My cooling plan, is it any good?

[Dermen]

I am building an new rig with a 2500+ Barton, NF7-S, 1GB Hyper-x BH-5, and a 9800 Pro. I plan to put it in an Antec Sonata. I plan to use the 2 120mm fan slots(one front, one back) and add another 120mm fan on the top as an exhaust. I also want to have a 92mm duct going from the side to an SP-97. Plus another 92mm fan on the side blowing on the 9800Pro. So I will have 2 92mm intakes and 1 120mm intake. And I will have 2 120mm exhausts, and the power supply exhaust(80mm I think). The 2 92mm fans will be panaflos, and 2 of the 120mm fans will be as well. The last 120mm fan will be the stock antec fan.

All the intakes will have those $2 filter/grills from SVC. They are the only ok looking, not too restrictive, and cheap fan grills that I like and they happen to come with filters so I won't have to rig up something for a filter.

I read that a slight positive pressure in the case is good for keeping dust out. But if there is a duct wouldn't it make the duct more effecient to have negative pressure. I guess I will just have to test to see how much dust and how much temp difference I get between the two. I will have a fan controller so testing shouldn't be too difficult.

For the duct should I get 2 panaflos and put one on each end of the duct or is one just as good?

This will be my first computer built for overclocking. I have messed around with overclocking my current machine but it is just an HP with stock everything(including cooling). I only upgraded the motherboard.

Thanks for all your help, I have learned lots from these forums.

 

[gusgizmo]

hmm, i think that you wont have enough intake fans. the difference in air pressure i think will have a negligible effect on performance. for the duct, one fan is better than 2. i dont think you are factoring in your psu fan enough. maybe if you are dead set on this setup, you should undervolt all the exhaust fans, and that could balance out the lack of intakes.

your setup is 120mm and 92mm with restriction in, and 2 120mm fans, plus another 120 with severe restriction out. i dont think that this is too good. if you arent set on the blowhole though, i think it the intake and exhaust would be balanced enough.

 

[clocker2]

I like blowholes and think they are very effective.
I also think that if you used one 120mm fan on the sidepanel to flood the HS and vid card area you could probably eliminate the front intake and rear exhaust altogether.
Filters of any sort are highly restrictive.
After weeks of testing I finally resigned myself to a more rigorous cleaning schedule and lost the filters.
You'll have to apply a appropriate cooling solution to your HDD also...

 

[blkgti]

All the intakes will have those $2 filter/grills from SVC. They are the only ok looking, not too restrictive, and cheap fan grills that I like and they happen to come with filters so I won't have to rig up something for a filter.

I have some of those. They they make fine grills, but they don't do a very good job as filters, as the mesh isn't fine enough. OTOH, these filters work very well.

 

[clocker2]

Yes darkbug, those filters are reasonably effective.
But....
As with most things, there is a tradeoff.
The more effective the unit performs as a filter the less effective the fan becomes.
As I run all my fans on 5v I can't afford the extra restriction.
Quiet or clean?
Which to choose, which to choose...?

 

[cstarritt]

with a duct on your cpu, your not gonna wnat much if any positive pressure. otherwise, your cpu fan that you have mounted on your case will have to fight the other intake fans to push air. if anything, tape off any area that might leak air, and do negative pressure so you draw air from the cpu intake only, useing all other fans as exahust except the gpu fan. that way, if your cpu duct is one of the only ways for air to get into the case, you will dramaticaly increase airflow over it. i did that with a antec case and it worked great. id bet with three 120mm exhaust fans you could make that work quite well.

 

[Dermen]

I decided this might be a little overkill. I think I am going to do this in steps. A little at first and increase the cooling until I feel it is good enough. This will also be better since I won't be spending as much all at once. Spreading out the cost is never a bad thing.

 

[ZGOZZ]

Yes darkbug, those filters are reasonably effective.
But....
As with most things, there is a tradeoff.
The more effective the unit performs as a filter the less effective the fan becomes.
As I run all my fans on 5v I can't afford the extra restriction.
Quiet or clean?
Which to choose, which to choose...?

You should see his case.

Fanzilla.