Should I mount as many fans on as possible?

[FalzarPMU]

title ^

[CoolBeans]

Depends on the case, usually 5 is more than enough in mid towers

[Shaqo_Wyn]

title ^

Depends on how much cooling you need. That said you have to maintain a certain balance between intake and exhaust airflow within your case to avoid getting pockets of stagnant air. Not knowing what pc case you have and what setup you're running means I can't help you any further. A good reference point is front intake, top exhaust, top rear exhaust. Bottom fans if you want more air to your GPU. Personally I'm not a fan of side intake fans.

[ZiggyManSaad]

[Peter Vaughan Truslow]

a good balance is two intakes, one exhaust. 

[FalzarPMU]

Right now, the case I'm looking at is the phanteks enthoo pro if you need to know

[Ren]

1: Positive case pressure (as mentioned by someone else) is optimal for most cases because many aren't necessarily optimized for dust. Neutral/slightly positive case pressure is the best just because you want to keep things equal, or only just enough airflow into your case to make it so dust doesn't get sucked in (assuming intakes are covered with filters). And yes, dust build-up is a thing even in decent cases. It's especially bad in certain environments but mostly with pet owners and smokers, which is when you may consider having that extra intake for a poorly optimized case.

 

2: # of fans is dependant on components and cooling solutions. I'd recommend going above 4 case fans if you had a combination of an overclocked CPU on air, mid-range GPU or higher, and/or 4+ HDDs. Anything less than 4 HDDs, using a custom loop/AIO cooler for the CPU, or are using a relatively low power consumption GPU, you should be fine with 4. A combination of 2 of those things and you could probably do with just 2, regardless of CPU cooling. If you use a 240mm+ radiator, I suggest front mount intake if available, or top exhaust if not. 120mm rear/top exhaust.

 

3: Quality, not quanitity. Two good case fans for $9-$15 each is better than 4-6 at $5-10 each that suck. Remember: you wanna enjoy yourself, not create an artificial wind tunnel experiment or constantly deal with dried out bearings/fan noise.

 

EDIT: 4: Size matters, but not as much as you think. Go with what's cheaper; 200mm and other large sizes are nice but if you can't cram two into your case when you really need that much air flow, you probably shouldn't even bother with one. 140mm and 120mm differences are negligible and that should be left mostly to what case fan slots are available and how many you want or think you need.

 

Some good case fans are from Cougar, Corsair, Bitfenix, Be Quiet, Noctua (expensive as all hell - not worth), and Cooler Master if you're in need of 200mm. Side note: Hot air rises. Pulling from the bottom can be troublesome depending on the surface under your pc, but at least orient airflow accordingly when you can. Totally not a huge deal unless you do top intake rear/front exhaust with hot components.

[EChondo]

Usually, I do two front intakes, one bottom intake, and one rear exhaust.

 

The top of the case shouldn't have any fans because heat rises, so it'll go out the case anyway. Unless you're running watercooling or anything extreme like high OC's, then I'd recommend doing the four fan setup I said above, or the three fan setup(two intakes and one exhaust).

[FalzarPMU]

@Ren

Sorry, I'm not th best when it comes to cooling, can you explain what ____ case pressure is?

[Ren]

@Ren

Sorry, I'm not th best when it comes to cooling, can you explain what ____ case pressure is?

Cubic feet of air pushing into an enclosed environment. If it's positive air pressure in your case, all nooks and crannies where dust can build up/sneak in will just push out air. It's more apparent with a lot of airflow in, but you never want no exhaust since that is not going to help cool components down unless it can escape quickly as well. Negative pressure is the opposite and is almost always a bad idea. Not really sure when you'd want to do it but imagine it's like a weak vaccuum cleaner. It won't suck up much but give it time and your GPU/CPU is gonna be overheating in the wrong case without regular cleaning..

 

 

Remember, smooth airflow > lots of airflow in most situations.

[loccilucas]

title ^

No. Having lots of case fans makes an extreemly small, not even noiceable difference in temps, but does make a big difference in noise.

[LogicalDrm]

Usually not really good idea. Besides wasting money it will be loud, no matter how silent fans you use. Cases with multiple options are just what I just wrote, options. You can choose which components need most fresh air and where you want it to exhaust. On higher end cases the water cooling options are also the thing.

[Oni07R]

Cubic feet of air pushing into an enclosed environment. If it's positive air pressure in your case, all nooks and crannies where dust can build up/sneak in will just push out air. It's more apparent with a lot of airflow in, but you never want no exhaust since that is not going to help cool components down unless it can escape quickly as well. Negative pressure is the opposite and is almost always a bad idea. Not really sure when you'd want to do it but imagine it's like a weak vaccuum cleaner. It won't suck up much but give it time and your GPU/CPU is gonna be overheating in the wrong case without regular cleaning..

 

 

Remember, smooth airflow > lots of airflow in most situations.

 

Afaik negative pressure is preferred if you aim for performance, it should take hot air away better (at least, this is what a fast google research results are), Agree that positive pressure helps keeping the case clean from dust.

[Hyp0xia]

I guess I'll just reiterate what has already been said here. No, it is not a good idea unless you like your PC to sound like a jet engine; furthermore, you should strive for positive pressure to lower dust intake. Three fans consisting of two intakes and one exhaust is plenty until you start getting into ridiculous SLI and CrossFire configurations.

[Oni07R]

I guess I'll just reiterate what has already been said here. No, it is not a good idea unless you like your PC to sound like a jet engine; furthermore, you should strive for positive pressure to lower dust intake. Three fans consisting of two intakes and one exhaust is plenty until you start getting into ridiculous SLI and CrossFire configurations.

 

If he has dust filters and the will to clean his PC from dust, then he should aim for negative pressure. It depends on his case too (if it has "holes") and the GPU fan (if it has radial fan with back exhaust): these two factor will make positive pressure hard to achieve.

[ManWithBeard1990]

I like to think that more fans means you can run them more slowly for the same airflow which means quieter operation. Heatsink and PSU included, my build will have 11 120mm fans, each spinning very slowly.

[austin541]

in the phanteks enthoo pro i would go with 5 fans.

[flibberdipper]

Two in the front, two in the top, and one in the back. Front as intake, maybe a rear intake, and top exhaust (to keep positive air pressure).

[FalzarPMU]

@tmcclelland455

and thats the kind of answer I was also looking for, thanks.

[Oni07R]

Two in the front, two in the top, and one in the back. Front as intake, maybe a rear intake, and top exhaust (to keep positive air pressure).

 

I would prefer rear as exhaust, it depends on how your heatsinks or radiators are mounted.

Regard pressure: if you can manage fan speed, then you should stay in positive pressure while idle and negative when under heavy load, so you can take advantage of both types

[flibberdipper]

I would prefer rear as exhaust, it depends on how your heatsinks or radiators are mounted.

Regard pressure: if you can manage fan speed, then you should stay in positive pressure while idle and negative when under heavy load, so you can take advantage of both types

You do make a valid point.

[flibberdipper]

@tmcclelland455

and thats the kind of answer I was also looking for, thanks.

No problem.

[jdsb52]

I got 6 intakes and 4 exhausts on my Enthoo Primo, 2 are pulling air through the hdd cages!, still trying to find the best config! Just test dude, test!

[Col]

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2012/02/10/the-big-cooling-investigation/4

[Robbieboy]

This setup works real well in my 550D.... Three 120mm intakes and one 140mm pulling air out the back.