I think it's okay not to be too scientific Herr. Most ppl are gonna use the fans they already have anyways. Even if you knew the loudness and rpm readings, cfm and static pressure would remain a mystery. The relative fan speeds are okay to draw basic conclusions
I've done a similar test myself with 12 case fans once, tried every combination. The conclusion was you only need 1 or 2 intake and only 1 exhaust. Thanks for reading ☺
What I've learned from my experience: At the top of the case you should only mount exhaust fans behind the CPU cooler. Mounting exhaust fans on the other places at the top of the case is counter-productive - you're just throwing away the cool air that you've just pushed in through the front, before it has had a chance to reach the cooler. You can easily notice that when you put the PC under heavy load just by feeling the air coming out from the top - the back-most fan blows warm air, while the other two blow much cooler (if they are also exhausts). I guess you could mount the other ones as intakes instead, but if you already have enough intakes at the front/bottom, then adding more at the top wouldn't really make a difference anyway. At most, it would just screw up the air flow. If you're on water cooling, you can run the radiator at the top as exhaust, but you still should NOT place any other exhaust fans in front of it. You should have one fan at the back and the radiator at the top as exhausts, everything else should be intakes from the front/bottom. And always try to have more intake air than exhaust air. Since intakes also have to be filtered, it's best to have two more intake fans than exhaust (if they are the same size/RPM/etc), if possible. So, if you're on air cooling - the best configuration is to have two exhausts (back-most top+rear) and four intakes (three front+one bottom or two front+two bottom). If you have 5 fans - you can do 3 in+2 out, while keeping the intakes at a bit higher RPMs than the exhausts. If you only have 4 fans - just run 3 intakes (front/bottom) and 1 exhaust at the back.
What about for a case that has 3 front fans, 1 rear fan, two top fans. Obviously the front 3 are intake, rear is exhaust. I know not to put the top front fan as exhaust, but what about the rear top fan? Should it be intake or exhaust? I really don't think it matters tbh, as I have seen testing for my specific case (cooler master H500) that showed CPU temp improvement in both cases for the rear top fan, but wanted to hear your opinion on it
@@henry3397 The rear-most top fan is usually fine as exhaust, since it sits "behind" the CPU cooler, as far as airflow is concerned. So it is not a problem to have it pull the hot air behind the cooler out. If your case is such that even the rear-most top fan is "in front" of the CPU - then it would not be a great idea to have it as exhaust, but that's not common.
@@henry3397 PS: I just had a look at your case - the rear-most top fan sits directly above the CPU, as far as I saw. That explains why both configurations can have an effect - if you have it as intake you're blowing cool air directly into the cooler, and with exhaust you're pulling it from it - it basically acts as one more fan on your CPU cooler. If your CPU cooler is mounted to blow towards the back of the case (the usual way) - you can pretty much have the same effect no matter how the top fan is oriented. If your cooler blows up - definitely have the top fan as exhaust.
I run overclocked 5950x and have just 2 intake fans and 1 out fan, air cooled cpu, all fans running between 650-800rpm, super slow, and the thing stays cool. With proper directed airflow, 3 case fans is all you need.
Similar setup here. I have a very old custom case. The Apevia X-Sniper G. 1 rear exhaust, one side panel fan centered on the GPU, but a small amount of air hits the NVME drive and CPU, and one bottom intake fan in the front. All 120mm. i7-4790 and a GTX 1080 FTW both stay around 60°C playing Subnautica and most games I've tested so far. But CPU temp can rise up to ~72°C in some areas - due to poor game optimization I think. Really surprised how stable my temps are with such a config. Thinking about trying to mount another 120mm on my 5.25" drive bay covers as they have holes that center with them! With a stock Intel cooler btw. Also just upgraded from old molex fans to Arctic F12s and P12s and saw my temps rise considerably under load using PWM control. But dropped a few degrees after cranking them to full speed while gaming. I had an 80mm fan in the back before too, which I think could actually help, since air is drawn by the fan and pushed freely around it through the surrounding exhaust holes.
Trying to find the perfect balance between cooling and silence is quite a challenge. In my case, I believe the pump in my AIO is the most noisy part. I'm considering making the change to an Air Cooler just to see if I can make my PC quieter.
On a typical "modern" setup the best basic configuration is a 360mm AIO, in a standard full tower case with at least 3 120 slots on the front and 3 on the top, the 360mm AIO exhausting outwards on the top mount, 3 120mm intake fans on the front panel, and one exhaust on the top of the back of the case. With more fans crossing each other on the intake, you get turbulence which prevents good fresh air coverage on the GPU, and with an air tower cooler you have higher internal temperature in the case.
I have this case, and I filled it completely with Thermaltakes SWAFAN's, 3x 140mm front intake, 3x 120mm on the AIO on the top, 1x 120mm on the rear exhaust and 3x 120mm on the bottom with the GPU horizontally mounted and I have great temps... yes it may not be needed on the bottom, but it looks cool!
I bought my first Antec case in 2000. Glad to see them making an innovative comeback for enthusiasts. I'm in the market for a new high-air flow case, and up until now I've only considered the Fractal Torrent, but now I'll include P1 FT as well. One thing I'd change: black-out the front grill (including the Antec logo--or remove it completely with a delete or screw/snap). The entire case is mostly black, but the front grill contrast bothers me against the black case.
Exciting to see Antec putting in effort to improve and continue to release products. Additionally this was such a functionally good way to showcase the product while giving good info. Keep it up Dimitri!
you literally gave me a brilliant idea. I have like 10-15 fans from a mining rigg. I think the motherboard screws can fit on them. They are big fans. Could work! although needs to be open case anyways. Unless I cover it with something else
I don't remember whether I ever had an Antec case, but I definitely remember wanting one - Antec 900 and 1200. It was more than 10 years ago. Another legend of the old days was Coolermaster HAF 932. And then there was that Silverstone full tower that literally no one could afford in my country.
Good info on air flow BUT if you are introducing a new case, you should take the time to go over the case itself and what features it has before going to the testing phase. Need a follow up video.
more fans means lower fan speed required for the same temps, which means lower noise. im about to swap my build into a NV& with all 12 fans. she gonna be cool n quiet
Only if they're in the right places and pointed the right way. And its not 1:1 cooling improvement to noise reduction. More fans will almost always be louder for the same cooling potential.
I saw that adding 1 fan on the top end of the case help of the air output without hindering the intake airflow, would have been nice to be seen on the video
Your shots are crazy bro. And I like how you do your tests and the multiple configurations, it's nothing too too exact and precise, but shows the general take aways, which is really the most you can get out of these types of tests considering how many variables in setup are possible. Great work!
Antec deserves praise for this case. It's mega clean, cable management is great and design wise they dare to build more than a metal box with holes (*cough* nzxt *cough*).
I kinda wish cases came with plates to block off fan positions you don't want to use. The top exhaust closest to the front is one such example, if you don't have a radiator there then you want it blocked off so the fresh air is directed towards the CPU cooler instead of ejected before even touching a single component.
Only put one fan backend to your case, it will talk out 70% heat from your case, add another at front, the airflow is good enough for 90% condition, other extra fans just add few effect to talk out heat from your case.
