COMBO: fan grilles AND Thermalright questions...

[Zerileous]

Ok, First we have fan grilles:
Now the way i see it, if you have a half way decent case your stock fan grilles will be just a little bit better than holes drilled through the steel. I am wondering aobut the restrictivness of differnt designes, such as the verry commonly stock square pattern (example, The less common octagonal pattern: example , the chrome grilles we are all so familiar with example, and having no grill at all. I believe i have stated these differnt grill designes in the order of most airflow to least but how major is the difference really?

Next,
This is fairly simple, i am just interested in finding something that compairs all of the thermalright HSFs from the slk-700 all the way up to the sp-97 along with the alx-800. I am just interested in getting a more scientific idea of the difference the differences make.

Thanks. Z.

 

[clocker2]

Ok, First we have fan grilles:
I believe i have stated these differnt grill designes in the order of most airflow to least but how major is the difference really?

.

I think that your order is wrong.
The chrome wire grill would allow the best airflow by a wide margin.
It's probably a toss-up between the other two.

 

[archilochus]

They all need to be removed,IMHO.Any restriction is a restriction.These fan grids as I call them,cause a lot of noise too as the air tries to move past them.After the fan grids are removed,you can put the wire finger guards on the fans if it is a safety concern.I'm providing a link to a case mod for you to get some ideas from.Keep your flow up & temps down, THE FANMAN

MOD LINK

HS REVIEW LINK

NOTE: This is the only thing I can think of that will provide numbers to compare the Thermalrights against each other.

 

[Zerileous]

hrm, well what about the chrome grills, my fingers tend to stray and sometimes i have problems (like i may be reaching around to re-plug my ethernet in because i broke the card and the rj-33 wont stay in and jamb my finger in a fan if it does not have a grille.)

 

[k3nshin]

yeh your best bet would be to cut off the existing fan grills (stanmped on grills) and but the chrome wire finger guards.

the stock grills just restrict too much air flow

 

[Zerileous]

yeah. The only reason i have not done it yet is i am worried about pressure. I have 3 intake and 3 exhaust fans right now (including PSU) and those grilles may be the only think keeping positive pressure. I think ill wait til i overhaul my cooling with quality fans instead of cheep generics and a speed controller to kill the rear grilles (i have a dragon) i have already killed the front grilles.

 

[Vrykyl]

I went with fan grills that were a little more stylish for the rear and side of my Xaser case -
Grills on the side of my case
and the Rear Fan Grills (i went for A1457 design)

not highly efficient i'll grant you, but they look much nicer than the 4 visible grills i cut off, and allow much more air through by simply having bigger holes!!