air cooling theory - what do you think?

[lose311]

Ok, I am about to put together a new build for myself, most likely:

Asus m5a99x evo
AMD FX 6200 or 8120
Radeon 9500GT (lol its my old card, will upgrade ASAP)
2x 4gb gskill ripjaws 1600/cas:8
rosewill hive 550w modular 80plus bronze
ocz vertex 3 120 gb ssd boot/program drive
hitachi 1tb 7200 rpm data drive
2 x masscool 120mm blue led fans
and the ANTEC GAMING SERIES ONE mid tower case
(GREAT case for $50 btw, 2 x USB3.0 ports in front (rare for this price), tool less, painted interior, etc...)
and I know bulldozers arent super popular right now but for 6 cores and 4.0 ghz without much overclocking all for about $150 sounds good to me.

anyway while I finish saving up the money I have a lot of time to think about the cooling options..

my theory is this:
the case comes with two fans, and I will add two more. I attached a photo of my plan, I will use the side and top fans for intake, and the front and back fans for exhaust. The way I see it, this side intake is better than the usual front intake because it brings fresh cool air from outside the case and blows it directly on top of the video card. And the top intake will provide fresh cool air for the cpu, memory, and northbridge. the front exhaust will pull out hot air from video card and HDDs, and the top back exhaust will pull hot air from MOBO/CPU/memory

I know the standard is front/side intake and top/rear exhaust, but as I said I think this provides cooler air to the video card and CPU, instead of using front exhaust which allows the HDDs to heat up all that air before it even gets to the video card or MOBO.

let me know what you guys think, I havent personally built a lot of computers, so I dont have a lot of experience with optimal cooling..you guys probably know much more about this than i do.

thanks

 

[EarthDog]

Front/sides = intake
Top/rear = exhaust

The couple C difference it *may* make may not be worth it. Proper air FLOW is key to air cooling.

 

[lose311]

Front/sides = intake
Top/rear = exhaust

The couple C difference it *may* make may not be worth it. Proper air FLOW is key to air cooling.

i know that is the common way of doing it, it just doesnt make sense to pull in all that air from the front, just to have it pass right over the hot hard drives and THEN on to cool the CPU and mobo.. it makes more sense to have the intakes positioned as close to the hot components as possible to maximize cool air to those parts.

 

[EarthDog]

First, HDD's dont get that warm and this is what EVERYONE has been doing. Is it OPTIMAL, no..not really. But again it creates proper air FLOW to evacuate the warmed air out of the case. Remember warm air rises. Id rather have a 1-2C warmer CPU to keep my other components 1-2C cooler. You arent breaking any records with your overclocking so...........

Obviously you want to do this, so......do it. Report back with your findings.

 

[Metlcub]

that way I believe actually causes stagnant air inside the case, which doesn't get pushed out. I've tried many different variations over the years, and always found front/side intake, rear/top exhaust to be best.

You can try it, and if it doesn't lower temps like you think it would, can always turn the fans around.

 

[alinosa]

The problem with your layout is that there is no way to force the air over the heatsink on your cpu BEFORE it leaves the case. with the air coming in from the fron and sides it HAS to pass over your HSF before exiting the case. If you configure your fans like you drew, you create potential "dead" areas for air where there is no flow... no flow means your "cooling" your hot items with hot and stale air. It's good that you're thinking about this, unfortunately, you aren't the first to think these thoughts. Dead set on getting the coolest air to your CPU, modify your case to include a cool air intake near the CPU heatsink. Take pics of it if you do that!

Thought I'd share this: on the rig i have in my sig i have the radiator fans pulling down from the top of my case... bad idea i know. I countered it by making sure all three sanyos were at full power: 3 fans at just over 200 cfm.... yep, all the air was mobile in my case. No dead spots, but LOUD! Not ideal at all.

 

[lose311]

yeah, i might just be overthinking it. its been a while since i have had an up to date computer so it will be awesome no matter what i do... just want it to be optimal. ill start with the the standard setup you guys seem to be pretty convinced..ill see what the temps are and maybe do some experimenting from there.