Question on Best Airflow/Cooling Config

indough

Hello all!

Im building a system using a Fractal Design Define R3 and thought id look for a few opinions on fan configuration. The case has 2 front fans, 1 bottom fan, 1 side fan, 1 at the rear and 2 for the top, totalling 7. I was thinking of having all but the top ones as intakes, so that the air pressure in the case is high and the hot air will rise to the top and straight out via the 2 top 140's. Does this sound like a good idea? Also im not sure what the general consensus is on psu placemenet nowadays, are you supposed to mount it fan down or up?

Any help/advice will be greatly appreciated and ill be sure to post pics when its all done in a few weeks!

nvus

Front View of my Define R3 with the Fractal Design rear fan and the stock front fan in formation as front air intakes



The fans attach inside the front filter bezel



Inside lots of room and pretty good cable management for a case this price and size.



Doesn't just look cool it can even stay cool

I moved the Stock Fractal Design "Silent Series" 120 Fan from the back of the box to the front with the other stock Fractal Design "Silent Series" 120 Fan, and replaced it with an after stock NOCTUA NF-S12B 120 fan. And I added an additional NOCTUA NF-P14 FLX 140 fan to the bottom.

the untitled user

If the PC is on feet and has a grill under the PSU then mount the PSU with the fan facing down. Otherwise the PSU would be competing for air with the graphics card. If there's no dust filter though on the bottom, just remember to give the PSU a blast with some compressed air to stop dust clogging it up. It's nearly always better to have a bottom to top approach when cooling. Expanding hot air, with a tendency to rise is just going to make our fans work harder if we do otherwise.

In relation to the fan configuration, pressure doesn't make a majorly noticeable difference imo, it's the air flow that counts. Most case fans wouldn't generate a huge amount of pressure anyway, so the higher the pressure on the inside of the case, the less likely the intakes are going to be able to shift air to their full potential.

Another thing, your graphics card is spewing out hot air out the back of your case, yet you're talking about having an intake directly above it that shoves air onto the CPU? I know it's becoming common to do this with those closed loop water cooling systems but it seems illogical to me. Best thing to do is experiment but i'd favour 4 intakes with the top 2 and rear as exhaust myself.

indough

im probably going to exhaust at the rear too, i got a bit confused as ive two setups planned. the first is with air cooling and the second my planned wc project. when i upgrade it to wc im just gonna exhaust only the top 2 but for now ill have 3 outs and just swap the rear one over.

indough

nvus, is that setup really quiet then?

nvus

indough wrote: »

nvus, is that setup really quiet then?

Yeah it is very quiet, until the GPU gets stress then that's all you hear.
An older video here

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ZvT542DBUY

I've made lots of changes to it since this video but the loudest thing by far was the GPU fan.

I will be adding maybe 2 more fans to the top of the case once I get my filters and fan controller. I'll make another video once these get added.

You don't really need the top fans with my set up it kinda overkill, my airflow is perfect the way it is. I just want to run this closer to 4.2GHz (its daily speed is OC'd to 3.8GHz BClock 200MHz x19 at 3.2Volts) and its still pretty quite even though its right next to me and not under a desk.

indough

im throwing the same cpu cooler into mine as well for now. just treating it as a bit of a project to be honest. ill be using it for audio recording as well which is why im worried about noise.

Solitaire

Ugh. You might need to either get a specific low-noise graphics card, or an aftermarket cooler for it, or stick it on water

indough

i will eventually be watercooling the setup just cant afford to yet, have to get the basics together first then im gonna go wild on it

already have the parts picked out but as you can imagine they cost $$$'s

Solitaire

God yes My next build will be inhabiting a cardboard box until I can scrape together enough for the case materials and WC gear :o:o:p