air flow direction for CPU cooler

Soldato
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I have been thinking about this and I don't actually know what the best solution is. If installed a H50 cooler I assume you are faced with 1 of 2 choices, but I don't know which one would actually be the best

Option 1

Install fan on inside of case first then attach rad to it. Fan sucks air in blows accross rad and is exhausted into case. Rely on case exhuast to remove hot ait while intake case fans suck cooler air in

Option 2

Install rad on inside of case first, then intall fan blowing air accross rad exhausting outside of case. This would rely on your case airflow to be good enough to maintain a decent temp of the air in the case to cool the rad down.

So looking at these options

1. looks good for cooling CPU as air coming in from rad fan will always be cool as its being sucked in from external environment. Downside is the air gets heated by the rad and is exhausted into the case.

I would assume that 1 will always give better CPU load temps as the incoming air is always cooler, but overall temps will be higher inside which could give issues with keeping the rest of you gear (mainly GPU) cool ?

2. looks good as it means no additional heat gets introduced into the case but mean you need to have very good air flow through the case so the cooler can still perform well
 
I'd set up some good intake fans to draw in cool air - maybe a scythe kama bay with an air penetrator fan drawing air in through the 5.25" bays and punching that cool air directly at the H50 rad, then have the fans exhausting the heat from the rad out of the case...

(one of these - I've got one I'll sell you if you want it... :))
 
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