manage because hot air gets exhausted right away. That means there's no need to be clever about how you're going to prevent recirculation of hot air. Still, you want at least about two 140mm fans worth of intake air to keep such a system happy. For a nonreference card with the same power consumption you'll want more though.

What about something like having 2 corsair af performance editions 140s to take air OUT of the case and 3 to have them blow air inside the case? I have an air conditioner in my room; so that can certainly help with the airflow too (Fresh, Cool air will go inside the case)

[ManWithBeard1990]

What about something like having 2 corsair af performance editions 140s to take air OUT of the case and 3 to have them blow air inside the case? I have an air conditioner in my room; so that can certainly help with the airflow too (Fresh, Cool air will go inside the case)

That'll be plenty. If you're not sure, keep an eye on the temperatures the firts few hours after you built it. But it should be more than enough.

[don_svetlio]

For me going for bad airflow case to current one lowered temps by 10C. Previous case had 1x80mm intake, additional space for 1x120mm intake on side and 1x120mm exhaust. Current has passive side, 200mm intake and 2 140mm exhaust on top.

 

As for components, how you setup your airflow to gain most depends on cooler types on GPU and CPU. With tower heatsinks airflow is bit more important than with rads, since latter are usually used as exhaust by themselves. With single tower heatsinks you can choose between rear and top exhaust, with dual towers you can even add extra intake with front top slot. Then there is stock cooler which is exhausting towards side panel. With that best solution would be adding side exhaust to aid it. But that is more depending if case has sidepanel slots.

 

With GPUs amount of cards is more important than cooler itself. All (correct me if I'm wrong) GPU cooler fans are intaking ones. With reference they are blower types which exhaust straight out of case. With aftermarket they exhaust all over the case. In both situations you want to have intake to aid them. This is usually either side slot or sometimes bottom.

 

Then there are components which either don't need extra help by airflow but have somewhat effect on it. HDDs and PSU. PSUs have own intaking fan. With top mounted PSUs you don't have choice how to position it, but with bottom mounted its either intake outside or inside. Outside intake is imo better as then it doesn't compete with GPU on fresh air. There is some exceptions with cases that have bottom side mounted PSU slots. As for HDDs, they are passively cooled by front intakes. As you see I didn't mention those earlier since they should always be there. Other fans can be swingled around but front should always be intake.

Sorry for posting in such an old post but I wanted to ask. Could me switching the 2 front intakes to exhaust cause the GPU VRMs temperature to go from 66*C to 72*C under load? Core remains the same or slightly warmer. Before you ask why I would, was the only option left