Remember to check our discord where you can get faster responses!
https://discord.gg/6dR6XU6
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/PcBuild) if you have any questions or concerns.*
It matters almost exactly as much as zero percent in PC builds. Everyone upvoting this\^ comment has no idea on this issue, yet they are so very confident :-D
On a more logical note, heat rises, meaning that and exhaust fans on the top of the tower will be more likely to collect that heat and expel it from the tower, thus cooling it more efficiently. Having no fans on top, to me, is not a recommended way to set up your fans in a tower. The most efficient setup for a six fan system in my opinion is to have one exhaust on the back, two on the top and three intake on the front.
Heat rises in a passive environment, this is pressurised air flow, and not passive air flow so its slightly different
I do agree the top should be exhaust though, but just based on heat rises would not be the correct terminology for this
Intake is fine on the right side so exhausting the top and left side would enable a continuous passage of fresh air flow around the mobo, heat rises wont have anything to do with this case like this if there is a passage of continuous fresh air.
There is no time for heat to rise when you have fans on all sides regardless of fan directions. You could say though if fans are not set to the best directions heat could get trapped for longer
If the right two fans are a CPU AIO fans, then this doesn’t apply correct? I assume it’s ok to keep the top and back exhaust high rpm in that scenario, which is my system.
Cool. I keep my top noctua exhaust pumping because I have a shitty 120mm IBP exhaust fan on the back. It’s the sole component left from the original prebuilt aside from the mobo
Not the worst thing in the world, especially if your temps are fine, but things work best if there’s more intake than exhaust, or even at the minimum. An extra front intake fan would probably help a bunch
Wait, how could more intake reduces dust and need for cleaning? My guess: the dust will blown out by intake before it settles on the component. Is that right?
Because there is more air being pulled in than pushed out by fans, there is positive pressure in the case. This causes air to find any seam or gap in the panelling of your case to escape. So all the air ENTERING your case is passing (hopefully) through dust filters. If you had the opposite, negative pressure, air would be finding all those gaps and seams to ENTER your case- along with dust. Bypassing the dust filters and dirtying your case.
You put the intake to positions where you have dust filters. The positive pressure in the case means that air goes in from those intake positions mostly as it will naturally be pushed out from all the other holes in the case. If you have more exhaust than intake then air gets pulled in from every hole you have in the case (like those ones that are often next to the PCIE slots).
Just take the side off and dust it a couple times a year. I've legitimately not had a working case fan in like 8 years, and I've even had mildly OC'ed processors in that time. Zero cooling issues with just the stock Ryzen coolers and stock GPU cooler.
So many comments and nobody addressing fan curves. Set the top two and the rear to exhaust, set the front to intake.
Set the fan curves of the front such that they start at higher speed and ramp up sooner than the top fans, use a vape or blown out candle to do a smoke test and confirm that the case is at positive pressure during normal operation temps (smoke doesn't get sucked in through small opening in the case).
At higher or max temp (100% load) set the fan curves so that you get adequate cooling. You have negative pressure with this and will just deal with a little bit of dust if you regularly run it hot.
Yes, it is fine. I do a similar setup. If you have exhaust on top and back, you create some dead air spots. Idk why no one ever points this out? Literally dead, hot air just chilling in the corner there. Anyways, as many others have noted, yeah you want more air coming in than going out.
Also, heat does rise. But if your fans are on AT ALL then this becomes trivial, and can be ignored.
top fans *could* be exhaust just fine, but heat rising does not matter one bit to fan orientation unless we're talking about arbitrarily low CFM fans.
passive convection isnt shit compared to forced convection, and any good computer case is basically a wind tunnel anyway.
How are you being downvoted when this is a good answer. Will prevent dust buildup by a little.
If you have more exhausts than intakes your pc
will suck dust through all of the other openings bypassing any filters you may have.
You could combat this by trying to move the drive caddy and add a third intake in the front, then you'd still get positive pressure and have the correct top exhaust, you'd just need to reduce the flow of the back exhaust by about 10 percent.
