Help with fan arrangement

[Orch]

Have today swapped out my old 7850 for an MSI 390X which is great, but being a much bigger card it's added 3 or 4° to my CPU temps, that were already marginal.

Currently I have:

1x120mm fan on front intake
1x120mm fan on side intake
Corsair H80 mounted on case exhaust with 2x120mm Noctua fans in push pull config - exhausting out the rear.

1. I'm thinking about making the rear exhaust an intake to cool the rad better, but what do I do with the others? Where should I make the exhaust? the front, top or side?

2. The side fan is currently blowing onto the GPU, but even without it the temps were fine, like 77° after an hour playing, so should I make that an exhaust to dump some it's heat? I'm guessing at the moment the side fan is just helping to spread the GPU heat around the case?

Any help appreciated

 

[Disco_P]

I've always found with fan arranging that no amount of theory crafting can beat good ole trial and error.

 

[Frank Jeagar]

GPU coolers tend to just make turbulent air around them to cool them and rely on case airflow to exhuast it. Blowing air onto it will help cool it, but will increase your CPU temps because that hot air is being exhausted through the CPU rad.

I'd make the side an exhaust, the rear an intake and maybe put another fan on the front panel as an intake so you have 3 in 3 out.

That will create airflow over your GPU that exhausts out of the side and somewhat "separate" airflow over the motherboard and through the CPU rad to cool it.

This could drop your CPU temps a bit without incfreasing your GPU temps, try it out and let us know the results!

 

[Orch]

GPU coolers tend to just make turbulent air around them to cool them and rely on case airflow to exhuast it. Blowing air onto it will help cool it, but will increase your CPU temps because that hot air is being exhausted through the CPU rad.

I'd make the side an exhaust, the rear an intake and maybe put another fan on the front panel as an intake so you have 3 in 3 out.

That will create airflow over your GPU that exhausts out of the side and somewhat "separate" airflow over the motherboard and through the CPU rad to cool it.

This could drop your CPU temps a bit without incfreasing your GPU temps, try it out and let us know the results!

Cheers Frank!

Tonight I did pretty much this, although still only one intake on the front.

So I have:

2 x 120mm push/pull on H80 rad - rear intake
1 x 120 exhaust on side panel
1 x 120 roof exhaust
1 x 140 lower front intake.

It's a bit weird because the top of the case airflow runs back to front, but the bottom runs front to back. I figured the GPU effectively splits the case in half so hopefully it wouldn't cause too much conflict.

The result . . CPU temps 20° lower!! Was hitting 62-65° after an hour gaming before, now maxing at 43°!

GPU temps still about the same, not gone up anyway. Might reverse the flow direction on the bottom half though as CPU temps are so good.

 

[Frank Jeagar]

The result . . CPU temps 20° lower!! Was hitting 62-65° after an hour gaming before, now maxing at 43°!

GPU temps still about the same, not gone up anyway.

That's fantastic, I was not expecting such a massive difference haha!

It's unconventional, but it's working nicely for you, so don't fix it

 

[Orch]

That's fantastic, I was not expecting such a massive difference haha!

It's unconventional, but it's working nicely for you, so don't fix it

Me neither!

But to be fair the front of the case is much closer to a house radiator than the rear is, so I think that has a lot to do with it. Dead chuffed anyway.

Hmm, maybe I could push that overclock a bit further