Where is the air coming from for the bottom fans? I have a Lian Li Lancool II Mesh, and my GPU temps dropped when I put a 120mm fan on the bottom to suck in cool air and direct it at the GPU. The Lancool also has mesh bottom skirts so there's a path for fresh air to come in. I don't see a way for fresh air to come in at the bottom of this case, though. 🤔
I have an NZXT H7 Flow with 5x140 mm Arctic P14s. No temperature-related issues at all, with an air-cooled 5800X3D using a Scythe FUMA 2, and a 6900XT. On stock fan profile for the 6900XT, and fans in the case set to 35% (3x140mm front, 1 back, 1 top; It has room for 2 more 140s at the top as well), the GPU will get to 74C and 93-95C hotspot. That's with the GPU fans under 60%. It's basically silent. With a custom profile that ramps the 5 fans up to 50%, those temps drop to 69C and 88C respectively. Air cooling is far from dead unless you use absolutely bonkers parts that consume way too much energy to begin with lol.
I'm shopping for a PC and I see 5 packs for like $30-40 then I see these other fans like the one shown in this video where its 3 connected sitting on top of the case for like $90-100. I'm wondering if there's any difference between the two.
So what happens when you flip the fans around on the roof/shroud? In other words, set the roof as intake vs exhaust, and exhaust on the shroud, thus directing air downwards away from the CPU cooler. And especially with the AIO, the radiator would be drawing in external air vs venting case air.
There's a reason people build cases the way they do, and it's very simple - physics. Hot air tends to go up by itself, so forcing it downwards is just counter-productive. I mean, it's not like it won't work at all, but you're just never going to get better results by trying to flip the airflow like that.
@@Mismatch- The amount of upward airflow from thermal convection is miniscule - easily overwhelmed by a single small fan. Beyond that the design for cases all conform to the ATX format which has been around for decades, extending back to when desktops were horizontal, or those old "beige box" cases where the only ventilation was in front and back. That point was made particularly well during this video where the fans set in a chimney fashion actually had higher CPU temps. And specifically with a water-cooled solution, the temperature of the ambient airflow through the radiator matters more than the direction. And outside-the-case ambient air will always be cooler than the air inside the case under load.
@@JDCheng The point I was trying to make is that the action of flipping the airflow will not help in any way. If you want the radiator to be intake - you can always just mount it at the front. As for whether it should be intake or exhaust- that depends on which component's cooling you're prioritizing - CPU or GPU. Usually GPUs produce more heat, so they need more fresh air, so it's better not to push hot air into the case through the radiator. As for the "chimney test" - the problem there was that the cooler just had nowhere to get fresh air from, with the GPU right beneath it blocking airflow while also feeding it hot air... If you remove the GPU - the CPU will not be hotter in chimney mode than regular. Will it be colder? Probably not, but it certainly won't be hotter.
@@Mismatch- That is what the front case fans are for. As the GPU is the greatest source of heat vs the CPU, the relatively small heat increase by drawing air through the CPU's radiator into the case would be well offset by drawing fresh air from the front.
@@JDCheng OK, it seems I misunderstood what you were saying, you mean rad intake at the top, more intakes at the front and exhaust at the bottom? I mean, I guess you could do it "just for the lols", but the bottom fans will pull a lot of the cool air that you've just pushed in through the front out of the case before it even reaches the GPU, meanwhile the GPU will blow hot air upwards while the rad at the top blows more hot air down towards it as well... the airflow inside that case will be a complete mess. I guess you could also flip the GPU upside-down to make the situation better... but I see no reason to do any of that. If what you want is the rad to be intake - put it at the front, add more intakes at the bottom, and exhaust through the back/top. This way you get what you're trying to achieve while also having good airflow. No need to reinvent the wheel.
I too found that maximizing air into the front led to modest temps: 52 to 55 C (at 37% fan speed, all fans). Legacy CoolerMaster 500 case, front intake w 3 T30s, back w single 140 Nochua, top has 240 AIO for 3080, 11700k cpu has BeQuiet Dark Rock TF 2. Putting in a second GPU (evga 3080 Ti ftw3 ultra) in lower PCIe slot running at about 77 to 81 C w it’s fans at 100% results in 3080 going up 5 C and CPU only a couple. Case and 3080 AIO fans stay below 70% speed.
I am pretty sure the front panel isn't blocking much noise, but the fans get quieter when they have to work against some restriction that reduces airflow
I´m currently only using 3 front intake fans + 1 bottom (regulated by GPU temperature - sits at 0rpm in idle) and CPU fan. All of them except the bottom fan are on the same 2 curves (mixed curve in fan control - allows setting multiple fan curves to the same fans and react to whatever gets warmer). CPU fan also works as main air exhaust. In my case, there is no need for dedicated exhaust fans - in full load, if i put my hand behind the case, i can feel the breeze coming out of the case. PS. All my intake fans have 15mm shrouds in front of them. It helps reducing the noise and also increases intake area for each fan, while slightly reducing available space for the GPU (my GPU is quite short, it fits without any issues).
I've noted the Lian Li Lancool 216 case wasn't included in the comparison chart, but then making the sponsor look bad wasn't really the goal. My last Antec case was the Dapper Dark Phantom DP301M M-ATX and discovered it lacked airflow. $160 is pricey for the Antec Performance 1 FT when the much better (white) Lian Li Lancool 216 RGB case can be found for $100 (normally $115) and the 2 front PWM ARGB intake fans are 160mm. Of course the investment rises when replacing the rear exhaust fan with a $30 CoolerMaster MasterFan MF140 Halo and a 3pk of $62 MasterFan Halo’s for the top AIO (for exhaust as well) My system is a positive pressure setup to ensure all intake air is filtered through the optional $13 front Lian Li LAN216-2W (white) magnetic front dust filter. I’ve had the (white) Lian Li Lancool Il mesh RGB but the 1.5mm mesh hole size allowed a bit too much dust inside so I tried the (white) Phanteks Eclipse P500A D-RGB but the 1mm mesh hole size wasn’t much better so the filtered Lancool 216 finally got it right, plus Lian Li didn’t repeat the mistake of the Lancool Il mesh where intake air bypassed the mesh entirely at the bottom front cover. My Godlike EATX MB has plenty of room and the ability to move the top button to the easier to reach lower left side could be viewed as a negative for case manufacturers since I doubt I’ll be in the market again for quite some time. The longevity of CoolerMaster fans is a concern but they are the best looking fans IMO and matched the front Lian Li fans better than anything Lian Li offered. I mean, they can’t be any worse than the often failing RGB of the Corsair LL120’s I yanked off my AIO. BTW, I was able to eliminate the proprietary Corsair lighting node pro hub and Commander Core since the Lian Li RGB controller allowed daisy chaining.
I populated all the fan locations in mine and played with the fan curves a lot. Results are: Idle is low 30s, watching videos low 40s, AAA gaming mid to upper 50s. My case is the Hyte Y60.
Rotate the fans on the tower cooler and the back of the case - this would give cold air directly to tower cooler giving you the lowest temps to CPU. You'll now have an area of hot air at the front top quadrant, set the fans as exhaust at the top 2 of the front (bottom as intake for gpu cold air) and first top half. Set the last rear fan as intake.
@bruh The air will exhaust from the upper front quadrant. Air will be coming in from the left and bottom. I've done dozens of tests on my personal system and I am in the top 1% world's ranking of GPU overclocking on stock air cooler. Test it before you make assumptions. The standard set up is terrible because the hot air from the gpu's pass through only exposes CPU to hot air mixed with the front case fans. Reversing the air from the back fan as intake lets cpu tower cooler use immediately cold air. Using the bottom fans as intake gives cold air to the gpu. Setting the fans in the upper front quadrant as exhaust will pull out the hot air.
