PC Case Open or Closed for Performance?

[KPopOG]

Hi there,

I was pondering this question and was surprised when no big tech channels on YT have videos on this. Assuming there's a general consensus that closed is better, but does anyone have experience with keeping their side panel off 24/7?

 

First thoughts on open:
 - No controlled airflow, will go where it wants

 - No pressure, might not be enough to push the dust off the fans. 

 - Better circulation?

 - Better temps?

 - Probably more noise

 - LOTS more dust

 

I really don't care if I have to vacuum my PC every week, I'd just like to see some better temps. My AMD FX-8100 is OC'd from 3.1 to 4 GHz, but I thought it might be worth checking.

 

It's either keeping the side panel off, or cutting all my very small mesh grills and replacing with wire grills. Fans are pretty weak, but extremely silent. Arctic F8 and F12 PST Pro plus a couple other random ones, if anyone is familiar with these.

 

Also, while we're talking about CPUs, tunnel-like heatsink vs standard, boxy, tower design? Will make a different post and link it on here, with images. Currently have a Zalman tunnel design, and there's a lot of heat when touching it after turning my PC off. Is that generally good or bad? Will actually bother checking PC temps with aida64 at some point, just looking for a quick answer there.

 

Thanks!

[Captinjigglesworth]

6 minutes ago, KPopOG said:

Hi there,

I was pondering this question and was surprised when no big tech channels on YT have videos on this. Assuming there's a general consensus that closed is better, but does anyone have experience with keeping their side panel off 24/7?

 

First thoughts on open:
 - No controlled airflow, will go where it wants

 - No pressure, might not be enough to push the dust off the fans. 

 - Better circulation?

 - Better temps?

 - Probably more noise

 - LOTS more dust

 

I really don't care if I have to vacuum my PC every week, I'd just like to see some better temps. My AMD FX-8100 is OC'd from 3.1 to 4 GHz, but I thought it might be worth checking.

 

It's either keeping the side panel off, or cutting all my very small mesh grills and replacing with wire grills. Fans are pretty weak, but extremely silent. Arctic F8 and F12 PST Pro plus a couple other random ones, if anyone is familiar with these.

 

Also, while we're talking about CPUs, tunnel-like heatsink vs standard, boxy, tower design? Will make a different post and link it on here, with images. Currently have a Zalman tunnel design, and there's a lot of heat when touching it after turning my PC off. Is that generally good or bad? Will actually bother checking PC temps with aida64 at some point, just looking for a quick answer there.

 

Thanks!

open gives it more airflow but the fans wont be creating pressure so what i did is i put an actual table box fan in front and made all of my fans exaust for the best cooling like 15 deg below what it was before but thats a ghetto solution

[Wh0_Am_1]

9 minutes ago, KPopOG said:

Hi there,

I was pondering this question and was surprised when no big tech channels on YT have videos on this. Assuming there's a general consensus that closed is better, but does anyone have experience with keeping their side panel off 24/7?

 

First thoughts on open:
 - No controlled airflow, will go where it wants

 - No pressure, might not be enough to push the dust off the fans. 

 - Better circulation?

 - Better temps?

 - Probably more noise

 - LOTS more dust

 

I really don't care if I have to vacuum my PC every week, I'd just like to see some better temps. My AMD FX-8100 is OC'd from 3.1 to 4 GHz, but I thought it might be worth checking.

 

It's either keeping the side panel off, or cutting all my very small mesh grills and replacing with wire grills. Fans are pretty weak, but extremely silent. Arctic F8 and F12 PST Pro plus a couple other random ones, if anyone is familiar with these.

 

Also, while we're talking about CPUs, tunnel-like heatsink vs standard, boxy, tower design? Will make a different post and link it on here, with images. Currently have a Zalman tunnel design, and there's a lot of heat when touching it after turning my PC off. Is that generally good or bad? Will actually bother checking PC temps with aida64 at some point, just looking for a quick answer there.

 

Thanks!

First NEVER vacuum your PC!!! JUST DON'T!!! The static electricity build up could kill your PC!!! If you need to clean it use a wimpy air compressor or a can of compressed air! Ok, now that I got that of my shoulders, an open case will often present you with significantly better thermals, but it leaves your PC vulnerable to dust and physical damage. 

