Loud Side-Fan (Solution?)

[Katarn]

Hello. I'm using an Antec GX500 Window Blue case. It came with three fans: one front intake, one side intake, and one back exhaust.

 

I find the side-fan annoyingly loud. It gets very irritating, especially when I'm trying to do some work on the computer and I prefer silence. It is not connected to the manual controls on the top of the case, so I can't even manually turn it off when I don't need it, as I do with the other fans. It's a constant drone at all times.

 

So I considered moving it forward as an additional intake fan. But I read that the side-fan is the most important fan for regulating temperatures and that frontal fans don't do much at all. So I'm not sure if I should. Plugging it into the manual controls would be an extremely inconvenient task, as the GX500 has very bad cable management and truth be told, I'm not sure it's possible. I thought about putting it as an exhaust fan up-top, but, again, I'm not sure if that will achieve anything.

 

So what should I do?

Is this loudness the result of it actually spinning more than the other fans, or is it just the fact that, as a side-fan, it is inherently louder due to its positioning?

 

Is it better to move it up-front or top? If so, where? How much do I sacrifice in coolness if I do?

Any way to regulate the speeds? (I tried SpeedFan, but it doesn't work; fan connectors are 3-pin btw)

Or is it better to just live with it? (I don't think I should, I mean, a system this expensive should have the quality-of-life aspect of not annoying me with the noise)

 

In case it matters in terms of production of heat, my components are:

R5 3600

Sapphire Pulse RX 5700 XT

Antec Edge 550W Silence Defined 80 Plus Gold

 

Peace

[Jae Tee]

When it comes to cooling, there is no substitute for common sense. Every case and system will be different from the rest. That being said 2 intakes in the front and 1 exhaust in the rear is a healthy combination. Just keep in mind, the most important thing is for air to flow easily.

[LukeLinusFanFic]

Just take it out and see if your temps are acceptable.

I don't know who said that the side fan is the most important, that sounds like nonsense seeing as most cases don't have one.

 

[TVwazhere]

18 hours ago, LukeLinusFanFic said:

I don't know who said that the side fan is the most important, that sounds like nonsense seeing as most cases don't have one.

They do drastically decrease GPU temperatures since they directly hit the card with air instead of traveling through hard drives (back in the day). In my Level 10 GT's example, five HDD bays sit in between the front fan and the CPU/GPU, but the side 200 fan alleviates nearly all of that bottle neck by providing a new path. ESPECIALLY now that it's running a 24/7 operating dual GPU folding system (Project ITNOS)

You can get a nearly identical result with fans mounted at the bottom of the case that push air directly into the GPU like the Coolermaster SL600M, Lian Li PC-O11D, or the legacy Raven RV or FT series. However it should nbe noted that "work" in the op could mean anything fro a simple excel sheet to video rendering. There's no guarantee the side fan is needed to keep temperatures in check. So both "work" and temperatures need to be clarified in order to make a proper suggestion.

[Katarn]

So... what action do you recommend taking?