I have an airflow inquiry

kitnoman · January 23, 2022

S I'm interested in getting a new case, either lian li o11 dynamic or corsair 5000d. So I just have a few question of an optimum fan setup.

For the o11, of the aio is placed at the side, should it be intake or exhaust? And what do you think of a top, back and bottom intake while the side is exhaust setup?

As for 5000d, if the aio is mounted at the side, it is possible to be exhaust or do you think it will suck all the fresh air coming from the front intake?

I just wish there's an app, were we can simulate airflow inside a case.

LloydLynx · January 23, 2022

Try to make the intake amount of air roughly equal to the exhaust amount of air. Also keep in mind that heat rises, and you probably don't want exhaust blasting hot air out the front at you(unless you live somewhere cold lol). And try to keep the area under the graphics card fed with fresh air because the graphics card sucks in air though its fan side. The rest is up to creativity and preference.

Demonic Donut · January 23, 2022

54 minutes ago, LloydLynx said:

Try to make the intake amount of air roughly equal to the exhaust amount of air. Also keep in mind that heat rises, and you probably don't want exhaust blasting hot air out the front at you(unless you live somewhere cold lol). And try to keep the area under the graphics card fed with fresh air because the graphics card sucks in air though its fan side. The rest is up to creativity and preference.

The only issue with equalizing in/out flow is that it's very easy to get dead spots that don't get a lot of airflow. A classic example would be front intake and rear/top exhaust. Your GPU tends to get starved of good airflow. But as @LloydLynxsaid you need to try to keep the GPU fed with fresh air. Going slightly negative pressure can help with this if you don't have a side panel intake fan, so that fresh air will be pulled in through empty pcie brackets.