is my case any good for airflow?

logicfry

logicfry

logicfry

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Joined
20 Jun 2013
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261
hey all,

been playing with a load of OCs and finding the limits of my cpu cooler, but was wondering if the case has anything to do with it?

it's an Xclio nighthawk midi tower (the newer one with the clear side panel window) with the 2 stock 120mm fans on the front, 1 120mm upper rear and added an extra rear top fan (120) to help pull air away from the back of the cpu cooler. no side fan.

the front 2 and the back one are controlled by the fan controller and the top one is off the mobo.

running an i5 @4.5ghz, gtx 560tisc @980mhz. the psu sucks from the underside and out the back so the fan isn't trying to take air that the gpu wants.

are the stock fans any good for cfm? not too bothered about noise, it's very quiet anyway so a little more isn't an issue. the extra top fan is from an old psu and not the quiestest.
 
The stock fans aren't great, but 4x120's should be enough to get reasonable airflow through the case. I'm going to assume that the two fronts are intakes and the rear+top are exhaust? Do you have an aftermarket CPU cooler? From the way you mention the "back" of the cooler it sounds like you have a tower-type cooler, but it's worth checking.

We can't tell if your overclock is temperature-limited, however, without knowing what voltages you're running and what temperatures you're getting. The exact CPU model would help, too - there are a lot of i5 chips.

Basically check your CPU temperature against it's maximum temperature. If the CPU is getting pretty close then it may well be a temperature issue. Most CPU overclocks I see nowadays are limited more by voltage than temperature, however - temperatures have been far less of an issue since the Core architectures came out.
 
yeah sorry to be light on details, i had another thread just about the overclock and that sort of sparked off this thought about the case in my head.

got an artic freezer 13 tower cooler. yes the fans are front= intake, rear= exhaust.
my OC was having WHEA errors @ 4.6ghz and the temps would get too high if any more volts were added. backed it down to 4.5 and it's been perfect. the genral thinking was that my cpu cooler was at it's limit as the volts were only up to 1.310v on an i5 3570k with gigabyte ga-z77-d3h mobo. just couldn't keep the temps under 85*c over 4.5ghz.

quite new to the OCing world but apprently the ivy bridge are more limited by the temp than the volts. so i'm told. gotta get me a better cpu cooler..

so basicly ignore the case idea for now and maybe upgrade the fans. i'll get a temp probe in there tonight and see what the case temps are.
 
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