@@JustForFun-dh3to tbh this sounds reasonable despite it flying in the face of conventional fan placement wisdom, I'd love to see someone test it out, given how so many cases nowadays have the bottom/side intake
Very good video more for the education of fan positioning than the sponsored case review. Maybe a topic worth revisiting with different air configurations. It kills me everytime I see an OL11 Dynamic (or similar case) with fans on the front and immediately on the side 90 degrees (kind of like an L-shape configuration on the very front portion of the case), both intake causing major turbulence with each other just for the RGB looks. Just because you CAN put fans in there doesn't mean you SHOULD.
1:36 In most cases up to 0.5kW of heat- Front panel as much airflow as possible, one back fan- Top blocked from front up to 1/3rd of length from back- That's all you need- AiO cooler on top only and the same scenario, but you're blocking the top with radiator
Antec makes some legit good stuff, I had one of their mATX cases for a bit the NX200M and it was very decent for a midrange system !! You only really need 3 fans in an average system. Or 4/5 if you count the fans on the air tower cooler. I have 4 in total, 2 Noctua NF-A15 HS as front intake then 1 Arctic Bionix F120 as my CPU heatsink fan and 1 Arctic P14 PWM as my top exhaust. That's it!! I had a rear exhaust too but it created turbulence.
had been interesting to see how it had done with 9 fans (add the top 3 but leave the bottom 3 out) would it help to get heat out, or have a negative impact due to interfering with the front/back airflow?
still rocking an Antec 1100 OG, it's the one with the 200mm fan uptop, not the dual 120 fan mounts. I got rid of the 200mm fan when I got a hybrid GPU several years ago. I have only 2 fans as exhaust in my case, no intake fans. one is in the usual spot at top-back of case, the other is part of an AIO for my gpu which is used as an exhaust at top of case. we have 2 cats, so not having any screen covering the side panel fan mounts would mean my pc is full of car hair, right? well, not so fast. I accidentally figured out a way to minimize cat hair buildup. The way that our computer area is setup, I have to keep my pc on a small cart on the floor below the desk(not directly on the floor, just on a small cart) and I have it close to the wall behind the desk with the front panel pointed to the left, whcih means the side panel with the fan mounts are about an inch away from the wall. Just the general airflow of the room and the pc being under a desk and near the wall means that very little to almost no cat hair ever makes it into the pc.
lovely video. never saw such useful information anywhere else. now i exactly now what kind of cooling i will go for. thanks brother. good job. good channel!
Classic hardware company, I used an ANTEC SLK3700-BQE bought in 2003 for many many years, a case similar to the old SONATA line. Dimitry knows what am talking about he is old skool.
Does the front panel really reduce the noise, or is it just crippling the intake and therefore max rpm on the fans and that's the reason why the fans are much louder without the front? The more rpm the fans can do, the more you might notice the reduction in max rpm with the front panel vs. without it
Not ideal. You want to create directional airflow from one side of the case to the other with slight positive pressure to recycle and blow air over all the hardware that generate heat
the thing about AIOs is that you have to deal with the pump hum no matter how low you run it, but in turn your PC overall is a lot quieter since the flowing liquid is doing most of the heavy work, and the fan on your radiators don't have to run as hard either. Usually anything 240mm and up for radiators is always my suggestion over air coolers just cause of the sheer drop in sound alone. its what made me drop my M1 macbook pro as my daily driver and switch back to my desktop
I see one flaw here with air cooler, despite hot air going up, in this config only top fan above cpu should be exhaust, the first two should be in take, if they are exhaust you're taking out air provided from front fans before it reaches the cpu, no wonder you have bad results
Technically 8 for me so far in mine. 3 bottom SL-120 Infinity fans, stock dual 140mm in front+ 120mm rear, and the two that came with my Deepcool AK620.
@@Devo_gx 2 140 stock fans at the front 3 120 Deepcool fans on the bottom 3 120 Deepcool fans on the side 3 120 Deepcool fans on the top 2 120 Deepcool fans for the CPU cooler So technically 11 but still 13 realistically. It's loud but adding some CPU undervolting for my Ryzen 7 puts it around 22 to 25°C so win win haha.
you shouldnt use them as exhaust, thats for sure lol. Either none, or set them as intake. maybe the rear top fan as exhaust, but certainly not the front one. It robs the CPU cooler of fresh air
How about dual chamber fish tank cases? With the side intake, bottom 3 intake, top 3 exhaust and 1 back exhaust? The case feet are high enough, theres no shroud so the fans are directly intake air from the bottom. Will it still create a turbulent air?
That would be worse wouldn't it? He got turbulence in his test, and the bottom 3 fans were heavily restricted. Now, in your aquarium case, they are not restricted much at all, so the effect will be further exacerbated. IMO, those types of cases work best with AIO coolers. You can mount the AIO either on the side or in front (as intake), or on the top (as an exhaust). If you are air cooling in that type of case, I am unsure if you can draw the same conclusions as you can here, but I would assume it would be similar, i.e. dont populate the top and bottom portions of the case with fans
*how noisy is my GTX1080 + R9-3900x?* I modded the GTX1080 with two Noctua fans. I have two, Noctua FRONT fans as intake. The CPU fan (15cm only) on Noctua NH-D14 serves as the exhaust too. My PSU fan never comes on. So... how noisy? My fans rarely spin above 600RPM. I can't hear the computer when gaming even with the sound turned off. I can ONLY hear the CPU fan if I'm doing something really intensive. Most people have no idea how to optimize for noise... here's a tip: set your CPU and GPU fan profiles so they don't ramp up much until near the max temp you want... low RPM until, say, 65degC, slightly sharper ramp to 80degC then VERY sharp ramp until about 85degC (will vary by system but the concept applies to all). MANY people are obsessed with keeping the chips COOL all the time at the expense of noise. Why? I've been doing it this way for well over ten years.
I thought maybe one of the configs would be with the AIO in the front, that way the cpu radiator would have outside air. Going to build in this case next and according to Antec a 420 can fit in the front. and maybe that bottom fan on the aio will push air underneath the psu shroud...we shall see. Great video, love how you guys do multiple oppositions!
In my cheapo Corsair Carbide 100R, I run one 120mm fan pushing in the front, and one pulling in the back and my CPU stays around 38-60 F (desktop-gaming) when it's 82 F in the room. I have never understood why people jam 6-8 fans in there.
Thank you! I was wondering about the efficiency of those cases that seem to be built of fans (can see plenty of them fishtank style ones on PCPP). I was also having doubts about the chimney style cooling, as there is a huge block in the way of the airflow (the GPU). With air cooling, a clear front-to-back channel with plenty of intake is the best, just as the conventional wisdom goes. With SFF, I found it is a bit of an opposite situation and the biggest gains are from removing the heat from the case (as the unit fans are usually close enough to the case panels to help themselves).
Explanation at 4:36 isn't accurate. Heat from gpu doesn't "intertwine" with heat from cpu resulting in higher temps. Your top case exhaust literally sucks fresh air from front panel intake that suppose to go to your cpu cooler.
Has anyone tried a 420 AIO front intake, possibly with 2 fans on the other side for push pull? exhaust on top and extra intake from the bottom, since the intake from the aio would be lower? I'm pretty sure it's better for the CPU temps but wondering what it would mean for gpu temps.
