What were the reasons behind removing side panel case fans ?

[G9XFTW]

Post 2012 you don't see much side panel mounted case fans. Why so?

[AndreiArgeanu]

4 minutes ago, G9XFTW said:

Post 2012 you don't see much side panel mounted case fans. Why so?

Because it's less efficient than a modern standard configuration but it also potentially takes crucial space inside a case where a GPU would be.

[doomsriker]

4 minutes ago, G9XFTW said:

Post 2012 you don't see much side panel mounted case fans. Why so?

My best guess is it looks derpy as all heck and you need to do a weird unplugy no breaky cable dance every time you want to get into the system (speaking from experience). 

[AndreiArgeanu]

Also tempered glass and acrylic side panels are more popular as well, and making mounts for a small fan is difficult and would affect aesthetics as well.

[Mick Naughty]

Times change. So do needs/wants. The industry will adapt as such. 
 

[thrasher_565]

On 10/30/2020 at 1:47 AM, G9XFTW said:

Post 2012 you don't see much side panel mounted case fans. Why so?

tempered glass

[thrasher_565]

On 10/30/2020 at 1:51 AM, AndreiArgeanu said:

Because it's less efficient than a modern standard configuration but it also potentially takes crucial space inside a case where a GPU would be.

that an old case layout i disagree. only reason to have air go in to the front was to go across the hdd. but people uses ssd /m.2 and there normally in a basement or on the back so no need for front intake anymore. side intake for a vertical gpu would be ideal but because of tempered glass that not an option and it was met to mostly be for cpu coolers that were an down force. it was replaced with the tower cooler and 99% of them are mounted so you intake the front and out the back. and with a basement intake air not really doable ether so your stuck with front intake. case that move the psu to the top or to the back so you can intake front the bottom is the best. like the 011 011 dynamic. keep in mind you want it to flow so in one way and out another no adding cross flow.

Edited November 1, 2020 by thrasher_565

[thrasher_565]

ok so lets go way back to when pcs uses 40mm fans on there cpu cooler (or non at all...) and you have 1 80mm out the back all pus were mounted on the top with a 80mm out the back. some moders would thow a 80mm fan in the front some times. and gpus dint have fans at all.

 

well then the 92mm fan came out for the cpu coolers and that extremely loud thermal take volcano....for the amd 64...

 

still case used 80mm fan in the back...

 

later on 120mm became more cheap so they started to add them to the psu so it can intake from the bottem of the pus and out the back of the psu making the pus airflow us full.

 

still case used 80mm fan in the back...

 

so finally case started to add 120mm fans to the back and front but mostly just 1 in front and 1 in back with a 120mm in the psu. also they would put the hhd cage behind the front fan to get some air cooling.

 

as more and ,more stuff was add to the mb you need less cards in the case so that frees up space to make the gpus biger and make them  1 1/2 2 slot and there were the blowers that ran HOT also sil made this even hotter...

 

so at some point custom water cooling was added and as they got better and bigger rads more fans were added to the top and front of the case also this time they started to move the psu to the bottom of the case (so the cables looked better i guess...)

 

alot of people were modding there case and cutting a side panels in so they started coming with side panels and there was a time were adding may fans to the side panel was also a thing like the hafx case 4x 120, 1x200 4x 140 same with the antec case with there big 200mm on top and 3x 120mm in the front.

 

everyone and there dog was water cooling there x58 and it was so good they dint need to upgrade for years.

 

then they started to get rid of 5.25 bays and add tempergalss to the mix. then the basement came in play

 

then no 5.25 bays 3x 120mm front and 3x 120mm  1x120 back.

 

to reduce cost they only add 2x120 top and 2/3 120mm front $150-  3+3 was now for the custom water cooling case and 3x aio and was $150+

 

for a time there was a push for 200mm rads but im guess not many fans were made and aio was killing the custom water cooling market. (yes at one point a barb cost $2 and now it cost $15+) or you can blame it on the 2008 crash.

