Cooling a barebones system inside an IKEA Besta and behind their Mörtviken perforated door.

ventalittle · November 21, 2023

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: NAS/server/VM hosting. Possibly 4k gaming in the future — I am using Geforce Now for that at the moment.

Other details: W680 motherboard, Intel i5-12600k, Thermalright Phantom Spirit 120, 64GB ECC DDR5 and 2 x 8TB HDD and 3 x NVMe. IKEA Besta + IKEA Mortviken perforated door (60 x 38cm or 23 5/8 x 15"). Considering getting a dedicated GPU for gaming possibly sometime down the road.

So I am working on a home server system that will be installed barebones inside an IKEA Besta and behind their Mörtviken metal perforated door.

I will be using Thermalright Phantom Spirit 120 for the CPU and need to figure out how to handle intake/exhaust and the airflow direction.

Should I install 2-4 exhaust fans at the back only, some 10cm from the wall, leaving the Mörtviken front door as is? This would create negative pressure. I can install some filter behind the front to avoid dust build-up.
Similarly to option 1., but the back fans to be the intakes? This would create positive pressure and the CPU fan would be blowing towards the front door, which are an obstruction despite the perforation. Nothing would be pulling that hot air outside. Intuitively, this is worse than 1.
Or should I also install extra fans on the door? In this case, I imagine this would be 1. setup and the front fans would be the intakes, otherwise they could get quite loud blowing the air against the perforated metal?

I would prefer to avoid option 3. because of aesthetics, as the fans would be visible through perforation and the media console sits in my living room. For that same reason, I'd prefer it to be as quiet as possible.

Also, what fans would you recommend? Size isn't an issue, obviously, I can even go with 2 x 20cm Noctua, if that helps to keep the system as quiet as possible.

Any help will be much appreciated!