Front mount AIO is always better for CPU temps, it has marginal effect on GPU temps. Top mount AIO will have higher CPU temps, ESPECIALLY if you have an open air GPU. If you have a blower style GPU, that exhausts mostly out the back of the case, such as a founders edition nvidia card, then it can be acceptable to use a top mount AIO.
Try the Lian Li Mesh 2 Performance case. I think there is no better cooling in its price; everything is well thought out. Yes, the front panel is not like Lexus... but if a person wants to reduce the temperature of the video card (and this case is one of the best in this regard; it is enough to install at least one fan from below), then this is an excellent choice.
Pre video guess: these things always have the diminishing returns thing, I am guessing every fan gets less results then the previous ones. Without a radiator I think the sweetspot might actually be at 1 in 1 out, but with a rad probably 2 in through rad 1 out. Okay with seeing the 360 rad that might change it a bit. Perhaps 3 in 1 out or 3 in 2 out will still pull their weight in this one. My current system has an 18cm intake fan and a 12cm exhaust, hoping that the slight overpressure keeps slowly refreshing the 'dead spot' under the gpu. And with how the fins by the pci ports exhaust warm air while gaming, it seems to work. Yeah I was expecting some low fan tests as well. 4 fans is kind of already hitting peak efficiency, adding any more doesn't improve much at that point.
I'm using an older Fractal Design Focus G case. I replaced the stock white LED fans with 2 Fractal Prisma 140mm fans in front as intakes and 2 Prisma 120mm fans as rear and top exhaust. My I7-11700F is cooled by a Scythe Fuma 2 cooler, and my GPU is a 2070 Super with the Dell/MSI Aero blower cooler. CPU and GPU temps idle at 37C but can push 70C/82c in heavy workloads. The higher 'loaded' GPU temps can be blamed on the blower cooler.
Any chance Antec will make a version of this case with a solid panel for the cable side or at least sell the solid side panel separately? I can do without double sided glass panels as I don't want to see the backside of the motherboard tray.
I wish the front cover of my Antec case came off that easily. That's what I get for having an old case, I guess. I'd never fit that monster under my TV though.
Depends really on the case..... i have better airflow with small cases, rather than big ones, harder to fill with moving air, providing potential multiple air currents. You can mix vertical and horizontal airflow, as cpu coolers tower models or small factors ones........ just be simple, with low noise levels, and non-opposite airflows. i noticed a gain with gpu fans, below the gpu. or at 90°, if the fan shoots air from the side panel. helps to cool the gpu. low rpm fan, just ti help the gpu, especially modern ones with no-fan modes until a certain temperature reached. Just test it.........beware of power consumption, as more fan, more power needed....logical Best results where surprisingly with small case, and very long gpu, occupying the case in length.... so one air "tunnel" for the gpu, and the other for the cpu, with a little hot air climbing from the gpu backplate. And hot air getting exhausted at the top.
Since the introduction of flow through GPU cooling, why does no one try to reverse the CPU air cooler and make rear fan an intake? Why reuse preheated GPU airflow for CPU cooling in the first place? It would make so much more sense for separated air flow. At least in theory. Yeah, and shrouds suck. Top PSU for air cooled GPU is often better. BTW turbulence is good for cooling. Forces "surface" air to mix with the flow. Not removing hot part asap isn't though. Cooling is all about removing heat.
Great review. I have 1BIG question : my argument is 3 fans on the bottom really needed - I see a lot of fan videos I haven't had 3 fans on the bottom 4 years. With 2 intake and 2 out take + the GPU (4090) and the quality corsair 170i cooler. i have had temps sitting @ 63c randomly w average of 49-56c. is 3 fans still needed @ the bottom w both CPU and GPU in lower temps then this w a old case phanteks 800 case...w a lot of breathing inside....?
By his examples of you are running the AIO on top it would be 4 fans out and only 3 in which could create a negative pressure situation unless you throttle up the 3 front fans. So the extra 2 on the bottom (3rd is just aesthetics in this case because the PSU is blocking it) makes 5 in and 4 out for a positive static pressure. So as he said, the bottom fans are only beneficial with an AIO on the CPU.
i still have my nas in an antec902, and currently using an antec900 barebone chassis in a custom case but moved this pc to a corsair c70 while i work on redoing that case when i can
Ok this is very interesting! However, I am very curious to see this same methodology applied to a LianLi 011D and other cases like it. Everyone just loves filling them with fans but is it really necessary?
If you have a Corsair Carbide Air 540 with three 120x38 front and a 140x38 rear all with peak 5,000rpm you would probably never have to run them over 2,500rpm. In those conditions there is no need to use the top. Basically everything is better if you just stop using 25mm fans.
I put as many fans as possible. I have a 13900K on a 420mm Arctic Liquid Freezer II. For the case fans, I have 7 Arctic P12 Maxes. I can fit 1 more fan. :)
But how do you balance having a 420mm aio exaust on top and a 140mm fan at the back, I can't have 4 intakes without using at least one of the bottom slots (only 3 fans fot in the front) so shouldnI go with negative pressure or would bottom fans in this case improve things more then they hurt things due to turblance? I guess I could get faster fans for the front to get positive pressure
Using percentages of fan speeds for comparison is a bad idea because it means nothing to viewers. We don't know how much rpm it is or the noise level.
I think it's okay not to be too scientific Herr. Most ppl are gonna use the fans they already have anyways. Even if you knew the loudness and rpm readings, cfm and static pressure would remain a mystery. The relative fan speeds are okay to draw basic conclusions
I do
Same Fans remember?
I've done a similar test myself with 12 case fans once, tried every combination. The conclusion was you only need 1 or 2 intake and only 1 exhaust. Thanks for reading ☺
What I've learned from my experience: At the top of the case you should only mount exhaust fans behind the CPU cooler. Mounting exhaust fans on the other places at the top of the case is counter-productive - you're just throwing away the cool air that you've just pushed in through the front, before it has had a chance to reach the cooler. You can easily notice that when you put the PC under heavy load just by feeling the air coming out from the top - the back-most fan blows warm air, while the other two blow much cooler (if they are also exhausts).
I guess you could mount the other ones as intakes instead, but if you already have enough intakes at the front/bottom, then adding more at the top wouldn't really make a difference anyway. At most, it would just screw up the air flow.
If you're on water cooling, you can run the radiator at the top as exhaust, but you still should NOT place any other exhaust fans in front of it. You should have one fan at the back and the radiator at the top as exhausts, everything else should be intakes from the front/bottom.
And always try to have more intake air than exhaust air. Since intakes also have to be filtered, it's best to have two more intake fans than exhaust (if they are the same size/RPM/etc), if possible. So, if you're on air cooling - the best configuration is to have two exhausts (back-most top+rear) and four intakes (three front+one bottom or two front+two bottom). If you have 5 fans - you can do 3 in+2 out, while keeping the intakes at a bit higher RPMs than the exhausts. If you only have 4 fans - just run 3 intakes (front/bottom) and 1 exhaust at the back.
What about for a case that has 3 front fans, 1 rear fan, two top fans. Obviously the front 3 are intake, rear is exhaust. I know not to put the top front fan as exhaust, but what about the rear top fan? Should it be intake or exhaust? I really don't think it matters tbh, as I have seen testing for my specific case (cooler master H500) that showed CPU temp improvement in both cases for the rear top fan, but wanted to hear your opinion on it
@@henry3397 The rear-most top fan is usually fine as exhaust, since it sits "behind" the CPU cooler, as far as airflow is concerned. So it is not a problem to have it pull the hot air behind the cooler out.