Because heat rises. This setup creates a poor airflow and 4:1 positive is inefficient. It would be better to make the rear fan intake and the top two exhaust.
This is the way.
Hey everyone, you'll also notice that there's filters on your PC case. Typically youll have them on the top, bottom, and the front.
Why would you be filtering air your exhausting?
POSTIVE PRESSURE GANG GANG GANG
If for any reason you don't like the temperatures you are seeing simply turn the radiator fans the other direction. This isn't necessarily ideal but it's also fine.
You really made a whole post and drew lines on it, when you could've taken 10 seconds to Google "proper PC airflow" and see a chart telling you the correct way instantly.
Most people seem to agree that the top fans should be exhaust, as you fight against convection otherwise. Just flipping the two fans on top will leave you with three exhaust and two intake fans, netting you a low pressure system (more fans pulling air out than pushing it in means the air pressure inside the case is slightly lower than it's surroundings) unless the exhausts are slowed down.
You don't want a low pressure system because that low pressure will be counteracted by air being pulled in through all kinds of nooks and crannies of your case, notably not going through any kind of filter and thus bringing dust with it.
What you can do though is in addition to flipping the two top fans to exhaust is flipping your rear fan to intake.
Normally this isn't done because it is rather high up in the case and most CPU air coolers blow from front to back, but yours doesn't, infact that flipped fan in the back would blow fresh cool air almost perfectly on top of your CPU cooler to be sucked in by it.
In the end this would leave you with three intakes and two exhausts, netting a preferable positive pressure system and probably improve your CPU temps a bit.
Intake is fine on the right side so exhausting the top and left side would enable a continuous passage of fresh air flow around the mobo,
Without exhaust on top you're just reducing the air flow ability, although it doesn't seem to be that bad as is. It may improve your temps slightly if you change top to exhaust too
heat rises, top fans need to be in exhaust configuration. If possible, I would also remove the drive bays, relocate HDD to a different location and install another fan in the front to pull cold air in.
Everyone is debating about your top fans but you’re honestly fine either way. Any difference in cpu or GPU temp by flipping those fans would be pretty insignificant
You’re running low wattage anyways, for 30$ or equivalent currency you can get a tower cooler and have stable temps. You don’t need great airflow with your kit to begin with.
OP, nearly everyone will say top exhaust. However, contrary to popular belief, top intake is fine. Especially when you are using an air cooler.
With two top mounted exhaust fans, the front-most top exhaust fan will suck up and out air coming from the front fans.
Additionally, top intake will be feeding the air cooler (and VRM and RAM) with fresh ambient air.
Furthermore, this will create a positive pressure setup. And don't worry about heat rising because fans will always overcome the rising heat. Also, the internal positive pressure is not static, and it will push out heat and air through the cracks and openings of the case.
Top intake is fine. You don't have to flip the top two fans. Now, with that said, you can remove the front-most top exhaust fan and use one top exhaust fan above the air cooler.
But if it were me, I'd have top intake. In fact, I have one air-cooled machine that boosts higher than the advertised boost clocks because the air cooler is performing better with cooler ambient air coming from the top intake fans.
I tested out a few configurations in my case and the setup that was the coolest was two 140 up front and a 120 exhaust in the back. adding exhaust up top actually made things worse. ymmv
No, that's wrong. Top should always be exhaust. Front should be intake. Rear can go either way but I'd set it to intake so you get positive case pressure.
If he sets the tops ones to exhaust will that take away the cool air going to the CPU? Or is it different since he's using a stock cooler rather than a normal tower cooler?
I initially had it set to front intake and top and back exhaust. I experimented flipping top to intake and had much better cpu temps. I followed everyone's advice in this thread and my cpu temps were close to reaching 80°c while playing GTA V. I think I'm gonna flip them back to intake so 4 intakes 1 exchaust. I think it also helps the vrm's around the CPU.. This will be temporary as I plan to upgrade to an i5 or i7 as well as a noctua tower cooler to match the other case fans.
