Simple Airflow

[Forleb]

Almost every notable case in the current market (aside from the O11s) follows the same trend of a 3-2-1 fan configuration for airflow: 3 fans up front, 2 fans up top, and 1 fan in the rear. The issue here is that the airflow is quite distorted in all of these cases, with the bottom-most fan doing virtually nothing other than throwing dust at your PSU and the top fans creating a drag on incoming air for the GPU. Phanteks & NZXT have remedied these issues to a degree with the P300A & H510 Flow, featuring a hard cutoff for fan slots at the PSU shroud & being limited to just 1 top fan towards the back - both cases are fairly competitive.

 

What would be perfect in my book? Seal off the top completely, no mounts, and extend the case horizontally to fit a rear 140mm fan. You will then have a 2:1 positive pressure config that's actually streamlined, which at worst would raise CPU tempts by a few degrees (but also increase clearance for larger coolers if based on the P300A), and would likely improve GPU temps by the same if not more, which looks to be a serious concern for the future with the latest NVIDIA leaks. Dust buildup would be reduced considerably in the instance of infrequent users, since the top would not be ventilated. Obviously it couldn't be advertised as a fully capable liquid cooling case, but a front 280mm AIO would still be fairly practical if the panel is breathable enough, which would allow for 90% of top-end components to be used. This is 100% my OCD talking, but it would also make kitting it out with your own fans quite easy since there are several 3x140mm packs already out there. Seeing as the Meshify 2 C and Lancool II Mesh Performance are just on the verge of this configuration & have been accepted very well for it, I'm surprised this hasn't been seen yet.

[jaslion]

So you want to get a fractal torrent?

[Ralfi]

51 minutes ago, Forleb said:

Almost every notable case in the current market (aside from the O11s) follows the same trend of a 3-2-1 fan configuration for airflow: 3 fans up front, 2 fans up top, and 1 fan in the rear. The issue here is that the airflow is quite distorted in all of these cases, with the bottom-most fan doing virtually nothing other than throwing dust at your PSU and the top fans creating a drag on incoming air for the GPU.

I went the 3-1-1 scenario myself, with the front/bottom fan adding cool air for the GPU to suck up through the PSU shroud, in addition to the front/middle fan’s cool air.

 

1 exhaust fan up top only, behind the CPU.

 

Temps seem…respectable, but I’m about to experiment by having an extra top fan (in front of CPU) added as an intake, just to see if it makes a difference.

[Dogzilla07]

5 hours ago, Forleb said:

Phanteks & NZXT have remedied these issues to a degree with the P300A & H510 Flow,

Be Quiet! Silent Base 802 has this feature as well. It's got a modular top, you can have it "fully closed" (with a small thin slits for air), remove the cover for only the furthest back top fan mounting place, or remove everything for completely open water cooling top radiator mounting. One of the few  exact reasons GamersNexus gave the case a "Mechanical Design" award.