If your case is such that even the rear-most top fan is "in front" of the CPU - then it would not be a great idea to have it as exhaust, but that's not common.
@@henry3397 PS: I just had a look at your case - the rear-most top fan sits directly above the CPU, as far as I saw. That explains why both configurations can have an effect - if you have it as intake you're blowing cool air directly into the cooler, and with exhaust you're pulling it from it - it basically acts as one more fan on your CPU cooler.
If your CPU cooler is mounted to blow towards the back of the case (the usual way) - you can pretty much have the same effect no matter how the top fan is oriented. If your cooler blows up - definitely have the top fan as exhaust.
I run overclocked 5950x and have just 2 intake fans and 1 out fan, air cooled cpu, all fans running between 650-800rpm, super slow, and the thing stays cool. With proper directed airflow, 3 case fans is all you need.
Similar setup here. I have a very old custom case. The Apevia X-Sniper G. 1 rear exhaust, one side panel fan centered on the GPU, but a small amount of air hits the NVME drive and CPU, and one bottom intake fan in the front. All 120mm. i7-4790 and a GTX 1080 FTW both stay around 60°C playing Subnautica and most games I've tested so far. But CPU temp can rise up to ~72°C in some areas - due to poor game optimization I think. Really surprised how stable my temps are with such a config. Thinking about trying to mount another 120mm on my 5.25" drive bay covers as they have holes that center with them!
With a stock Intel cooler btw.
Also just upgraded from old molex fans to Arctic F12s and P12s and saw my temps rise considerably under load using PWM control. But dropped a few degrees after cranking them to full speed while gaming. I had an 80mm fan in the back before too, which I think could actually help, since air is drawn by the fan and pushed freely around it through the surrounding exhaust holes.
Trying to find the perfect balance between cooling and silence is quite a challenge. In my case, I believe the pump in my AIO is the most noisy part. I'm considering making the change to an Air Cooler just to see if I can make my PC quieter.
On a typical "modern" setup the best basic configuration is a 360mm AIO, in a standard full tower case with at least 3 120 slots on the front and 3 on the top, the 360mm AIO exhausting outwards on the top mount, 3 120mm intake fans on the front panel, and one exhaust on the top of the back of the case. With more fans crossing each other on the intake, you get turbulence which prevents good fresh air coverage on the GPU, and with an air tower cooler you have higher internal temperature in the case.
You might as well go for the Fractal Torrent, Same style case but better
the torrent is still better
@@GuidoDePalma Thats what i said..
I have this case, and I filled it completely with Thermaltakes SWAFAN's, 3x 140mm front intake, 3x 120mm on the AIO on the top, 1x 120mm on the rear exhaust and 3x 120mm on the bottom with the GPU horizontally mounted and I have great temps... yes it may not be needed on the bottom, but it looks cool!
I bought my first Antec case in 2000. Glad to see them making an innovative comeback for enthusiasts. I'm in the market for a new high-air flow case, and up until now I've only considered the Fractal Torrent, but now I'll include P1 FT as well.
One thing I'd change: black-out the front grill (including the Antec logo--or remove it completely with a delete or screw/snap). The entire case is mostly black, but the front grill contrast bothers me against the black case.
Exciting to see Antec putting in effort to improve and continue to release products. Additionally this was such a functionally good way to showcase the product while giving good info. Keep it up Dimitri!
But how about a case MADE of fans?!? 😂
Iv seen this case you speak of 🤣
you literally gave me a brilliant idea.
I have like 10-15 fans from a mining rigg. I think the motherboard screws can fit on them. They are big fans.
Could work! although needs to be open case anyways. Unless I cover it with something else
Maximum airflow baby.
Surprised LTT hasn't done that yet
haha the cube one
I have this Antec. was excited to see a Antec on the market so I jumped and bought it. I really like it, I am very happy that I made the change.
I don't remember whether I ever had an Antec case, but I definitely remember wanting one - Antec 900 and 1200. It was more than 10 years ago. Another legend of the old days was Coolermaster HAF 932. And then there was that Silverstone full tower that literally no one could afford in my country.
Good info on air flow BUT if you are introducing a new case, you should take the time to go over the case itself and what features it has before going to the testing phase. Need a follow up video.
Good to see this confirmed about top AND bottom fans.
Wish you showed AIO in the front too.
AIO radiator placement in the front is a bad setup, no?
more fans means lower fan speed required for the same temps, which means lower noise. im about to swap my build into a NV& with all 12 fans. she gonna be cool n quiet
Only if they're in the right places and pointed the right way. And its not 1:1 cooling improvement to noise reduction. More fans will almost always be louder for the same cooling potential.
Hey, you didn’t test front-top intake with rear-top exhaust, for me it’s 2/3C of difference without top fans!
I saw that adding 1 fan on the top end of the case help of the air output without hindering the intake airflow, would have been nice to be seen on the video
Your shots are crazy bro. And I like how you do your tests and the multiple configurations, it's nothing too too exact and precise, but shows the general take aways, which is really the most you can get out of these types of tests considering how many variables in setup are possible. Great work!
I haven’t watched much pc hardware content in some time but i got the notif the moment this was published. Glad to see you guys still going strong!
Antec deserves praise for this case. It's mega clean, cable management is great and design wise they dare to build more than a metal box with holes (*cough* nzxt *cough*).
Using those 140s as intake on an NZXT H7 Flow, they're great fans. Move a ton of air.
I kinda wish cases came with plates to block off fan positions you don't want to use. The top exhaust closest to the front is one such example, if you don't have a radiator there then you want it blocked off so the fresh air is directed towards the CPU cooler instead of ejected before even touching a single component.
Only put one fan backend to your case, it will talk out 70% heat from your case, add another at front, the airflow is good enough for 90% condition, other extra fans just add few effect to talk out heat from your case.
Where is the air coming from for the bottom fans? I have a Lian Li Lancool II Mesh, and my GPU temps dropped when I put a 120mm fan on the bottom to suck in cool air and direct it at the GPU. The Lancool also has mesh bottom skirts so there's a path for fresh air to come in. I don't see a way for fresh air to come in at the bottom of this case, though. 🤔
Around PSU Intake
I have an NZXT H7 Flow with 5x140 mm Arctic P14s. No temperature-related issues at all, with an air-cooled 5800X3D using a Scythe FUMA 2, and a 6900XT.
On stock fan profile for the 6900XT, and fans in the case set to 35% (3x140mm front, 1 back, 1 top; It has room for 2 more 140s at the top as well), the GPU will get to 74C and 93-95C hotspot. That's with the GPU fans under 60%. It's basically silent.
With a custom profile that ramps the 5 fans up to 50%, those temps drop to 69C and 88C respectively. Air cooling is far from dead unless you use absolutely bonkers parts that consume way too much energy to begin with lol.
I'm shopping for a PC and I see 5 packs for like $30-40 then I see these other fans like the one shown in this video where its 3 connected sitting on top of the case for like $90-100. I'm wondering if there's any difference between the two.
@@MrZulgen There are, the connector itself is really unique and easy, less cables. Performance? Not enough to justify the cost.
I have a new antec case and it has a 5.25 bay!! Thanks Antec for that
So what happens when you flip the fans around on the roof/shroud? In other words, set the roof as intake vs exhaust, and exhaust on the shroud, thus directing air downwards away from the CPU cooler. And especially with the AIO, the radiator would be drawing in external air vs venting case air.