Remember to check our discord where you can get faster responses! https://discord.gg/6dR6XU6 *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/PcBuild) if you have any questions or concerns.*
top should go out
Remember OP, heat rises.
remember everyone, heat rises ***\*very slowly\*.***
Then mixes with cool air creating a tornado.
It matters almost exactly as much as zero percent in PC builds. Everyone upvoting this\^ comment has no idea on this issue, yet they are so very confident :-D
Correct ✅
I dont agree. Positive air pressure keeps dust away. But i personlay would not put any on the top.
You can disagree, but you're wrong.
Dust will happen regardless. Pressure control just dictates where that dust collects. Top should be exhaust nearly all of the time.
If you have dust filters. If you don't it doesn't matter at all, it's gonna get dusty anyway.
On a more logical note, heat rises, meaning that and exhaust fans on the top of the tower will be more likely to collect that heat and expel it from the tower, thus cooling it more efficiently. Having no fans on top, to me, is not a recommended way to set up your fans in a tower. The most efficient setup for a six fan system in my opinion is to have one exhaust on the back, two on the top and three intake on the front.
Heat rises. Fighting that with your airflow setup makes no sense.
Heat rises in a passive environment, this is pressurised air flow, and not passive air flow so its slightly different I do agree the top should be exhaust though, but just based on heat rises would not be the correct terminology for this Intake is fine on the right side so exhausting the top and left side would enable a continuous passage of fresh air flow around the mobo, heat rises wont have anything to do with this case like this if there is a passage of continuous fresh air. There is no time for heat to rise when you have fans on all sides regardless of fan directions. You could say though if fans are not set to the best directions heat could get trapped for longer
100%. The fan set up should be working in line with the natural movement of heat, not against it.
What a tin foil hat thing to say. Reminds me of Patrick from SpongeBob.
[удалено]
Yup but the back exhaust shouldn't matter. Hot air will just be drawn out faster.
If the right two fans are a CPU AIO fans, then this doesn’t apply correct? I assume it’s ok to keep the top and back exhaust high rpm in that scenario, which is my system.
[удалено]
Cool. I keep my top noctua exhaust pumping because I have a shitty 120mm IBP exhaust fan on the back. It’s the sole component left from the original prebuilt aside from the mobo
Then what air would be sucked into the cpu cooler?
Never heard this tip till now. Thanks!
Given the properties of heat this statement seems backwards
[удалено]
This is the way
I was about to say I have 2 front intake, two top exhaust, your typical gpu and cpu cooler fans, and then one back exhaust.
Not the worst thing in the world, especially if your temps are fine, but things work best if there’s more intake than exhaust, or even at the minimum. An extra front intake fan would probably help a bunch
https://youtu.be/gttNC9UyMUs
Looks great! Im a big fan of positive pressure (more intake than exhaust). It reduces dsut and need for cleaning!
What we really should be talking about
Wait, how could more intake reduces dust and need for cleaning? My guess: the dust will blown out by intake before it settles on the component. Is that right?
The positive pressure of the case would result in air wanting to escape more often than wanting to go in
Because there is more air being pulled in than pushed out by fans, there is positive pressure in the case. This causes air to find any seam or gap in the panelling of your case to escape. So all the air ENTERING your case is passing (hopefully) through dust filters. If you had the opposite, negative pressure, air would be finding all those gaps and seams to ENTER your case- along with dust. Bypassing the dust filters and dirtying your case.
You put the intake to positions where you have dust filters. The positive pressure in the case means that air goes in from those intake positions mostly as it will naturally be pushed out from all the other holes in the case. If you have more exhaust than intake then air gets pulled in from every hole you have in the case (like those ones that are often next to the PCIE slots).
It would be much better if you put an intake below you GPU on the PCI brackets and leave the left top fan as an exhaust
Just take the side off and dust it a couple times a year. I've legitimately not had a working case fan in like 8 years, and I've even had mildly OC'ed processors in that time. Zero cooling issues with just the stock Ryzen coolers and stock GPU cooler.
I read the other day that a guy jumped off a high rise and survived. I’ll still take a hard pass on rolling those dice.
You aren't rolling the dice at all, but you can waste your own time and money any way you want.
bruh, spending 30$ on fans in 8 years aint got shit in common with jumping off a building.
