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EDITED: Any advice on case fans and placements?

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1. Sure, but wouldn't a GT work even better, and much quieter? Otherwise I'm going to have to look for some weaker and cheaper fan to stick on the cage now.

2. Good to know, guess I'll aim for an 1850.
 
Of course a GT would work better. IMO the only way to get (slightly) better performance in sound and air push is with Noctua fans, and their 120mm models top out at less than what the GT's can do.

I will know a lot more when my sound level meter arrives, and when the GA P55A-UD3R arrives for sale in the US. Then I can assemble my testbed and put together some numbers.
 
Well then won't you agree that getting 2 GTs and the Kama Bay, then sticking the Bay's fan on the drive cage and one of the GTs on the Bay for intake is a good idea?
 
Yeah, I just figured that if I didn't grab the second GT, then I'd have the Bay fan going intake and the GT doing intake on the bottom, and I'd need a drive cage fan, and I'd probably end up spending $5-10 anyway on something that doesn't suck, so I might as well grab another GT for a few bucks more for even better performance and use the Bay fan for the drive cage.

I wanted to ask you though, in the interest of avoiding any form of buyer's regret, what about the Scythe Ultra Kaze 2000? Going off of the benchmark on xbit, there are quite a lot of fans that can outperform the GT's, but most of them also add quite a bit of noise, but the Ultra Kaze 2000, going off of the stats on their chart, provides a ~34% increase in CFM, with only a ~19% increase in sound, and it costs less. So any comments on it?
 
UK2K is a nice enough fan, but like all the UK's, it makes more noise than its apparent cfm justifies. Based on the reviews I've read, I expect it will come into its own as a heatsink fan.

I don't regret getting any of the UK's. At the very least they taught me to watch my fingers . . .
 
Really? Going by that review, it actually has a great cfm to noise ratio, are you saying their testing was wrong or something? Like I said, going off the stats it pushes 34% more air but only makes 19% more noise than the GT's, are you saying that the extra 34% of air isn't all that necessary?
 
IIRC, where the UK fans shine is on the radiator testing; that is, against resistance. But then, so do the GT's.

I'm holding my UK's, like my S-Flexes, for when I can test them on my Megahalems. I don't anticipate using any UK's as case fans. And I own three UK's and four GT's.
 
So are you saying xbit's testing is wrong or...? Am I missing something with the stats and the whole 34%/19% thing?

And is every single type of bearing other than ball a bad idea placed horizontally/pointed vertically?

I googled a bit and sleeve seems to be a bad idea for horizontal placement, I'm going to assume that anything that uses some sort of lubrication (what about FDB) is a bad idea.

So with that in mind, I guess I'm definitely getting at least one GT for horizontal intake. My real question is whether I should keep with the GT for intake at the front, or if I should go with a different fan. Only 2 I can think of are the Thermalright one from earlier, and the UK2K.

You said that the GT at 1450 can match the Thermalright 1300 and give off much less noise, but what about the GT at 1850? How much noise will the Thermalright be making to match the GT at that point? More? Less? You say at faster speeds the Thermalright makes annoying noises?

Or is the idea that I'm not going to need more intake than the GT can give, and it giving that much the quietest makes it the best fan? I don't really know how much those stats will give in real world performance, so if I'm aiming for overkill airflow on the front intake, I can see why the added noise makes it a bad idea (no real gain in the pros, but a big gain in the cons). Let me know.
 
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Hey, do you happen to have some sort of instant messaging client? I feel like this back and forth could be reduced to a matter of minutes instead of hours/days.
 
Finished it. And I didn't order the Plus, its fan is shit, I went with the original Kama Bay and I'll paint it black as soon as I start caring; my PC is faced ass towards me so as to give me easy access to the IO port and such, so I don't see the front very often.

Interesting thing he did there, though he doesn't have any dust filters or anything on it, madness!

Anyway, I'm done with my build. Took a day because I ran into a few problems, mostly because this is only the second time I've ever put together a rig. My favorite problem, if only because of the end result and how it's a little bit funny (unlike the rest), is pairing an NH-D14 cooler with an E758 motherboard.

