Enthoo ITX airflow suggestions

[FLUFFYJELLO]

So I have the Enthoo ITX case and the airflow configuration is rather difficult due to the size of the heatsink I have on it (Xigmatek Dark Knight Nighthawk). Due to the motherboard layout it only fit with airflow going vertically. Graphics card is of course drawing air from below it near the power supply shroud. I have a 120mm rear exhaust and the stock 200mm intake. I have any number of extra fans (old stock fans from my H440, some corsair AF120s, etc.) And am wondering if you have some suggestions.

Pushing air top to bottom with the CPU cooler? Or pulling it bottom to top? Top exhaust? Or intake? Your thoughts are appreciated.

[FLUFFYJELLO]

*bump*

[rjfaber91]

I'd go with a top intake if you can only fit the CPU cooler in such a way. You could go with a top exhaust, but then the CPU cooler and the fan in question would work against each other, plus you'd have the whole negative airflow thing going on. I would put that top cooler in the first of the three slots (as counted from the front of the case) however, because otherwise the air would probably just go straight from the top intake to the rear exhaust without ever going through the CPU cooler, thus rendering the extra fan utterly useless.

 

An alternate way would be to turn the fan on the CPU cooler around so that it blows upwards, so as to create a small area of internal negative pressure between the CPU and graphics card, which would work, but you wouldn't be able to fit any extra fans that will actually be beneficial to airflow, as the Enthoo EVOLV ITX has no bottom fan slots, and you wouldn't get the coincidental (but quite nice) cooling of the back of the graphics card that you do get with my first solution.

 

PS: I think you bought a very nice case with the EVOLV ITX. Is it going to be for an HTPC? I doubt you'd be upgrading from an H440 to an EVOLV ITX...

[FLUFFYJELLO]

I'd go with a top intake if you can only fit the CPU cooler in such a way. You could go with a top exhaust, but then the CPU cooler and the fan in question would work against each other, plus you'd have the whole negative airflow thing going on. I would put that top cooler in the first of the three slots (as counted from the front of the case) however, because otherwise the air would probably just go straight from the top intake to the rear exhaust without ever going through the CPU cooler, thus rendering the extra fan utterly useless.

An alternate way would be to turn the fan on the CPU cooler around so that it blows upwards, so as to create a small area of internal negative pressure between the CPU and graphics card, which would work, but you wouldn't be able to fit any extra fans that will actually be beneficial to airflow, as the Enthoo EVOLV ITX has no bottom fan slots, and you wouldn't get the coincidental (but quite nice) cooling of the back of the graphics card that you do get with my first solution.

PS: I think you bought a very nice case with the EVOLV ITX. Is it going to be for an HTPC? I doubt you'd be upgrading from an H440 to an EVOLV ITX...

It is an HTPC/LAN system yes. I would never get rid of Cinders, but it's too heavy to haul around to events

I think I'll go a mix of both. The CPU fan can only be on the top of the heatsink either blowing air from top to bottom or pulling air bottom to top. I went with the pull configuration for that as to not be blowing hot air from my CPU onto my graphics card.

I like the idea of the fan in the top front as intake to help out the 200mm in the front. And that configuration would give solid positive airflow.

The components in the system are:

MSI Z97I-AC mobo

Pentium G3258 (going to be replaced with an i5 most likely down the road)

Sapphire Tri-X R9 280X (cannibalized from Cinders)

8GB G.Skill Trident-X RAM

535W Raidmax Power supply (had it lying around, everything else I had was 700w or greater)

240GB SSD (some PNY model I got for $75)

1tb WD blue HDD

[rjfaber91]

It is an HTPC/LAN system yes. I would never get rid of Cinders, but it's too heavy to haul around to events

 

Oh wow, you've actually named your rig? That's quite nice, I should think of a name for mine, especially since I also intend to build an HTPC from the spare parts I'll have once I upgrade to Zen next year...

[BellySyrup]

Let me know how your new airflow setup works out for ya.

I also have the Evolv ITX and right now just have the stock 200mm fan and an NF-F12 on my heatsink pulling air from front to back. I figured that the fan is so close to the rear of the case that it acts as an exhaust fan as well. 

 

i5-4690k OC'd to 4.1ghz

idle: ~36

100% load: 65-70

[FLUFFYJELLO]

Oh wow, you've actually named your rig? That's quite nice, I should think of a name for mine, especially since I also intend to build an HTPC from the spare parts I'll have once I upgrade to Zen next year...

Yeah I figured something fiery like "Cinders" was appropriate for an Orange/Black themed system. Exclusively air-cooled as well because 1: I don't trust water around a computer and 2: I don't trust myself around liquid cooling lol.

I'm extremely excited for Zen coming up. The IPC improvements should give AMD the boost it needs for single-threaded applications and games as well as a nice spot in the enthusiast market share currently occupied by Intel's X99 platform. I've seen a few people making offhand comments like "AMD is dying" which is just not true. Companies don't just drop off the face of the Earth like that (unless they're Enron). Regardless, if projections are correct then we'll see a nice split market share again.

[FLUFFYJELLO]

Let me know how your new airflow setup works out for ya.

I also have the Evolv ITX and right now just have the stock 200mm fan and an NF-F12 on my heatsink pulling air from front to back. I figured that the fan is so close to the rear of the case that it acts as an exhaust fan as well. 

 

i5-4690k OC'd to 4.1ghz

idle: ~36

100% load: 65-70

I'll let you know how it turns out.

[FLUFFYJELLO]

Let me know how your new airflow setup works out for ya.

I also have the Evolv ITX and right now just have the stock 200mm fan and an NF-F12 on my heatsink pulling air from front to back. I figured that the fan is so close to the rear of the case that it acts as an exhaust fan as well.

i5-4690k OC'd to 4.1ghz

idle: ~36

100% load: 65-70

So with the configuration I have set up (Front 200mm intake, top 120mm intake, 120mm heatsink pulling air from bottom to top, 120mm back exhaust) I'm seeing some pretty solid temperatures.

Pentium G3258 @ 4.5GHz @1.175v

Sapphire Tri-X R9 280X not overclocked

Copy idles at ~38C and peaks at 77C (keep in mind it's kept in my basement with an ambient temperature of 20C), graphics card peaks at 73C. Gets pretty loud chugging along but I can deal with the noise. Overall I'm audited with the temperatures and will probably keep this configuration.