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Case Airflow Question

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JrClocker

AKA: JrMiyagi
Joined
Sep 25, 2015
My current case airflow looks like this:


...............................^^^
...............................|||
...............................|||
....+-------------------------FFFFF--------------+
....|.+----------------------------+.............|
....RRR.M..M..................M..M.|.............|
<===RRR.M..M......+-----+.....M..M.|.............|
<===RRR.M..M......|.CPU.|.....M..M.|.............|
<===
RRR.M..M......+-----+.....M..M.|.............|
....RRR.M..M..................M..M.|.............|
....|.|............................|.............|
....+---------------------------+..|.............|
....|..SLI....GTX 970 SSC.......|..|.............|
....+------------|||------|||---+..|.............|
....|............VVV......VVV......|.............|
....|..............................|.............|
....+---------------------------+..|.............|
....|..SLI....GTX 970 SSC.......|..|.............|
....+------------|||------|||---+..|.............|
....|.|..........VVV......VVV......|.............|
....|.+----------------------------+.............|
....|............................................F
....|.+-------------+............................F<===
....|.|...PSU.......|............................F<===
....|.|.............|............................F<===
....|.+-------------+............................F
....+--------------------------------------------+



Where:
R = CPU Radiator, 2 120 MM fans, push/pull
M = Memory
F = Fan
Arrows indicate air flow
Arrow color indicate temperature



I am thinking of switching it to this configuration:


...............................^^^
...............................|||
...............................|||
....+-------------------------FFFFF--------------+
....|.+----------------------------+.............|
....RRR.M..M..................M..M.|.............|
===>RRR.M..M......+-----+.....M..M.|.............|
===>RRR.M..M......|.CPU.|.....M..M.|.............|

===>RRR.M..M......+-----+.....M..M.|.............|
....RRR.M..M..................M..M.|.............|
....|.|............................|.............|
....+---------------------------+..|.............|
....|..SLI....GTX 970 SSC.......|..|.............|
....+------------
|||------|||---+..|.............|
....|............
VVV......VVV......|.............|
....|..............................|.............|
....+---------------------------+..|.............|
....|..SLI....GTX 970 SSC.......|..|.............|
....+------------
|||------|||---+..|.............|
....|.|
..........VVV......VVV......|.............|
....|.+----------------------------+.............|
....|............................................F
....|.+-------------+............................F<===
....|.|...PSU.......|............................F<===
....|.|.............|............................F<===
....|.+-------------+............................F
....+--------------------------------------------+



The main reason for this is the 2 graphics cards pump hot air into the case. The current configuration pulls warm case air through the CPU radiator. My thought is that if I reverse the air flow on the CPU radiator, it will pull cooler air through the radiator and lower the CPU temp a few more degrees.

Any thoughts, pros, cons?

Thanks!
 
Front/bottom/Side = Intake
Top/Rear = Exhaust

You want airFLOW through the case.

Also, how many fans do you have in each spot?
 
Unless your GPU's have intakes they are not "pumping hot air into the case". They are how ever heating up and recirculating the existing air. As ATMIN said you will need adequate intake and exhaust.


P.S. How long did you spent making that diagram? LOL


EDIT: Also all the GPU's that I'm aware of draw air from the bottom and blow air up into its heatsink. You may want to verify that.
 
Unless your GPU's have intakes they are not "pumping hot air into the case". They are how ever heating up and recirculating the existing air. As ATMIN said you will need adequate intake and exhaust.


P.S. How long did you spent making that diagram? LOL


EDIT: Also all the GPU's that I'm aware of draw air from the bottom and blow air up into its heatsink. You may want to verify that.

I always thought the same as the OP about the GPU and just assumed that if the engineers could find no better way then neither could I. Im glad to know that isnt the case!

and I thought the same thing about that diagram too. Maybe there's a program that does it? :)
 
That ASCII drawing is hilarious! (well done!)

Anyway, as was mentioned, your GPU fans are actually taking in air, however, a lot of it is still being exhausted into the case.

While you will see better temps on the CPU (by a couple of C), you will also then be pumping more warm air into your case. To me, that isn;t worth it over airFLOW (see ATMs post).
 