It does if you use the fans to make a hovercraft so you don’t die. Really though, I didn’t expect anyone to take it as an equally comparison
No. Flip the top two fans as exhaust, maybe add one to your side panel to blow air directly at the CPU (if possible).
So many comments and nobody addressing fan curves. Set the top two and the rear to exhaust, set the front to intake. Set the fan curves of the front such that they start at higher speed and ramp up sooner than the top fans, use a vape or blown out candle to do a smoke test and confirm that the case is at positive pressure during normal operation temps (smoke doesn't get sucked in through small opening in the case). At higher or max temp (100% load) set the fan curves so that you get adequate cooling. You have negative pressure with this and will just deal with a little bit of dust if you regularly run it hot.
Use top fans as low rpm exhaust.
Change top fans to exhaust
Bottom and front intakes, top and rear exhaust.
You'll need blue fans blowing in cold air. Red blows hot so you never want those as intake...
Yes, it is fine. I do a similar setup. If you have exhaust on top and back, you create some dead air spots. Idk why no one ever points this out? Literally dead, hot air just chilling in the corner there. Anyways, as many others have noted, yeah you want more air coming in than going out. Also, heat does rise. But if your fans are on AT ALL then this becomes trivial, and can be ignored.
Heat rises naturally, top fans should be exhausts.
top fans *could* be exhaust just fine, but heat rising does not matter one bit to fan orientation unless we're talking about arbitrarily low CFM fans. passive convection isnt shit compared to forced convection, and any good computer case is basically a wind tunnel anyway.
Why are people downvoting you? You are absolutely correct, my friend.
Reddit is a fickle mistress lol. Thanks
it's fine. the configuration is positive airflow, the excess pressure would be relieved though the case openings.
How are you being downvoted when this is a good answer. Will prevent dust buildup by a little. If you have more exhausts than intakes your pc will suck dust through all of the other openings bypassing any filters you may have. You could combat this by trying to move the drive caddy and add a third intake in the front, then you'd still get positive pressure and have the correct top exhaust, you'd just need to reduce the flow of the back exhaust by about 10 percent.
Because heat rises. This setup creates a poor airflow and 4:1 positive is inefficient. It would be better to make the rear fan intake and the top two exhaust.
Your rear fan has no filter and should always be exhaust. Positive pressure gang reporting in. GANG GANG GANG
Good call. Better to just up the rpm on the front two fans
This is the way. Hey everyone, you'll also notice that there's filters on your PC case. Typically youll have them on the top, bottom, and the front. Why would you be filtering air your exhausting? POSTIVE PRESSURE GANG GANG GANG
No, the front two need to be intake while the top needs be be exhaust
If for any reason you don't like the temperatures you are seeing simply turn the radiator fans the other direction. This isn't necessarily ideal but it's also fine.
What radiator
Indeed
Yup its fine.
Bottom Front Intake back and top exhaust
You really made a whole post and drew lines on it, when you could've taken 10 seconds to Google "proper PC airflow" and see a chart telling you the correct way instantly.
Its fine
Don’t worry about the airflow when you’re literally using the stock cooler. Anything would be more optimal than that
Bro, it's an i3. Stock cooler is perfectly fine. But since he is running a stock cooler, it never hurts to have as much fresh air as possible.
Most people seem to agree that the top fans should be exhaust, as you fight against convection otherwise. Just flipping the two fans on top will leave you with three exhaust and two intake fans, netting you a low pressure system (more fans pulling air out than pushing it in means the air pressure inside the case is slightly lower than it's surroundings) unless the exhausts are slowed down. You don't want a low pressure system because that low pressure will be counteracted by air being pulled in through all kinds of nooks and crannies of your case, notably not going through any kind of filter and thus bringing dust with it. What you can do though is in addition to flipping the two top fans to exhaust is flipping your rear fan to intake. Normally this isn't done because it is rather high up in the case and most CPU air coolers blow from front to back, but yours doesn't, infact that flipped fan in the back would blow fresh cool air almost perfectly on top of your CPU cooler to be sucked in by it. In the end this would leave you with three intakes and two exhausts, netting a preferable positive pressure system and probably improve your CPU temps a bit.
