Limited amount of case fans, wondering where they should be placed

[EL86]

I'm currently making my first build and I'm using the Thermaltake versa H18 as my case and an Asrock b450m pro4 for my motherboard.

 

The case comes with one fan in the rear preinstalled with a spot for 1 up top, or 3 in the front. In total the motherboard has 3 fan headers. I was wondering either what the best placement of the additional 2 fans would be, or if I should just buy a fan hub and install a fan in every available spot.

 

I'm also looking for any good budget fans (120mm), so any suggestions would be great.

 

Any help is appreciated.

[IkeaGnome]

12 minutes ago, EL86 said:

I was wondering either what the best placement of the additional 2 fans would be

Front.

12 minutes ago, EL86 said:

or if I should just buy a fan hub and install a fan in every available spot.

Would always be ideal, but you don't necessarily need a hub to get 5 fans in a case.

12 minutes ago, EL86 said:

I'm also looking for any good budget fans (120mm), so any suggestions would be great.

Arctic P12 price to performance is hard to beat. Especially when they don't need a hub. 

Amazon.com: ARCTIC P12 PWM PST (5 Pack) - 120 mm Case Fan, PWM Sharing Technology (PST), Pressure-optimised, Quiet Motor, Computer, 200-1800 RPM - Black : Automotive

If you wanted RGB it more than doubles the price to fill the slots.

Amazon.com: ARCTIC P12 PWM PST A-RGB (3 Pack) - 120 mm PWM case Fan Optimized for Static Pressure, case Fan, semi-Passive: 0-2000 RPM, 5V 3 pin ARGB LED, Single Fan - Black : Electronics

Edited February 14 by IkeaGnome
Correct link to fans

[leclod]

You could also get Arctic "PST" fans which can be daisy chained on one header. For example the P12 PWM PST.

@IkeaGnome you can't daisy chain all the P12, only the PST.

Edited February 14 by leclod

[IkeaGnome]

3 minutes ago, leclod said:

You could also get Arctic "PST" fans which can be daisy chained on one header. For example the P12.

@IkeaGnome you can't daisy chain all the P12, only the PST.

Shit, good catch. I thought I had grabbed the link for the PSTs. Fixing the link now.

 

My editor is broken and I can't paste the link

[EL86]

On 2/14/2024 at 3:52 PM, IkeaGnome said:

Would always be ideal, but you don't necessarily need a hub to get 5 fans in a case.

 

Amazon.com: ARCTIC P12 PWM PST (5 Pack) - 120 mm Case Fan, PWM Sharing Technology (PST), Pressure-optimised, Quiet Motor, Computer, 200-1800 RPM - Black : Automotive

I just received this pack and was wondering how I should have the fans flow. 1 rear exhaust, 3 front intakes, 1 top (filtered) intake? Maybe lowest front fan is exhaust? Do you have any suggestions for this?

[IkeaGnome]

1 minute ago, EL86 said:

I just received this pack and was wondering how I should have the fans flow. 1 rear exhaust, 3 front intakes, 1 top (filtered) intake? Maybe lowest front fan is exhaust? Do you have any suggestions for this?

I'd do front as intake, rear as exhaust then start with top as intake as well. It's just 4 screws to flip the top fan if you want to see if having it as exhaust will lower temps.

I can't think of a reason to have the front bottom fan as exhaust. 

[Quarpet]

Same case as me, based on my experience, you will want them both as intakes on the front mounted as high as you can. They will blow fresh air across the gpu and straight to the CPU fan. The single exhaust is enough since it is DC and will spin at a higher rpm than the two intakes if the intakes are PWM.

[EL86]

17 minutes ago, Quarpet said:

Same case as me, based on my experience, you will want them both as intakes on the front mounted as high as you can. They will blow fresh air across the gpu and straight to the CPU fan. The single exhaust is enough since it is DC and will spin at a higher rpm than the two intakes if the intakes are PWM.

Well what about the lowest one (I'll have 3 on the front), and the top I'm assuming is also intake

[IkeaGnome]

2 hours ago, Quarpet said:

The single exhaust is enough since it is DC and will spin at a higher rpm than the two intakes if the intakes are PWM.

Mind clarifying this? They're using the same 5 fans on all 5 fan slots on the case. How is one magically going to be DC and how does a fan being DC automatically mean it's going to spin at a higher RPM than PWM fans?

[Quarpet]

27 minutes ago, IkeaGnome said:

Mind clarifying this? They're using the same 5 fans on all 5 fan slots on the case. How is one magically going to be DC and how does a fan being DC automatically mean it's going to spin at a higher RPM than PWM fans?

The included case fan is DC. I misread the question a little and assumed they were going to use it. I am a cheap b*astard so I used it, like OP my mobo has limited fan headers, and I ended up using the CPU OPT header for that particular case fan. My CPU fan header and CPU opt header are not controllable separately so the DC fan ends up basically full bore the whole time. 

 

To be completely honest, I kind of forgot that was specific to my situation lmao. Could also run the fan straight from the PSU. 

[Quarpet]

2 hours ago, EL86 said:

Well what about the lowest one (I'll have 3 on the front), and the top I'm assuming is also intake

I thought you were only using 3 fans (the included rear exhaust and 2 more) my bad. I didn't realize you were buying a pack of fans lol. The bottom fan basically blows straight into the basement, no real point in having it be exhaust, I use to to blow over my 3.5in HDDs that are down there. 

 

I have the top fan as an exhaust, but with your cpu cooler it would probably be better as an intake. I'd try both and see which gives you better thermals.