P.S. How long did you spent making that diagram? LOL

Muhuhuhuhahahahaha! I knew this crowd would like my PHAT LEET drawing SKILLZ!

Heck, I'm so old I remember when they invented color TV, the microwave, when my dot matrix printer didn't have "true decenders" to print "g", "y", "q" below the line, and a 300 baud modem was fast!

I think you guys are right...I got the air direction wrong on the graphics cards...but they do blow it into the case.

Also, how many fans do you have in each spot?

Fan count, current config:

Intake (bottom right): 1 fan
Exhaust (top left): 2 fans in push/pull through AIO cooler radiator
Exhaust (top): 1 fan


The proposed config:

Intake (bottom right): 1 fan
Intake (top left): 2 fans in push/pull through AIO cooler radiator
Exhaust (top): 1 fan (will add a second)



While you will see better temps on the CPU (by a couple of C), you will also then be pumping more warm air into your case. To me, that isn;t worth it over airFLOW (see ATMs post).

I'm already putting warm air into the case from the graphics cards. My idea was to bring in outside air through the AIO radiator, exhaust into case, but have 1 (probably 2) fans very close to this air to pull it out (along with the hot air from the graphics cards).
 
Def no expert, but I cant see any benefit to bringing in intake air through aoi, this will only pre-heat it I'd think. Where are your temps at now?
When my 280x's were strictly air I had real good results setting up another intake fan drawing in from front of case and blowing directly onto or between the cards. Was like a 4-6c difference for me.

EDIT- so like your first set up but with an additional intake on front directly onto the cards.
 
I can't find anything on that case detailing how many fan slots it has and where...
How many open fan slots do you have, and where?
 
The ASCII version doesn't need fans...good thing I didn't get the ASCII version! :clap:

There are mounts for fans all over the place.

I bought this build from CyberpowerPC. The put the fans in place as shown. I recently upgraded the fans on the radiator to the Jeftflo 120 (red LED of course) and the CPU temperature dropped by 7 C (the fans have great airflow and static pressure). My idea was to have cooler air flowing through the radiator by blowing in from outside, instead of blowing warm air from inside through the radiator.
 
Can you give more detail than this? How many in each the front/bottom/top/rear/side?

I'll take a look tonight.



And now, for some more ASCII art:


...................
.......
OVER........
...................
+-----------------+
|.................|
|........12.......|
|.................|
|.................|
|.................|
|..9.....+-->..3..|
|........|........|
|........|........|
|........V........|
|........6........|
|.................|
+-----------------+





:D
 
Take some pictures of the front, open side with a few angle shots of the top and bottom and rear of the case to help us better visualize your case. I'm also having problems finding more than one picture other than the one the egg has.

It all depends on which GPU's you have. Give us a bit more info on the GPUs. Which exact models are they since they have ACX as well as a blower version of them. If say they were blowers, your GPUs intake internally and blow out the rear. As for ACX as Blay said, they intake air to the heatsink of the card and pour to all sides throwing that warm air around in the case and only amplified when having more than one GPU. Possibly could space them apart and shed a few degrees but not sure which slots the GPUs are in.

But before we continue which we already have :rofl:, what are your existing temps and are you having any overheating issues? If not and temps look great, you should have no problem. Lets not forget these are 170w or 200w GPUs, depending on the model so it shouldn't be so bad unless your internal case flow is close to none existent do to bad cable management and or airflow configuration.
 
Thanks for the feedback guys.

I am not having any overheating issues - was trying to post an optimization question. I'll change some air flow around and see what happens!

Thanks again!
 
OK - I added:

- An intake fan on the bottom (next to the PSU) blows are up (mainly at the first graphics card in the SLU set)
- An exhaust fan on the top, next to the exhaust fan that was already there

The temperature on the micro processor dropped by 4 C running Prime95 (ver 28.5)

The temperature on the graphics cards now do not get over 77 C (at 40% fan) running Heaven 4.0 with 100 MHz GPU overclock and 300 MHz memory overclock on each card.

AND...the temperature in my computer office is cooler!

YAY for physics!
 
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