There's a reason people build cases the way they do, and it's very simple - physics. Hot air tends to go up by itself, so forcing it downwards is just counter-productive. I mean, it's not like it won't work at all, but you're just never going to get better results by trying to flip the airflow like that.
@@Mismatch- The amount of upward airflow from thermal convection is miniscule - easily overwhelmed by a single small fan.
Beyond that the design for cases all conform to the ATX format which has been around for decades, extending back to when desktops were horizontal, or those old "beige box" cases where the only ventilation was in front and back.
That point was made particularly well during this video where the fans set in a chimney fashion actually had higher CPU temps.
And specifically with a water-cooled solution, the temperature of the ambient airflow through the radiator matters more than the direction. And outside-the-case ambient air will always be cooler than the air inside the case under load.
@@JDCheng The point I was trying to make is that the action of flipping the airflow will not help in any way. If you want the radiator to be intake - you can always just mount it at the front.
As for whether it should be intake or exhaust- that depends on which component's cooling you're prioritizing - CPU or GPU. Usually GPUs produce more heat, so they need more fresh air, so it's better not to push hot air into the case through the radiator.
As for the "chimney test" - the problem there was that the cooler just had nowhere to get fresh air from, with the GPU right beneath it blocking airflow while also feeding it hot air... If you remove the GPU - the CPU will not be hotter in chimney mode than regular. Will it be colder? Probably not, but it certainly won't be hotter.
@@Mismatch- That is what the front case fans are for. As the GPU is the greatest source of heat vs the CPU, the relatively small heat increase by drawing air through the CPU's radiator into the case would be well offset by drawing fresh air from the front.
@@JDCheng OK, it seems I misunderstood what you were saying, you mean rad intake at the top, more intakes at the front and exhaust at the bottom?
I mean, I guess you could do it "just for the lols", but the bottom fans will pull a lot of the cool air that you've just pushed in through the front out of the case before it even reaches the GPU, meanwhile the GPU will blow hot air upwards while the rad at the top blows more hot air down towards it as well... the airflow inside that case will be a complete mess.
I guess you could also flip the GPU upside-down to make the situation better... but I see no reason to do any of that. If what you want is the rad to be intake - put it at the front, add more intakes at the bottom, and exhaust through the back/top. This way you get what you're trying to achieve while also having good airflow. No need to reinvent the wheel.
I too found that maximizing air into the front led to modest temps: 52 to 55 C (at 37% fan speed, all fans).
Legacy CoolerMaster 500 case, front intake w 3 T30s, back w single 140 Nochua, top has 240 AIO for 3080, 11700k cpu has BeQuiet Dark Rock TF 2.
Putting in a second GPU (evga 3080 Ti ftw3 ultra) in lower PCIe slot running at about 77 to 81 C w it’s fans at 100% results in 3080 going up 5 C and CPU only a couple. Case and 3080 AIO fans stay below 70% speed.
Now what if you have the 3 front fans, the 360mm aio on the top, then have the back 120mm fan as INTAKE instead of exhaust?
I am pretty sure the front panel isn't blocking much noise, but the fans get quieter when they have to work against some restriction that reduces airflow
I´m currently only using 3 front intake fans + 1 bottom (regulated by GPU temperature - sits at 0rpm in idle) and CPU fan. All of them except the bottom fan are on the same 2 curves (mixed curve in fan control - allows setting multiple fan curves to the same fans and react to whatever gets warmer). CPU fan also works as main air exhaust.
In my case, there is no need for dedicated exhaust fans - in full load, if i put my hand behind the case, i can feel the breeze coming out of the case.
PS. All my intake fans have 15mm shrouds in front of them. It helps reducing the noise and also increases intake area for each fan, while slightly reducing available space for the GPU (my GPU is quite short, it fits without any issues).
I've noted the Lian Li Lancool 216 case wasn't included in the comparison chart, but then making the sponsor look bad wasn't really the goal. My last Antec case was the Dapper Dark Phantom DP301M M-ATX and discovered it lacked airflow.
$160 is pricey for the Antec Performance 1 FT when the much better (white) Lian Li Lancool 216 RGB case can be found for $100 (normally $115) and the 2 front PWM ARGB intake fans are 160mm.
Of course the investment rises when replacing the rear exhaust fan with a $30 CoolerMaster MasterFan MF140 Halo and a 3pk of $62 MasterFan Halo’s for the top AIO (for exhaust as well)
My system is a positive pressure setup to ensure all intake air is filtered through the optional $13 front Lian Li LAN216-2W (white) magnetic front dust filter.
I’ve had the (white) Lian Li Lancool Il mesh RGB but the 1.5mm mesh hole size allowed a bit too much dust inside so I tried the (white) Phanteks Eclipse P500A D-RGB but the 1mm mesh hole size wasn’t much better so the filtered Lancool 216 finally got it right, plus Lian Li didn’t repeat the mistake of the Lancool Il mesh where intake air bypassed the mesh entirely at the bottom front cover.
My Godlike EATX MB has plenty of room and the ability to move the top button to the easier to reach lower left side could be viewed as a negative for case manufacturers since I doubt I’ll be in the market again for quite some time.
The longevity of CoolerMaster fans is a concern but they are the best looking fans IMO and matched the front Lian Li fans better than anything Lian Li offered. I mean, they can’t be any worse than the often failing RGB of the Corsair LL120’s I yanked off my AIO. BTW, I was able to eliminate the proprietary Corsair lighting node pro hub and Commander Core since the Lian Li RGB controller allowed daisy chaining.
I populated all the fan locations in mine and played with the fan curves a lot. Results are: Idle is low 30s, watching videos low 40s, AAA gaming mid to upper 50s. My case is the Hyte Y60.
Rotate the fans on the tower cooler and the back of the case - this would give cold air directly to tower cooler giving you the lowest temps to CPU.
You'll now have an area of hot air at the front top quadrant, set the fans as exhaust at the top 2 of the front (bottom as intake for gpu cold air) and first top half.
Set the last rear fan as intake.
@bruh The air will exhaust from the upper front quadrant. Air will be coming in from the left and bottom. I've done dozens of tests on my personal system and I am in the top 1% world's ranking of GPU overclocking on stock air cooler. Test it before you make assumptions.
The standard set up is terrible because the hot air from the gpu's pass through only exposes CPU to hot air mixed with the front case fans.
Reversing the air from the back fan as intake lets cpu tower cooler use immediately cold air. Using the bottom fans as intake gives cold air to the gpu.
Setting the fans in the upper front quadrant as exhaust will pull out the hot air.
@@JustForFun-dh3to tbh this sounds reasonable despite it flying in the face of conventional fan placement wisdom, I'd love to see someone test it out, given how so many cases nowadays have the bottom/side intake
I wonder if the bottom fans are kicking up the hot air that the PSU used to eject out the back
Very good video more for the education of fan positioning than the sponsored case review. Maybe a topic worth revisiting with different air configurations. It kills me everytime I see an OL11 Dynamic (or similar case) with fans on the front and immediately on the side 90 degrees (kind of like an L-shape configuration on the very front portion of the case), both intake causing major turbulence with each other just for the RGB looks. Just because you CAN put fans in there doesn't mean you SHOULD.
"even though this is a sponsored video... I still recommend"😂😂😂
No shit. Shills gotta shill
1:36 In most cases up to 0.5kW of heat- Front panel as much airflow as possible, one back fan- Top blocked from front up to 1/3rd of length from back- That's all you need- AiO cooler on top only and the same scenario, but you're blocking the top with radiator
Antec makes some legit good stuff, I had one of their mATX cases for a bit the NX200M and it was very decent for a midrange system !!