[KPopOG]

Noise I think... 

 

If temps were significantly better, then I'd sacrifice the noise.

[Princess Luna]

What's the point of buying a good case if you'll just leave it all open?... why not leave it open? simple it'll dust up 10 times faster.

[WoodenMarker]

15 minutes ago, KPopOG said:

Noise I think... 

If you want a quiet system, avoid using noisy components. 

What are your specs and which components are too noisy?

[dizmo]

Why wouldn't you just buy an open air test bench then?

Buying a case just to leave the panels off is...weird.

[KPopOG]

10 minutes ago, Princess Cadence said:

What's the point of buying a good case if you'll just leave it all open?... why not leave it open? simple it'll dust up 10 times faster.

Thanks for the input! True, but I'd like to get the lowest temps possible. OC'd pretty high.

 

 

9 minutes ago, Pangea2017 said:

Balanced.

Cases like the Silverstone RV02 are "open" but provide still a bit sound dampening.  They tend to be the best for silent builds. More restrictive cases can also be good like the Bequiet purebase 600.

 

Upgrading from a Zalman tunnel to a Ninja 5 or Thermalright HR-02 would gain you better results then swapping your case. For GPU cooling arctic have nice produicts like the S3/S2 or xtrem iv/iii.

 

You can also read at SPER more about it: http://www.silentpcreview.com/section9.html

Yeah, that sounds like a good plan. I don't think I really need an upgrade, but just wanted to cover all the quick fixes. Thanks!

 

I'm really just going for the best balance of noise to temps for under $20 (not included CPU heatsink). Other fans are unmarked, but I have 2 of those in there. Bought the PC off Craigslist, so had to do some tune-ups. Motherboard is still using AC'97 as well, and I don't imagine any mainstream budget cases not using HD Audio. Even the 2004 NZXT case has HD Audio... 

2 minutes ago, WoodenMarker said:

If you want a quiet system, avoid using noisy components. 

What are your specs and which components are too noisy?

Most of them are pretty quiet. It's just the fans... PSU was always really loud when starting PC, finally got around to lubing the bearing with Vaseline and it sounds fine now. Like I told @Pangea2017, I'm just looking for cheap/free ways to reduce cooling. Sitting at around 35F when web browsing and an Android emulator running in the background. But hey, cooler PCs are much cooler

 

Here's component list:

 

CPU: AMD FX-8120 8 core, base clock 3.1 GHz OC'd to 4.0 GHz

GPU: EVGA 960 FTW

RAM: 16 GB DDR3 1600 MHz, mix of PNY and offbrand

SSD: Samsung 850 EVO 256 GB

2x HDD: Seagate 480 GB 7200 RPM 

Board: Gigabyte GA-970A-UD3

Case: Old NZXT, no model number. Spots for 3 80-92 mm, and a 120 mm fan. 

PSU: 650W EarthWatts

OS: Win 10 Pro

 

 

2 minutes ago, dizmo said:

Why wouldn't you just buy an open air test bench then?

Buying a case just to leave the panels off is...weird.

I wouldn't want the parts to get damaged. It still just sits under my desk like most others,  but good to have some protection.

 

Maybe... But if it's better, then it's better. Really don't care about aesthetics; I'm very anti-RGB/lighting in general, except single color in keyboards, so you can see late at night. Just drives up the prices and power consumption (barely, but it still does...) for something you won't glace at while you're using it. It's just wasting money for show IMO. I just keep my PC tucked away and have external USB 3.0, audio, and power buttons through cables that attach directly to the board, like case ports. Just mount the ports under my desk, and I'm all set.

[dizmo]

5 minutes ago, KPopOG said:

I wouldn't want the parts to get damaged. It still just sits under my desk like most others,  but good to have some protection.

 

Maybe... But if it's better, then it's better. Really don't care about aesthetics; I'm very anti-RGB/lighting in general, except single color in keyboards, so you can see late at night. Just drives up the prices and power consumption (barely, but it still does...) for something you won't glace at while you're using it. It's just wasting money for show IMO. I just keep my PC tucked away and have external USB 3.0, audio, and power buttons through cables that attach directly to the board, like case ports. Just mount the ports under my desk, and I'm all set.