The problem being that the E758 has a heatsink stuck to cool a part of the motherboard whose name I forget, but it's located directly to the left of the cpu socket. The NH-D14 has a large heatsink, and one of it's 2 fans is stuck outside, so either way you put it, it's humongous. No matter what I did, it would always be blocked from being set down properly by the damn heatsink, I even took it off at one point but put it back on because apparently it's really necessary.

Anyway, long story short eventually I got it to fit, but...well...like you say, a picture is worth a thousand words:




I am wondering though: when I have the case open, I put my hand in front of the different fans and it seems my bottom intake GT isn't pushing much air up. Is that supposed to be happening, as in the air spreads out? I'm guessing with the case closed the air is forced into a straight path, as when I stuck my hand near the GT in the Kama Bay, I did feel the air because it was in the 5.25" drive area so the walls forced the air forward.

Also, what's a good program for me to measure temps? I'm wondering how my CPU is doing right now, considering I haven't overclocked it yet, I've got an amazing air cooler on it which has an almost direct line of intake air on the same level (Kama Bay fan and HSF are pretty much in a line) and area to exhaust air outside of the case instead of keeping it around, right next to it as well.
 
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ChorniyVolk said:
Finished it.
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Hooray!

Interesting thing he did there, though he doesn't have any dust filters or anything on it, madness!
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Actually, he did say
..my original mesh covers still fit no probs!
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which I took to mean as his using the original mesh covers as filters.


The problem being that the E758 has a heatsink stuck to cool a part of the motherboard whose name I forget, but it's located directly to the left of the cpu socket.
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Oooh. Looks like a fancy MOSFET cooler. I'm jealous.

I am wondering though: when I have the case open, I put my hand in front of the different fans and it seems my bottom intake GT isn't pushing much air up.
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The first thing I'd think about is clearance: do you need taller feet to allow air to get to your bottom intake fan?

Also, what's a good program for me to measure temps?
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Real Temp and Speed Fan are what I use. Others use Core Temp and Everest.
 
I don't know how much clearance the fan would need. I lifted it up as a test giving the fan at least 3-4 inches from what the case is sitting on, and didn't feel much difference. I mean, put it to me this way, with one door open, where should I put my hand and what should I be feeling?
 






The black drive in the 5.25" area is an Icy Dock with an X25-M 80GB in it. The 6 3.5" slots are populated by 4 HDDs, like this from the top with X meaning a drive is using the slot: [X] [ ] [X] [X] [ ] [X]; to add space for air to go through, aside from the little spaces between each slot.
 
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I love your case.

Try removing the fan from the bottom and testing its thrust, using the same power source as it uses in the case. If the thrust is good, you may be looking at a restriction effect from the holes at the bottom of the case.
 
Seems you are right. I took off the dust filter and it performed noticeably better, I then unscrewed it and took it out of the case, and it performed even better than without the filter, though less noticeably. I was thinking of cutting the grate thing, but I've decided to add spaces for the fan instead, I figure if I can get it an inch or two above the grate and the filter, it'll be able to pull air more effectively. This has me worried about other intake fans.

Front 230mm is covered, it's got plenty of space from the dust filter, and lots of air for air to move to it. The the 120mm on the cage I assume is going to have shitty airflow, due to my harddrives, so that can't really be fixed. Maybe I should stick some small spaces on it as well?

And there's the GT in the Kama Bay, and I have no idea if it's performing properly. I mean, I can feel the air moving better than I did with the bottom intake GT, but do you think it's too close to the front of the Bay? It looks exactly as the default fan does in the pictures, so you know for reference.

Oh and if you don't mind, what is it you love about my case this time? The size?
 
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ChorniyVolk said:
I took off the dust filter and it performed noticeably better . . . This has me worried about other intake fans.
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On SPCR, guys are saying it is better to go without filters: you have to have fans that work harder and they make more noise.

And there's the GT in the Kama Bay, and I have no idea if it's performing properly. I mean, I can feel the air moving better than I did with the bottom intake GT, but do you think it's too close to the front of the Bay? It looks exactly as the default fan does in the pictures, so you know for reference.
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If you can feel the air, then that's what is important, IMO.

Oh and if you don't mind, what is it you love about my case this time? The size?
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Those ready-made mounts for HD cage pull fans. I love it - two of those.
 
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