Side mesh/window/fan effect

LogicalDrm · July 20, 2014

I'm doing my first real case mod for upcoming Assembly lan party. I have NZXT Hades case with all stock fans. The mod is that I've removed sidefan (its been with mesh for year now) and replace it with plexi window. This made me wonder how it would affect on temps. So I tested it. Actually few different things.

Setup: 4770K 4.0GHz/1.15V, 560Ti 900/2100. CPU fan has max limit at 70% (U14S, 1 fan, pull, horizontal) and GPU at 45%. Case fans are 200mm front intake, 120mm rear exhaust and 140mm top exhaust.

I use OCCT for all testing 5mins with both CPU and GPU. Temps from RealTemp, rpms from OpenHardwareMonitor

First with side mesh.CFM: In 70.5, out 40.2. CPU 73C, GPU 85C. This is my normal situation. Exhaust are running at 7V.

When all fan run full speed… CFM: In 70.2, out 76. CPU 71C, GPU 83C.

With sidefan as one more intake. Exhaust fans at 7V, intake full. CFM: In 141, out 40.2. CPU 72, GPU 81. For this one I have also CPU fan rpm, 1337. As mentioned, its limited to 70%.

With side window in place. CFM: In 70.5, out 40.2. CPU 74C, GPU 82C. CPU rpm 1497.

So as you can see, side intake in this case has most effect on GPU and CPU fan speed. I would imagine that if I would allow GPU fan to run full speed, I would either see similiar difference in rpm as can be seen with CPU fan. Real temp changes are still really small. As this was just out of curiosity, I didn't do longer tests which could bring more into how much side effects on cooling. Currently it has window and I propably will retest mesh to get rpm readings to that too. And retest whole thing when I do my fan upgrade, sooner than I thought.

I had bit casulties during this because I'm lazy. I dropped case from my lap to floor and broke cable of front fan. Its propably still working if I would solder cable back. For now it has the extra fan with bit ghetto setup. Also plastic clips of front took bit damage but I've already fixed those before. Some glue and its fine.