Do you really need case fans?

[Supersenshi100]

Hello all,

 

Wanted to get your thoughts on this before I decide to give it a go.

 

I'm wondering if I could get away with removing/unplugging my current case fans (4x Corsair AF120s) to reduce the noise of my PC. I currently have four case fans, both fans installed in the Corsair H80i v2 AIO liquid cooler, and my PSU oriented to intake from below the case and exhaust straight out. The CPU peaks at about 55C under full load, GPU sits around 70C under full load as well, so temps aren't currently a problem. 

 

My current setup is

Thermaltake mid-tower full ATX

Intel i7-4770K - not overclocked -- with the above mentioned Corsar H80i v2 cooler

MSI GTX 1080 Gaming X 

Thermaltake 750W 80 plus bronze PSU

1x Samsung 120GB SSD

2x WD Black 1TB HDDs

 

(Also, this is my first post. Hi all!)

 

Thanks for your thoughts.

[WoodenMarker]

Both your cpu and gpu are fine up to 80-90c at load. Most people like to keep them below ~80c.

Feel free to unplug or lower fan speeds as long as your temps are fine. 

[Shiv78]

I'd unplug fans one at a time and see how far u can go while staying in a safe range.

[rn8686]

Case fans a basicly necessary, but you only really need 2 or 3 (More isnt that effective). 

 

 

[dfsdfgfkjsefoiqzemnd]

7 hours ago, rn8686 said:

More isnt that effective

More isn't that effective in terms of reducing temperature.  However 8 fans running on idle will provide roughly as much airflow as 3 fans running at high RPM while making a hell of a lot less noise. 

 

 

[Mooshi]

I have a 6700k at 4.2ghz that tends to idle in the high 20's and high 50's-mid 60's when gaming in a tiny itx case with 2 fans. Having a buttload of fans doesn't really help much, it's more how efficient your setup is and targeting hot spots in your case effectively. 

 

Whenever I had a Define R4, I outfitted all the fan slots and my temps were meh compared to the obnoxious sound. 

[DragonTamer1]

Unplugging all the fans is ill-advised since there are more than just a CPU and GPU that need air cooling in the system. The motherboard chipset and CPU VRMs need to have the hot air they produce either removed or displaced by fresh air. At the very leas I would leave a single fan plugged in as a rear exhaust.

 

I tested this on my system when I was building my fan controller. What I learned is that the heat buildup is actually enough to destabilize the system (especially if overclocked) and cause freezes and crashes. I remedied mine by putting my quietest fan on the back and having it run at a low RPM to help keep a little bit of air moving through. The rest of the fans were set to come on if the temps got too high on either CPU or GPU.

[ThomasD]

Slow them down rather than turning them off.

[Thaldor]

On 4.11.2016 at 4:27 AM, Supersenshi100 said:

-snip-

Since you don't have blower style GPU cooler you will need airflow in the case. You could use SpeedFan and set your case fans power up when your system starts to get stressed, so as the GPU and CPU start to heat you get the airflow going to keep things cool and while idle or in low load you get the silence. Also you may want to keep positive airpressure in your case so you may want to keep intake fans spinning always enough to counter the H80i fans.

 

But either way. Consider that if you remove the case fans, only thing moving air in your case will be the H80i and preferably it should be in intake, because your GPU is heating the air in the case, you don't want to try to cool your CPU with only that air. But also then you are going to be cooling your GPU with air that is already somewhat heated by your CPU, so that's not that good either.