You only really need 3 fans in an average system. Or 4/5 if you count the fans on the air tower cooler. I have 4 in total, 2 Noctua NF-A15 HS as front intake then 1 Arctic Bionix F120 as my CPU heatsink fan and 1 Arctic P14 PWM as my top exhaust. That's it!! I had a rear exhaust too but it created turbulence.
had been interesting to see how it had done with 9 fans (add the top 3 but leave the bottom 3 out) would it help to get heat out, or have a negative impact due to interfering with the front/back airflow?
still rocking an Antec 1100 OG, it's the one with the 200mm fan uptop, not the dual 120 fan mounts. I got rid of the 200mm fan when I got a hybrid GPU several years ago.
I have only 2 fans as exhaust in my case, no intake fans. one is in the usual spot at top-back of case, the other is part of an AIO for my gpu which is used as an exhaust at top of case.
we have 2 cats, so not having any screen covering the side panel fan mounts would mean my pc is full of car hair, right? well, not so fast. I accidentally figured out a way to minimize cat hair buildup. The way that our computer area is setup, I have to keep my pc on a small cart on the floor below the desk(not directly on the floor, just on a small cart) and I have it close to the wall behind the desk with the front panel pointed to the left, whcih means the side panel with the fan mounts are about an inch away from the wall. Just the general airflow of the room and the pc being under a desk and near the wall means that very little to almost no cat hair ever makes it into the pc.
lovely video. never saw such useful information anywhere else. now i exactly now what kind of cooling i will go for. thanks brother. good job. good channel!
Classic hardware company, I used an ANTEC SLK3700-BQE bought in 2003 for many many years, a case similar to the old SONATA line. Dimitry knows what am talking about he is old skool.
I dont understand...what is the best setup - 3x120mm front and 1x120mm back OR 3x120mm front + 1x120mm back and 1x120mm top?
None of the above. 3x140mm front (intake), 2x140mm top (exhaust) and 1x140mm back (exhaust) is the best setup.
Does the front panel really reduce the noise, or is it just crippling the intake and therefore max rpm on the fans and that's the reason why the fans are much louder without the front?
The more rpm the fans can do, the more you might notice the reduction in max rpm with the front panel vs. without it
Excellent comparison that can save us from spending needless money!
If you put all 10 fans as exhaust and keep the glass side pannel off
Would it go to shit or be fine ?
Not ideal. You want to create directional airflow from one side of the case to the other with slight positive pressure to recycle and blow air over all the hardware that generate heat
no filter in the front, but a filter on the top exit 🧐
as long as the case has slightly positive airflow and all the intake fans are filtered then I'm good
the thing about AIOs is that you have to deal with the pump hum no matter how low you run it, but in turn your PC overall is a lot quieter since the flowing liquid is doing most of the heavy work, and the fan on your radiators don't have to run as hard either. Usually anything 240mm and up for radiators is always my suggestion over air coolers just cause of the sheer drop in sound alone. its what made me drop my M1 macbook pro as my daily driver and switch back to my desktop
Try buying an AIO without a garbage audible pump.
@@imadecoy.my nzxt sounds like shit 😂
My first PC case was Antec. I want to say about 15 years ago. I kept it around for a long time.
I see one flaw here with air cooler, despite hot air going up, in this config only top fan above cpu should be exhaust, the first two should be in take, if they are exhaust you're taking out air provided from front fans before it reaches the cpu, no wonder you have bad results
I have 13 fans in my Lian Li Air Mini.......
Haven't got enough obviously.
Technically 8 for me so far in mine. 3 bottom SL-120 Infinity fans, stock dual 140mm in front+ 120mm rear, and the two that came with my Deepcool AK620.
@@Devo_gx 2 140 stock fans at the front
3 120 Deepcool fans on the bottom
3 120 Deepcool fans on the side
3 120 Deepcool fans on the top
2 120 Deepcool fans for the CPU cooler
So technically 11 but still 13 realistically.
It's loud but adding some CPU undervolting for my Ryzen 7 puts it around 22 to 25°C so win win haha.
I’ve got 9 in my setup and I need more 😂
@@khysor1832 9?
Those are rookie numbers! Pump those numbers up 😂
I always fill slots with fans. I have some fans in the storage and it would be nice to use them until they break before i throw them away.
I'm confused does this mean if you're air cooling you shouldn't use any top fans at all??
If the front intake is good enough, and you have a single rear exhaust, top fans might not be necessary.
-D.
you shouldnt use them as exhaust, thats for sure lol. Either none, or set them as intake. maybe the rear top fan as exhaust, but certainly not the front one. It robs the CPU cooler of fresh air
used an Antec Dark Fleet DF-85 case for almost 10 years until 2 years ago, when i gave that pc to one of my nephews. It stil works 😅
How about dual chamber fish tank cases? With the side intake, bottom 3 intake, top 3 exhaust and 1 back exhaust? The case feet are high enough, theres no shroud so the fans are directly intake air from the bottom. Will it still create a turbulent air?
That would be worse wouldn't it? He got turbulence in his test, and the bottom 3 fans were heavily restricted. Now, in your aquarium case, they are not restricted much at all, so the effect will be further exacerbated. IMO, those types of cases work best with AIO coolers. You can mount the AIO either on the side or in front (as intake), or on the top (as an exhaust). If you are air cooling in that type of case, I am unsure if you can draw the same conclusions as you can here, but I would assume it would be similar, i.e. dont populate the top and bottom portions of the case with fans
I'm keeping my case with the provided fans, and it's running like a dream
Thank you for the video
I plan to buy this Case in the future and your video helped alot
Nice! Well who knew I was running optimal heat/sound via pure fluke LOL.
Does more fans help with harddrive temperatures?
With the issue with Iunity gpu. Just go into devices and disable the built in intel graphics chip and reboot!
I wish you would have tested with 3 fans on top, without the 3 on the bottom, along with the CPU fan. (Unless I missed it?)
*how noisy is my GTX1080 + R9-3900x?*
I modded the GTX1080 with two Noctua fans. I have two, Noctua FRONT fans as intake. The CPU fan (15cm only) on Noctua NH-D14 serves as the exhaust too. My PSU fan never comes on. So... how noisy? My fans rarely spin above 600RPM. I can't hear the computer when gaming even with the sound turned off. I can ONLY hear the CPU fan if I'm doing something really intensive. Most people have no idea how to optimize for noise... here's a tip: set your CPU and GPU fan profiles so they don't ramp up much until near the max temp you want... low RPM until, say, 65degC, slightly sharper ramp to 80degC then VERY sharp ramp until about 85degC (will vary by system but the concept applies to all). MANY people are obsessed with keeping the chips COOL all the time at the expense of noise. Why? I've been doing it this way for well over ten years.
I thought maybe one of the configs would be with the AIO in the front, that way the cpu radiator would have outside air. Going to build in this case next and according to Antec a 420 can fit in the front. and maybe that bottom fan on the aio will push air underneath the psu shroud...we shall see. Great video, love how you guys do multiple oppositions!
In my cheapo Corsair Carbide 100R, I run one 120mm fan pushing in the front, and one pulling in the back and my CPU stays around 38-60 F (desktop-gaming) when it's 82 F in the room. I have never understood why people jam 6-8 fans in there.
Hey can you do the same with a Corsair 7000D air flow case to see what the best fan configuration is?
