In or out

Hey guys

I just started my first build and decided to try a Corsair H100 in a Corsair vengeance C70 (white) I also bought some nice corsair 120 performance edition fans and was going to use them for HDD cooling but my real question is on my H100 should I have the fans above or below the Rad and should I be blowing air out or into the case. My initial idea was to be using 4 HDD fans and 2 fans on the side for intake and to have 2 fans below my H100 for blowing out and the standard rear exhaust and CPU at the bottom blowing out.

Thanks, Alex

Top/rear = exhaust
Front/sides = intake

As for the fans in push or pull... either or. it wont make much of a difference either way in this case.

Cool, thanks!

Ideally, the radiator fans should be pulling in cool air from the outside and pushing/pulling it through the radiator as long as, that is, you also have sufficient fans in other places moving the warmed air out of the case. If the latter condition isn't being met then you would need to use the radiator fans to both cool the radiator and extract warm air from the case which would reduce the efficiency of the water cooling a bit. I'm speaking in generalities of course.

Thanks for the reply trents, my issue with the top fans is that around the front HDD enclosure I have 4 120mm fans pushing air into the case so with the 2 on side pushing air towards the GC if I had 2 more 120mm fans pushing in from the top I wouldn't have very good airflow with only the PSU and 1 120mm exhaust fan. I understand were you are coming from it might be worth reversing the HDD cooling so I exhaust out of the front that way I can have the top pushing air in. I'll have a play tonight and try to get some temps recorded both ways.

trents said:

Ideally, the radiator fans should be pulling in cool air from the outside and pushing/pulling it through the radiator as long as, that is, you also have sufficient fans in other places moving the warmed air out of the case. If the latter condition isn't being met then you would need to use the radiator fans to both cool the radiator and extract warm air from the case which would reduce the efficiency of the water cooling a bit. I'm speaking in generalities of course.

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Feriot said:

Thanks for the reply trents, my issue with the top fans is that around the front HDD enclosure I have 4 120mm fans pushing air into the case so with the 2 on side pushing air towards the GC if I had 2 more 120mm fans pushing in from the top I wouldn't have very good airflow with only the PSU and 1 120mm exhaust fan. I understand were you are coming from it might be worth reversing the HDD cooling so I exhaust out of the front that way I can have the top pushing air in. I'll have a play tonight and try to get some temps recorded both ways.

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Trents brings up some good points. Though the question here is does the ends justify the means? The difference, assuming proper airflow, which you have, isnt but a couple of C. You arent breaking records for overclocking, so why turn around the airflow for a couple of C? Though this is negligible in the scheme of things, heat wants to naturally rise remember. Proper flow is front/side = intake and top/rear = exhaust. I wouldnt do it, and dont. In my case, the difference in intake temp (behind the front fan on my case0 vs right below my h100 (top and back of the case) is 3C-5C (idle/load).