 

kinda the history may not be 100% on par so dont flame me.

 

i myslef was in to modding and adding 120mm fans w/e and i had the antch 1200 that people started you tube channels to do mods to it. one guy that was his business. also mnpctech was posting to youtube and his famous turbine fan as well as case modding.

 

but people don't mod like they once use too... kinda sad.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Mark Kaine]

Yeah, they sucked. 

 

I've also never seen one personally. There are a lot of weird, inefficient configurations around the late 90's/early 2000's though, I know that much. 

[Grabhanem]

I'm guessing another reason was the decline of multi-GPU: that fan position is best for forcing air between tightly layered blower cards, and that's not really a problem anymore.

[thrasher_565]

7 hours ago, Grabhanem said:

I'm guessing another reason was the decline of multi-GPU: that fan position is best for forcing air between tightly layered blower cards, and that's not really a problem anymore.

ya but i rarely seen people even use the side fan. ones that had a window people would rather not block the view over a bit more cooling. i got an azza solano 1000 for $40 new and the case came with 200mm on top, 200mm on the side, 2x 140mm in the front and a 120mm on the back. i put an 120mm on the bottom for ss an had many for the blue led.

 

i no some of the inwin and HAF 932 case could have up to 200mm on the side or 4x 120mm. i always wanted an haf -x but i got the antec 1200 instead.

 

also at some point the gpu's got so long they had to make case with removable hdd cages.

Edited November 3, 2020 by thrasher_565

[alyen]

I actually think the side panel fans has always been a excellent idea, but never been done in a good way.  So what if part of the side panel had a mesh? Some people would rather not even have a window at all. Upper half of the side panel being a window really isn't too bad. There isn't much to look at many case with long shroud covering the power supply to the front of the case down below anyways.

 

This is how I think it can be done with:

Make the case wide enough too accommodate the typical graphics card so it can be mounted normally in the PCI slot. The case should also be wide enough so fans can be mounted on the side with a removable bracket so the fans are not actually attached to the side panel. This would also allow the option to mount a slim radiator with fans.

Another way is to mount the fans onto the side panel. Fan cables are plugged into hub on the side panel. When the side panel is fitted on properly to the case a circuit if formed that connects the fan to a cable plugged into the motherboard.

 

It would be kind of nice to have some options like this being to make things have more optional functions.

 

 

[thrasher_565]

1 hour ago, alyen said:

I actually think the side panel fans has always been a excellent idea, but never been done in a good way.  So what if part of the side panel had a mesh? Some people would rather not even have a window at all. Upper half of the side panel being a window really isn't too bad. There isn't much to look at many case with long shroud covering the power supply to the front of the case down below anyways.

 

This is how I think it can be done with:

Make the case wide enough too accommodate the typical graphics card so it can be mounted normally in the PCI slot. The case should also be wide enough so fans can be mounted on the side with a removable bracket so the fans are not actually attached to the side panel. This would also allow the option to mount a slim radiator with fans.

Another way is to mount the fans onto the side panel. Fan cables are plugged into hub on the side panel. When the side panel is fitted on properly to the case a circuit if formed that connects the fan to a cable plugged into the motherboard.

 

It would be kind of nice to have some options like this being to make things have more optional functions.

 

 

psu basements came with the tempered glass as people would mod and add there own cover over the psu if the case didn't have one. we don't need the side slot if the airflow in the case is planed out but most just do the bare minimum. the problem is with the gpu. its only now with the 30xx that we see air can go threw it although the non founders are still using the tradition 3 fan set up.  i no therm alright did some cool stuff in the day weather or not it worked.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited November 3, 2020 by thrasher_565

[TVwazhere]

On 11/3/2020 at 2:22 PM, thrasher_565 said:

Am I just looking at this wrong, or arent these fans backwards? They should be exhausting the GPU fins not blowing air into them