Mostly Whoosh With A Bit Of Sploosh: A Big Airflow Decision (A Anthrax 7.0 Thread)

[TheProfosist]

In advance this is just a mockup and I do have all Noctua's but I didnt think it was really needed to unbox them all just to do a mock up. This thread od part of my build log Anthrax 7.0.

 

 

 

 

The big decision is should the airflow go the standard way in the front and out the top/back or the reverse in the top/back and out the front. Illustrations are below.

 

I decided to even consider reversing the flow because dumping all the hot air from the CPU into the the case isnt the most optimal situation, especially when directed at 2 GTX 670's (blower cooler style). I think it really comes down to what is worse drawing the little bit of air the cards do have away them or blower warm to possibly hot air at them.

 

A few more things to think about would be that when I popped 2 stock 120mm fans on my side panel in my old case it dropped temps by nearly 20c. Yes i know this was fresh cold air but before there was no air flow over the cards. The other thing I thought about is that when gaming the GPUs will be getting significantly hotter than the cpu most likely and that when I am encoding (the other main big thing my PC does) the CPU will be at max for hours upon hours but the GPU may even be idling. The last thing is that getting air from the outside of the case directly over the CPU's rad is the best way to cool the CPU even though it isnt ideal for the rest of the components in the case.

 

 

Just ponder on it for a bit if you could and reply with your reasoning once you have decided. Be as detailed as you can when explaining and if you're just going to post a one sentence answer please just use the poll. Also reasoning based on convection will only be considered if proof is provided that convection will not be overcome by the airflow and pressure that the fan will produce.

 

 

 

Standard

 

 

 

Reversed

 

[wtfxmitchell]

warm air rises, so yeah...

[TheProfosist]

warm air rises, so yeah...

 

Since it seems you didnt make it to the text because of the pictures I switched up the layout a bit.

[TheProfosist]

Wow no one? I guess I should have posted this in water cooling.

[stevv]

Radiator out (pulled), since you have blower style graphics cards, your internal temperature would be closer to ambient.  

 

btw, you need 1-2 more fans in, since you have blower style graphics cards =).

 

Other thoughts:

-Depend on how much you plan to overclock, cleaning plans... etc.  Looks easy to reverse setup, so test both.  Either way, I don't consider convection in the formula in such a small closed case.

-Worse case, blowing hot hair from radiator to graphics card will not be a killer (as longs as air is circulating and avoiding hot spots)

-personally.. 2 fans top (cool ram and vrm) and 2 fans bottom (cool graphics card) blowing in , and radiator out (pull out).  no rear fans (just filter cover).  Better yet hide all cooling equipment in the back compartment and mod in a circulation vent+fan between the compartments =).

[TheProfosist]

Radiator out (pulled), since you have blower style graphics cards, your internal temperature would be closer to ambient.  

 

btw, you need 1-2 more fans in, since you have blower style graphics cards =).

 

Other thoughts:

-Depend on how much you plan to overclock, cleaning plans... etc.  Looks easy to reverse setup, so test both.  Either way, I don't consider convection in the formula in such a small closed case.

-Worse case, blowing hot hair from radiator to graphics card will not be a killer (as longs as air is circulating and avoiding hot spots)

-personally.. 2 fans top (cool ram and vrm) and 2 fans bottom (cool graphics card) blowing in , and radiator out (pull out).  no rear fans (just filter cover).  Better yet hide all cooling equipment in the back compartment and mod in a circulation vent+fan between the compartments =).

 

Im glad you replied with such a detailed explanation but im rather confused on what your trying to say. Just a heads up there will be 6 fans on the H320 and a minimum of 2 in the top and one in the back if that helps.

[stevv]

Im glad you replied with such a detailed explanation but im rather confused on what your trying to say. Just a heads up there will be 6 fans on the H320 and a minimum of 2 in the top and one in the back if that helps.

 

Ah, I didn't know you were using push-pull for the radiator.  Though fans in series doesn't increase total airflow (in fact it just gets closer to it's actual airflow without restriction of radiator), so you will still have three out, and three in + 2 gpu out.  This of course doesn't consider differences in fan cfm.

 

My own experience also tells me how starved for air the gpu's are in the cramped corner.... even in an open case.  You should add at least one fan at the bottom blowing up.  Optimally, two bottom fans will look and perform better.  Air circulation is key.  Even in the standard layout in your picture, blowing hot air over gpu is better than no moving air.  

 

Lastly, on the personal opinion side, moving rear fan to bottom, and adding one more (resulting in two fans below for gpu cooling).  Two fans for the memory and vrm is plenty.  Just not a fan of rear fan sticking out into case, unless it's an aesthetic feature item haha.

 

hope that clears up any confusion.