Case Design that Fixes Airflow

Hardware Hound · January 6, 2021

Hey Everyone,

Sharing a project that, really I've been working on for years now. The latest is a design I tested and it worked really good. Trying to get the word out, and I hope someday to see this design make it to market as a legitimate case. I've used air-cooled graphics cards in Crossfire/SLI for years. While not the easiest way to get performance, I've always loved the look of two cards in a system. The only real issue I've had is dealing with the heat. I started by buying and upgrading cases and fans to deal with the issue, but that didn't work out as well as I hoped. Here's my design followed by some backstory.

My first attempt at this idea was to try to have straight airflow, using fans on the bottom and top of the case. While I loved the design, my testing results were less than exemplary. I found out that all the heat from my graphics was shooting up into my CPU cooler and RAM. Even my top card heated up from my bottom card. I had some ideas of how to try and make that design work, but I ended up shelving the project for a couple years.

I can't remember exactly why, but the idea came to me to angle the rear panel. I noticed that because of the rear fan, there was usually some extra wasted space right beside the PCI slots. Putting fans next to the slots would make the case way too wide, but angling them seemed like it would work. The airflow design is still pretty much a straight through design, but the case isn't abnormally wide. It also avoids making the air in the case change elevations in order to exhaust the case. As it turns out, there is plenty of room still for installing graphics cards inside, while still being able to easily use all the display ports in the back. That was a big concern, but my display port was the farthest in the corner on those cards and I still could easily plug the cable in.

Did it work? Big time as far as I was concerned, though the results weren't exactly what I was thinking. I would have liked to see those graphics temps lower more. It showed that short of using a jet engine to push air though the case, the heatsink will be a limiting factor depending on the hardware. However, the CPU temps blew away my expectations. I knew the heat traveled up into the other components, I just didn't realize by how much. Not only did I get lower temps, but I also got significantly less noise. I don't know why exactly, seeing how the fans were the same. I even stopped the 140mm fans in my other case to see if that changed the noise on my compare system. It didn't, and I'm guessing there is a resonance that happens when there is pressure build up from bad airflow. Positive or negative pressure causes the fans to work harder and maybe causes more vibration in the blades as a result. Flow, is good airflow. I used a Thermaltake Core V71 as my traditional case design in the testing, which is one of the best cases I had ever used up to this point. (By adding all those fans)

Finally, I did a quirky design with the side panel. I decided to go dual chamber since it was best for the 200mm fan setup. However, you could easily go with 4 x 140mm fans, have the PSU on the bottom, and still benefit from the optimized airflow design. The case would've been too tall in my opinion when using 200mm fans. Just some quick notes, this is just a prototype so not everything is as perfectly shaped as I would like to see in a production model. Also, I used plastic cardboard and duct tape so this isn't exactly what I'd call a market ready case. I did file a patent pending, but I'm not sure how that works. I'm supposed to say that with publications and it would be cool if I can make a full blown patent out of it, but I can't quite afford that right now. Even if it isn't patentable, I'd just love to see a company try to bring this design to market. Here's some more pictures and let me know if you like it.

thrasher_565 · January 7, 2021

1 hour ago, Hardware Hound said:

Hey Everyone,

Sharing a project that, really I've been working on for years now. The latest is a design I tested and it worked really good. Trying to get the word out, and I hope someday to see this design make it to market as a legitimate case. I've used air-cooled graphics cards in Crossfire/SLI for years. While not the easiest way to get performance, I've always loved the look of two cards in a system. The only real issue I've had is dealing with the heat. I started by buying and upgrading cases and fans to deal with the issue, but that didn't work out as well as I hoped. Here's my design followed by some backstory.

My first attempt at this idea was to try to have straight airflow, using fans on the bottom and top of the case. While I loved the design, my testing results were less than exemplary. I found out that all the heat from my graphics was shooting up into my CPU cooler and RAM. Even my top card heated up from my bottom card. I had some ideas of how to try and make that design work, but I ended up shelving the project for a couple years.

I can't remember exactly why, but the idea came to me to angle the rear panel. I noticed that because of the rear fan, there was usually some extra wasted space right beside the PCI slots. Putting fans next to the slots would make the case way too wide, but angling them seemed like it would work. The airflow design is still pretty much a straight through design, but the case isn't abnormally wide. It also avoids making the air in the case change elevations in order to exhaust the case. As it turns out, there is plenty of room still for installing graphics cards inside, while still being able to easily use all the display ports in the back. That was a big concern, but my display port was the farthest in the corner on those cards and I still could easily plug the cable in.

Did it work? Big time as far as I was concerned, though the results weren't exactly what I was thinking. I would have liked to see those graphics temps lower more. It showed that short of using a jet engine to push air though the case, the heatsink will be a limiting factor depending on the hardware. However, the CPU temps blew away my expectations. I knew the heat traveled up into the other components, I just didn't realize by how much. Not only did I get lower temps, but I also got significantly less noise. I don't know why exactly, seeing how the fans were the same. I even stopped the 140mm fans in my other case to see if that changed the noise on my compare system. It didn't, and I'm guessing there is a resonance that happens when there is pressure build up from bad airflow. Positive or negative pressure causes the fans to work harder and maybe causes more vibration in the blades as a result. Flow, is good airflow. I used a Thermaltake Core V71 as my traditional case design in the testing, which is one of the best cases I had ever used up to this point. (By adding all those fans)

Finally, I did a quirky design with the side panel. I decided to go dual chamber since it was best for the 200mm fan setup. However, you could easily go with 4 x 140mm fans, have the PSU on the bottom, and still benefit from the optimized airflow design. The case would've been too tall in my opinion when using 200mm fans. Just some quick notes, this is just a prototype so not everything is as perfectly shaped as I would like to see in a production model. Also, I used plastic cardboard and duct tape so this isn't exactly what I'd call a market ready case. I did file a patent pending, but I'm not sure how that works. I'm supposed to say that with publications and it would be cool if I can make a full blown patent out of it, but I can't quite afford that right now. Even if it isn't patentable, I'd just love to see a company try to bring this design to market. Here's some more pictures and let me know if you like it.

i seen your you tube vides here and there cool case. the problem i see is the gpu fans and heat sink and the sandwich of the 2 cards. now a days there are pcie extensions and gpu mounting brackets so you can mout the gpu anywhere. the gpus intake from the bottom and out the sides witch make it a problem. the only cards that changed was the 3080/90 that lets air go thru the cards but there hard to get and not cheap.

heres my 100% accrete drawing of my case if i could make one.

in the gpu section i would in take from the bottom and out the sides but if you want to do 2 cards i would mount them vertical and intake from the sides and out the bottom and top. you could also instead of the fans in the front mount to the bottom and top for the mb part just like the silverstone cases. but i did it this way to get flow across the ram thow its not that imported.

could also flit it and have the gpus on top and the mb on the bottom all depends on whats better to hook up the cables.