Front radiator airflow dir

[flyaway 11]

 

Hi guys, currently I have a little dilemma with my build.

 

Im mounting an h110 radiator in push pull configuration in the front of my case because there is no other place to mount it.

It will be cooling a 4770k, which will run hot because of overclocking.

I have two 2 140mm fans and 1 rear 140mm fan.

I have two options:

 

1--Using the radiator as intake, which will take cool air from the outside (needed for this cpu running hot) , blow it hot into the case and use the top and rear fans as exhaust.

 

2--Using the rear and top fans as intake and radiator will be exhaust to the front of the case. (In this case cpu cooling wont be as effective due to the air coming through the radiator will have already picked up some heat from the other components).

 

Which one you rather have? Thank you

[HLJames 2,567]

2 or consider assembling a more robust cooling solution outside the case.....two radiators, two pumps!

 

HLJAMES

[flyaway 11]

Thinking about it I may go with 1, since this will be a Fsx pc and this haswell will run hot. I prefer the radiator taking air from the outside rather than already hot air from the gpu, psu and other components.

 

I will make sure that that hot air blowing inside the case goes out using the 3 exhaust fans.

[martin-w 1,095]

flyaway, on 26 Jun 2013 - 6:25 PM, said:

Hi guys, currently I have a little dilemma with my build.

 

Im mounting an h110 radiator in push pull configuration in the front of my case because there is no other place to mount it.

It will be cooling a 4770k, which will run hot because of overclocking.

I have two 2 140mm fans and 1 rear 140mm fan.

I have two options:

 

1--Using the radiator as intake, which will take cool air from the outside (needed for this cpu running hot) , blow it hot into the case and use the top and rear fans as exhaust.

 

2--Using the rear and top fans as intake and radiator will be exhaust to the front of the case. (In this case cpu cooling wont be as effective due to the air coming through the radiator will have already picked up some heat from the other components).

 

Which one you rather have? Thank you

 

I'm interpreting this as...

 

Two top mounted 140 case fans.

1 rear mounted 140 case fan.

H110 with four 140 fans mounted. Running in PWM.

 

Haswell at 4.3-4.5 GHz, NOT de-lidded.

 

James may be forgetting that PWM is a variable.

 

 

I would go for scenario "1".

 

In scenario "1" with the H110 blowing in, and top and rear fans exhausting you will have negative case pressure most of the time. I would hypothesis that as your 4x140 fans on the H110 are PWM fans and you are under the thermal brick wall that afflicts Ivy Bridge and Haswell, they will be running at considerably less than full RPM during games and FSX, thus it's more likely you will have negative enclosure pressure rather than positive. Or perhaps balanced enclosure pressure. Negative case pressure [or balanced] is optimal for cooling. Yes, warm radiator air will flow into the enclosure, theoretically increasing motherboard and graphics card temps, but it's not going to be more than 1-2 degrees. Furthermore, you don't have an air cooler, and air coolers distribute a certain amount of warm air inside the case, so the 1-2 degrees increase in MB and GPU temp is compensated for. In fact, cool air from outside of the enclosure is the scenario recommended by Corsair. Given you have an overclocked Haswell, the above is my opinion as to the best scenario.

 

 

Without knowing the CFM of each fan it's not easy to be definitive, so consider that as a variable.

 

Scenario "2" as I mentioned would generate positive case pressure, as the Corsair H110 fans would be ramped down due to PWM. Some people prefer this scenario, as it results in less dust ingestion. However, by definition, positive case pressure necessities that air will exhaust slower than intake air, thus somewhat less efficient cooling. And of course, in this scenario your CPU temp will be slightly higher, as pre-warmed air is entering the radiator.

 

If you deicide to push Haswell to the absolute max, and you find your PWM fans are ramping up to max RPM, then obviously you will have 4 fans taking in air and only three fans exhausting, thus positive case pressure. This is okay if you are comfortable with positive case pressure, if not, consider option "2".

 

At the end of the day, it's easy enough for you to turn your fans around if it's not working in practice. Will be interesting to learn of your findings.

 

Apologies for rambling on a bit, but as you can see, this can be fairly complex.

[martin-w 1,095]

Forgot to mention, if your case fans are PWM too, that's another variable that could change the configuration.

 

I would stick to option "1" if it were me, but pay attention to what the fans were actually doing during use, in terms of RPM.

 

At the end of the day, no matter what you do we are only talking about minor temperature differences.

[flyaway 11]

Exactly, thats my setup.

 

I bought two noctua nf-a14 fans for the radiator, the other two fans will be the ones that come with the h110. As for the other 3 case fans they will be the silent series that comes with the arc midi 2 case.

 

I will do the 1st option and see how it goes.

 

I should use the noctua fans in front of the radiator as pull right? Since they have better static pressure. Thoughts?

[martin-w 1,095]

High static pressure fans are designed to push air through a restriction, like a heat sink or radiator or hard drive enclosure.

 

So if your H110 is at the front, then the Noctua fans should be mounted to the front of the enclosure blowing air through the rad.

 

 

      

Front grill

 

      

Noctua fans

 

     

Radiator

 

     

Corsair fans.

 

 

 

I believe the Corsair fans that come with the H110 have good static pressure too.

 

I like Noctua fans myself. I have some NF-F12's.