Antec 1200 was my favorite case from my previous builds.
Thank you! I was wondering about the efficiency of those cases that seem to be built of fans (can see plenty of them fishtank style ones on PCPP). I was also having doubts about the chimney style cooling, as there is a huge block in the way of the airflow (the GPU).
With air cooling, a clear front-to-back channel with plenty of intake is the best, just as the conventional wisdom goes.
With SFF, I found it is a bit of an opposite situation and the biggest gains are from removing the heat from the case (as the unit fans are usually close enough to the case panels to help themselves).
Explanation at 4:36 isn't accurate. Heat from gpu doesn't "intertwine" with heat from cpu resulting in higher temps. Your top case exhaust literally sucks fresh air from front panel intake that suppose to go to your cpu cooler.
Yes I agree, he would have been better off setting all top fans to intake instead, probably would have lowered his CPU temps
Has anyone tried a 420 AIO front intake, possibly with 2 fans on the other side for push pull? exhaust on top and extra intake from the bottom, since the intake from the aio would be lower? I'm pretty sure it's better for the CPU temps but wondering what it would mean for gpu temps.
Same query
Front mount AIO is always better for CPU temps, it has marginal effect on GPU temps. Top mount AIO will have higher CPU temps, ESPECIALLY if you have an open air GPU. If you have a blower style GPU, that exhausts mostly out the back of the case, such as a founders edition nvidia card, then it can be acceptable to use a top mount AIO.
If your side fan bracket support 6 fans, can you put 3 intake and 3 exhaust or should all 6 flow air in one direction?
Same direction, they'd be working againts each other otherwise
Try the Lian Li Mesh 2 Performance case. I think there is no better cooling in its price; everything is well thought out. Yes, the front panel is not like Lexus... but if a person wants to reduce the temperature of the video card (and this case is one of the best in this regard; it is enough to install at least one fan from below), then this is an excellent choice.
Pre video guess: these things always have the diminishing returns thing, I am guessing every fan gets less results then the previous ones. Without a radiator I think the sweetspot might actually be at 1 in 1 out, but with a rad probably 2 in through rad 1 out.
Okay with seeing the 360 rad that might change it a bit. Perhaps 3 in 1 out or 3 in 2 out will still pull their weight in this one.
My current system has an 18cm intake fan and a 12cm exhaust, hoping that the slight overpressure keeps slowly refreshing the 'dead spot' under the gpu. And with how the fins by the pci ports exhaust warm air while gaming, it seems to work.
Yeah I was expecting some low fan tests as well. 4 fans is kind of already hitting peak efficiency, adding any more doesn't improve much at that point.
I'm using an older Fractal Design Focus G case. I replaced the stock white LED fans with 2 Fractal Prisma 140mm fans in front as intakes and 2 Prisma 120mm fans as rear and top exhaust. My I7-11700F is cooled by a Scythe Fuma 2 cooler, and my GPU is a 2070 Super with the Dell/MSI Aero blower cooler.
CPU and GPU temps idle at 37C but can push 70C/82c in heavy workloads. The higher 'loaded' GPU temps can be blamed on the blower cooler.
Really appreciate your video on the fans configuration, would you please do something similar on the upcoming antec m-atx case constellation 540?
Any chance Antec will make a version of this case with a solid panel for the cable side or at least sell the solid side panel separately? I can do without double sided glass panels as I don't want to see the backside of the motherboard tray.
I wish the front cover of my Antec case came off that easily. That's what I get for having an old case, I guess. I'd never fit that monster under my TV though.
Depends really on the case.....
i have better airflow with small cases, rather than big ones, harder to fill with moving air, providing potential multiple air currents.
You can mix vertical and horizontal airflow, as cpu coolers tower models or small factors ones........
just be simple, with low noise levels, and non-opposite airflows.
i noticed a gain with gpu fans, below the gpu. or at 90°, if the fan shoots air from the side panel.
helps to cool the gpu. low rpm fan, just ti help the gpu, especially modern ones with no-fan modes until a certain temperature reached.
Just test it.........beware of power consumption, as more fan, more power needed....logical
Best results where surprisingly with small case, and very long gpu, occupying the case in length....
so one air "tunnel" for the gpu, and the other for the cpu, with a little hot air climbing from the gpu backplate.
And hot air getting exhausted at the top.
Is it a micro ATX board? If so, would the GPU close proximity to the cpu cooler make a difference?
Since the introduction of flow through GPU cooling, why does no one try to reverse the CPU air cooler and make rear fan an intake? Why reuse preheated GPU airflow for CPU cooling in the first place? It would make so much more sense for separated air flow. At least in theory. Yeah, and shrouds suck. Top PSU for air cooled GPU is often better.
BTW turbulence is good for cooling. Forces "surface" air to mix with the flow. Not removing hot part asap isn't though. Cooling is all about removing heat.
Nice review ❤
Great review. I have 1BIG question : my argument is 3 fans on the bottom really needed - I see a lot of fan videos I haven't had 3 fans on the bottom 4 years. With 2 intake and 2 out take + the GPU (4090) and the quality corsair 170i cooler. i have had temps sitting @ 63c randomly w average of 49-56c. is 3 fans still needed @ the bottom w both CPU and GPU in lower temps then this w a old case phanteks 800 case...w a lot of breathing inside....?
By his examples of you are running the AIO on top it would be 4 fans out and only 3 in which could create a negative pressure situation unless you throttle up the 3 front fans.
So the extra 2 on the bottom (3rd is just aesthetics in this case because the PSU is blocking it) makes 5 in and 4 out for a positive static pressure.
So as he said, the bottom fans are only beneficial with an AIO on the CPU.
Need to do push and pull aio set up when i had it i run cinebench i was at 78 without it was 86
I picked up the Fractal Torrent in Black NON RGB hoping to keep a 7900X cool 😎
I just moved my system into an Antec P20C. It's my first big boy case.
Oh neat, they made a flow version of the p82. Antec is cool, I absolutely love my nx200m.
i still have my nas in an antec902, and currently using an antec900 barebone chassis in a custom case but moved this pc to a corsair c70 while i work on redoing that case when i can
Ok this is very interesting! However, I am very curious to see this same methodology applied to a LianLi 011D and other cases like it. Everyone just loves filling them with fans but is it really necessary?
If you have a Corsair Carbide Air 540 with three 120x38 front and a 140x38 rear all with peak 5,000rpm you would probably never have to run them over 2,500rpm. In those conditions there is no need to use the top. Basically everything is better if you just stop using 25mm fans.
What if the gpu was vertical whats the numbers then?
more fans does not equal better cooling.
What about removing the 3 bottom fans and only keep the upper ones?
this AIO looks so nice, gg Antec
I put as many fans as possible. I have a 13900K on a 420mm Arctic Liquid Freezer II. For the case fans, I have 7 Arctic P12 Maxes. I can fit 1 more fan. :)
But how do you balance having a 420mm aio exaust on top and a 140mm fan at the back, I can't have 4 intakes without using at least one of the bottom slots (only 3 fans fot in the front) so shouldnI go with negative pressure or would bottom fans in this case improve things more then they hurt things due to turblance? I guess I could get faster fans for the front to get positive pressure
Love my Noctua ❤
in the way backs, I filled the HAF 932 with Scythe Kaze Demons. It sounded like a larger drone taking off.
He should tried the top fans in a different configuration. Number 1 exhaust and 2 and 3 intake
Same thought i got