- Feb 9, 2012
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- 1
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Hello, I recently added the GPU (ATI Radeon 6850) to my PC and it seems to have cut down the air circulation in my case a bit, so I'm looking for some advice on positioning additional fans. I have a Cooler Master Elite 430 case, here it is on Newegg for reference.
Currently I have a 120mm intake fan on the window (I think the graphics card is keeping most of the airflow from this fan in the bottom of the case), a 120mm exhaust on the back, and a 140mm intake on the front. I also have a Hyper 212+ CPU cooler with two 120mm fans in a push/pull configuration exhausting towards the back of the case. Right now I'm trying to figure out how to best utilize the vents on the top of my case. If I made both as outlets, the one on the right would just be pulling air away from the intake fan on my CPU cooler, which wouldn't make sense, so I have 3 other options really. I could have an intake on the right to feed more air towards the cooler. I could have an exhaust on the left to pull away more heat away from the fins of the cooler. Lastly, I could have an intake on the right and an outlet on the left, so one feeds the cooler and the other pulls away air on the exhaust side of the cooler. This seems to make sense, but I'm concerned that two fans blowing in opposite directions next to each other would just recycle hot air, or create weird air currents in the case and impair cooling. I'm also considering improvising a way to mount an intake in my disk drive bay (don't have or need a disk drive), but that would be a little more complicated. What would be my best option? Thanks for any help.
Here's a picture of the orientation of the cooler and vents:
Full system specs:
i3-530 @ 3.7 GHz
ASRock H55DE3 Motherboard
Sapphire Radeon 6850 1GB
8GB Ripjaw X DDR3-1600
500GB WD Caviar Blue
Corsair CX430 V2 PSU
Currently I have a 120mm intake fan on the window (I think the graphics card is keeping most of the airflow from this fan in the bottom of the case), a 120mm exhaust on the back, and a 140mm intake on the front. I also have a Hyper 212+ CPU cooler with two 120mm fans in a push/pull configuration exhausting towards the back of the case. Right now I'm trying to figure out how to best utilize the vents on the top of my case. If I made both as outlets, the one on the right would just be pulling air away from the intake fan on my CPU cooler, which wouldn't make sense, so I have 3 other options really. I could have an intake on the right to feed more air towards the cooler. I could have an exhaust on the left to pull away more heat away from the fins of the cooler. Lastly, I could have an intake on the right and an outlet on the left, so one feeds the cooler and the other pulls away air on the exhaust side of the cooler. This seems to make sense, but I'm concerned that two fans blowing in opposite directions next to each other would just recycle hot air, or create weird air currents in the case and impair cooling. I'm also considering improvising a way to mount an intake in my disk drive bay (don't have or need a disk drive), but that would be a little more complicated. What would be my best option? Thanks for any help.
Here's a picture of the orientation of the cooler and vents:
Full system specs:
i3-530 @ 3.7 GHz
ASRock H55DE3 Motherboard
Sapphire Radeon 6850 1GB
8GB Ripjaw X DDR3-1600
500GB WD Caviar Blue
Corsair CX430 V2 PSU
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