Fan Reccomendation/setup (Bonzai youre up)

[MonKENy]

I am looking for as quiet as possible.

I will be getting the Fractal r5

http://www.fractal-design.com/home/product/cases/define-series/define-r5-titanium

it comes with 2 140mm fans, I am thinkng of throwing both of them in the front and getting 1 more for exhaust, I have the mugen 4 pushing out towards the back.

Should I add any other fans? From top down or side in? I assume the faster we can get the hot air out of the case the cooler it is. I also assume though that is only as good as the ambient temp of the air being pulled through?

What do people do in the summer when there is no AC and its 90+ in the house? How does that affect the cooling?

I am getting away from the flashy look so no led, just silence and clean looking.

 

[DigDog]

get the windowless one. and prepare to be stunned.

 

[MonKENy]

get the windowless one. and prepare to be stunned.

I have the r4 right now but will be passing that to my son. I love the case and it looks like the R5 is all the steps in the right direction

 

[ignatzatsonic]

What do people do in the summer when there is no AC and its 90+ in the house? How does that affect the cooling?

In my experience on my own hardware, I've seen about a 1 to 1 correlation---CPU temps are typically about 5 degrees higher if there is a 5 degree rise in ambient temps.

You say you want as quiet as possible. If that's your primary goal, given acceptable temps, I'd go with a minimum number of known quiet fans and then re-evaluate. You can always add more fans later if the existing crop proves to be too noisy or if temps are high enough to make you uncomfortable. There's bound to be some trial and error and you'll probably end up with some spare fans.

I'd be thinking about PWM fans as much as possible and try to keep them spinning down under 1000 rpm if possible.

Some folks can't live with 36 degree CPU temps when 30 is possible with a bigger, louder, and more expensive cooler. You may not be one of those types, so good for you.

 

[MonKENy]

Yeah I dont mind if the machine runs warm as long as it isnt in the danger zones. I def want a happy medium between sound and cooling.

 

[john3850]

Your case fans are not going to do much unless you can drop your ambient room temps first.
Without any windows you case will get close to 7 degrees above your room temperture.
For the last 5 years my main pc is on a stand so the heat can be vented out a window when needed or cooled by a ac.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

Since my "handle" has been invoked in the OP's subject-line, I'll toss in.

With the heatpipe towers like the Mugen, it's a good idea to assure that:

CFM_intake >= CFM_exhaust

You can temper the cooling strategy with a desire to use only the fans necessary, but with the Fractal case designed primarily for 120/140mm fans, I suppose I'd aim for three intake fans.

Seal off any unused fan vents. Buy or build a duct for the Mugen, ported to the exhaust fan. With a reasonably beefy exhaust fan, you shouldn't need to mount two fans on the Mugen, and with a duct, you can deploy the Mugen without any fans. Especially in that case, I would probably eye a Noctua iPPC 3000 for the exhaust, and control it thermally from the mobo CPU_FAN header.

I suppose if it were my project, I would then look at iPPC 2000 or AP-15 intake fans, but 140mm models. If the exhaust port of the R5 accommodates a 140mm fan, then look at the iPPC 140mm fan.

And, if possible, or "as desired," I'd try to mount a 140mm on the side-panel as intake, depending either on the R5's accommodation for it or my inclination to drill many little 1/4" holes to vent such a fan.

 

[MonKENy]

So 3 intakes, 2 in front one on side, and 1 exhaust ducted to the mugen?

Dont they make display panels that show the temps, fan speeds and what not that can be installed into an optical bay or some such?

 

[BonzaiDuck]

So 3 intakes, 2 in front one on side, and 1 exhaust ducted to the mugen?

Dont they make display panels that show the temps, fan speeds and what not that can be installed into an optical bay or some such?

Sure . . . but why do you want to meddle with the puerile "bling" of it all?

That stuff costs money. Put it another way. If you already have certain built-in functions that work very well to orchestrate and control your fans automatically according to temperature, why would you want to spend $80 to $100 on something else, even if it plugs in to an internal USB port, has its own processor, and comes bundled with software?

In this latter case, I'm speaking of -- and limply recommending Aquaero 5. The folks that made it realized that enough people would want it without the bling front-panel hardware, so they have a simple bare PCB version that likely installs in a drive bay.

The Z97-A motherboard should have everything you want or need. You could throw in a $10 Swiftech 8W-PWM-SPL-ST to control a string of PWM fans from a single mobo fan-port while powering them directly from the PSU -- if you don't think you have enough fan ports on the mobo.

After that, you install the ASUS proprietary software, disable all the things you don't want to use (like "TURBO EVO" overclocking), set up a couple fan profiles in Fan Xpert or whatever they named that part of the software for that particular mobo model. Or you can use HWMonitor. OR you can probably monitor all the mobo/CPU temperatures, voltage etc. from something like AfterBurner. The only thing you need to remember: You don't want to "run" the ASUS software (for the motherboard) and Afterburner at the same time, for the same reason you don't want to run Afterburner with FurMark, when the latter is also polling the VRM hardware and motherboard sensors at the same time.

You don't need to "run" the ASUS software once you set up the fan profiles. You save it to a file, and set the BIOS fan control item to "custom" or "user."

I"d use the Swiftech or similar splitter if I wanted to uniformly control several intake fans according to CPU temperature. You only get to monitor one of the possible eight devices you can connect to the splitter, but if the fans/devices are all identical, you only need to monitor one of them.

If you want to fine-tune the use of fans within your case by planting thermistors with thermal-sticky-tape to various components, you might find a use for a device like the Aquaero. But -- honestly -- you can achieve superb fan-control and optimal cooling with just two fan profiles __ one for CPU and exhaust and the other for intake (chassis) fans. That allows you to tweak the CPU and exhaust fans for maximum CFM at higher temperatures -- limited to your "noise preference." Pretty much -- the same for the intake fans. But it also allows you to balance intake and exhaust airflow for pressurization.