So be careful around it? There are also many open air cases.

 

I don't know why you'd be antiRGB. If you don't like it that's fine, but there are loads of people that don't hide their PC away, they have it out on display. RGB is a nice touch for them. It also makes it way easier to color coordinate. It's a lot stupider to have a case with only one color LED.

Really, you should be using your PC in a lit room anyway. Better for the eyes

[KPopOG]

2 minutes ago, dizmo said:

So be careful around it? There are also many open air cases.

 

I don't know why you'd be antiRGB. If you don't like it that's fine, but there are loads of people that don't hide their PC away, they have it out on display. RGB is a nice touch for them. It also makes it way easier to color coordinate. It's a lot stupider to have a case with only one color LED.

Really, you should be using your PC in a lit room anyway. Better for the eyes

True... I mean I could, but why buy a new case when you can DIY it by just takeing off the side panels...

 

I don't really care if other people use RGB stuff, but I just wish there was more selection for non-RGB stuff. You can't find a "gaming" mouse without RGB these days. The Logitech G203 strikes the perfect balance for a work/play mouse, I just don't think we need all those colors. Still, the simplicity and price make it my favorite mouse design.

 

However, you get into some of the China copycat brands, and you see they've gone wayyy too far. I would've probably liked it a few years ago, but now it's just so much extra costly design, so you end up with $5 bucks on design and a $1 sensor... LENRUE Laser Gaming Mouse for example. Looks horrible, and they missed the big point of RGB, customization. The color is controlled by the DPI *facepalm* 

[KPopOG]

1 hour ago, Captinjigglesworth said:

open gives it more airflow but the fans wont be creating pressure so what i did is i put an actual table box fan in front and made all of my fans exaust for the best cooling like 15 deg below what it was before but thats a ghetto solution

That's not a bad solution though! I'll consider it, thanks for the idea!

1 hour ago, Wh0_Am_1 said:

First NEVER vacuum your PC!!! JUST DON'T!!! The static electricity build up could kill your PC!!! If you need to clean it use a wimpy air compressor or a can of compressed air! Ok, now that I got that of my shoulders, an open case will often present you with significantly better thermals, but it leaves your PC vulnerable to dust and physical damage. 

Oh! I had no clue! Thanks for letting me know. I don't use any dust filters or anything, so I can't imagine the dust being significant enough to keep the case on. For now though, only 2 of my fans are PWM, and their both in 3-pin power fan slots. That's sufficient for now, but if I upgrade my CPU cooler to PWM, then I might try that! Thanks!

[dizmo]

4 hours ago, KPopOG said:

True... I mean I could, but why buy a new case when you can DIY it by just takeing off the side panels...

 

I don't really care if other people use RGB stuff, but I just wish there was more selection for non-RGB stuff. You can't find a "gaming" mouse without RGB these days. The Logitech G203 strikes the perfect balance for a work/play mouse, I just don't think we need all those colors. Still, the simplicity and price make it my favorite mouse design.

 

However, you get into some of the China copycat brands, and you see they've gone wayyy too far. I would've probably liked it a few years ago, but now it's just so much extra costly design, so you end up with $5 bucks on design and a $1 sensor... LENRUE Laser Gaming Mouse for example. Looks horrible, and they missed the big point of RGB, customization. The color is controlled by the DPI *facepalm* 

You can just turn off the RGB though. It's not like you have to have the lighting zones lit. There's a fairly healthy choice of boards if you don't go for the workstation stuff. I don't think Zowie mice have RGB. I can't think of the names of the others but there's quite a few that don't have RGB, or have very little. Haha, interestingly enough I have the color of one of the aspects of my mouse tied the DPI setting I'm using

[LogicalDrm]

17 hours ago, Wh0_Am_1 said:

First NEVER vacuum your PC!!! JUST DON'T!!! The static electricity build up could kill your PC!!!

 

Static from vacuum isn't any more than static from somewhere else. And static is only dangeroud to open CPU socket or some other sockets. If you want to scare people away from vacuum, go with the fact that one could push, knock or twist some knob, wire or switch and have 2-5 hours of troubleshooting afterwards.