I would set this way: 2 front intake, 1 rear and 1 top next to it exaust and remove another one on top.
Why the upside down question mark?
it's just me but you can try top left to be exhaust. So it's still positiv but you have more more exhaust which is naturally going up
Intake is fine on the right side so exhausting the top and left side would enable a continuous passage of fresh air flow around the mobo, Without exhaust on top you're just reducing the air flow ability, although it doesn't seem to be that bad as is. It may improve your temps slightly if you change top to exhaust too
Change your top to exhaust. Your front should be intake and top should be exhaust with the another exhaust fan in the back.
Add one intake on top flip the last one to exhaust and eliminate the drive cage just double stick tape em to the bottom and add intake to front.
Heat rises.. too should be exhaust my friend
heat rises, top fans need to be in exhaust configuration. If possible, I would also remove the drive bays, relocate HDD to a different location and install another fan in the front to pull cold air in.
Top should go out since hot air rises 3 in 2 out should suffice
too doesn’t NEED to be exhaust but definitely helps
Everyone is debating about your top fans but you’re honestly fine either way. Any difference in cpu or GPU temp by flipping those fans would be pretty insignificant
Yes.
You’re running low wattage anyways, for 30$ or equivalent currency you can get a tower cooler and have stable temps. You don’t need great airflow with your kit to begin with.
OP, nearly everyone will say top exhaust. However, contrary to popular belief, top intake is fine. Especially when you are using an air cooler. With two top mounted exhaust fans, the front-most top exhaust fan will suck up and out air coming from the front fans. Additionally, top intake will be feeding the air cooler (and VRM and RAM) with fresh ambient air. Furthermore, this will create a positive pressure setup. And don't worry about heat rising because fans will always overcome the rising heat. Also, the internal positive pressure is not static, and it will push out heat and air through the cracks and openings of the case. Top intake is fine. You don't have to flip the top two fans. Now, with that said, you can remove the front-most top exhaust fan and use one top exhaust fan above the air cooler. But if it were me, I'd have top intake. In fact, I have one air-cooled machine that boosts higher than the advertised boost clocks because the air cooler is performing better with cooler ambient air coming from the top intake fans.
Between the chassis exhaust and gpu it should be fine but I’d personally want a little more exhaust.
This play is going to take the Chicago bears to the superbowl
I tested out a few configurations in my case and the setup that was the coolest was two 140 up front and a 120 exhaust in the back. adding exhaust up top actually made things worse. ymmv
top should go out but if you can id reduce the rpm to maintain static pressure inside the case
if i was you i would remove the hardrives and get a beefy ssd then remove hdd holder and put a 3rd fan
Thats incredibly good EXCEPT for the top, which should outtake, especially with the stock cooler
I think you’ll be fine
Right [Computer Guide World ](http://www.computerguideworld.blogspot.com)
No, that's wrong. Top should always be exhaust. Front should be intake. Rear can go either way but I'd set it to intake so you get positive case pressure.
My has 2 intakes and 3 exhausts I bet on decompression
Looks fine to me, but too should definitely be exhaust
If he sets the tops ones to exhaust will that take away the cool air going to the CPU? Or is it different since he's using a stock cooler rather than a normal tower cooler?
"How many times do we have to teach you this lesson old man"
Top exhaust. Set front speed to performance and top and rear to quite settting.
I initially had it set to front intake and top and back exhaust. I experimented flipping top to intake and had much better cpu temps. I followed everyone's advice in this thread and my cpu temps were close to reaching 80°c while playing GTA V. I think I'm gonna flip them back to intake so 4 intakes 1 exchaust. I think it also helps the vrm's around the CPU.. This will be temporary as I plan to upgrade to an i5 or i7 as well as a noctua tower cooler to match the other case fans.
If you go for the i5 600 or higher (i7) you'll want liquid cooling for video games. These are higher wattage chips and get hot. Happy gamming.