 

17 hours ago, KPopOG said:

If temps were significantly better, then I'd sacrifice the noise.

 

I've had panel open in one previous system. Temps were better, about 7C at most and noise wasn't really that different. This was with really old case, one without intake fan and 0 noise blocking materials. If you have case with decent airflow, having panel open won't do wonders for cooling. Its too situation-depending if you gain 3C (within margin of error) or over 5C.

[KPopOG]

9 hours ago, LoGiCalDrm said:

 

Static from vacuum isn't any more than static from somewhere else. And static is only dangeroud to open CPU socket or some other sockets. If you want to scare people away from vacuum, go with the fact that one could push, knock or twist some knob, wire or switch and have 2-5 hours of troubleshooting afterwards.

 

 

I've had panel open in one previous system. Temps were better, about 7C at most and noise wasn't really that different. This was with really old case, one without intake fan and 0 noise blocking materials. If you have case with decent airflow, having panel open won't do wonders for cooling. Its too situation-depending if you gain 3C (within margin of error) or over 5C.

To start, thanks for the mythbusting! Glad to know that about the vacuum

 

2nd, I think I've changed my mind a bit. I think I'd do better with a closed case, but some changes need to be made. The fans grills are VERY restrictive. I'd go as far as to say that I feel 10% of the airflow through the grills. Going to cut them out, and replace with simple, circular wire grills. The grill on the side of my PC case was removable, so I took it off and immediately started seeing temps around 20C cooler at idle! I think this is probably the best solution...

 

But, I also made the mistake of buying fans that can only be mounted one way. It makes sense that my most powerful 80mm should be on the side panel, drawing air directly to the CPU, pushing it out to the 120mm on the back. But, it only works with intake!!! Unless I want to mount it on the outside of the case, which means the motor sticks out an inch or so. Don't know quite yet, but probably going with closed.

 

 

[LogicalDrm]

1 hour ago, KPopOG said:

 

The grill on the side of my PC case was removable, so I took it off and immediately started seeing temps around 20C cooler at idle! I think this is probably the best solution...

 

Doubt that. I mean numbers. 20C drop would mean that you were running already at CPUs max temp range on idle. So either that's typo or sensor error (not that uncommon with your CPU).

 

1 hour ago, KPopOG said:

But, I also made the mistake of buying fans that can only be mounted one way. It makes sense that my most powerful 80mm should be on the side panel, drawing air directly to the CPU, pushing it out to the 120mm on the back. But, it only works with intake!!! Unless I want to mount it on the outside of the case, which means the motor sticks out an inch or so. Don't know quite yet, but probably going with closed.

These some super cheap fans with holes only on one side? Gotta pic?

[KPopOG]

Just now, LoGiCalDrm said:

 

Doubt that. I mean numbers. 20C drop would mean that you were running already at CPUs max temp range on idle. So either that's typo or sensor error (not that uncommon with your CPU).

 

These some super cheap fans with holes only on one side? Gotta pic?

Yeah... except their marketed as the "Pro" version by Arctic. I mean less vibration according to them, but I'd rather choose whether I want intake or exhaust fans.

 

Thought I added a pic there, but here you go. There's no way to mount the motor to the other side of the box either, there are no holes to fit it. 

 

[LogicalDrm]

1 hour ago, KPopOG said:

Yeah... except their marketed as the "Pro" version by Arctic. I mean less vibration according to them, but I'd rather choose whether I want intake or exhaust fans.

 

Thought I added a pic there, but here you go. There's no way to mount the motor to the other side of the box either, there are no holes to fit it. 

 

Looks like you could remove grill/brace and anti-vibration mounts. Then it's just like any other fan. I've only seen this design in top-down cooler fans before, even Arctic has since realized how bad this design is for wider audience. Shows how old design it is when fan has molex along with PWM.

[KPopOG]

10 hours ago, LoGiCalDrm said:

Looks like you could remove grill/brace and anti-vibration mounts. Then it's just like any other fan. I've only seen this design in top-down cooler fans before, even Arctic has since realized how bad this design is for wider audience. Shows how old design it is when fan has molex along with PWM.

Molex and PWM? Ew...

 

The motor is actually part of the anti-vibration brace though. You can't remount it on the other side of the box either.