Is a side intake fan blowing on the videocard pointless now that cards are enclosed and draw air from the front?

[Jumpem]

Like the 5870. It is covered in a plastic shield and draws air from the vents pointed toward the front fan.

 

[yh125d]

No. You still want to have fresh air nearby for the fan to pull from, and a lot of heat gets released on the backside as well which can help noticeably

 

[Soulkeeper]

I block the side intake on my case, if for nothing else, to reduce the amount of dust coming in
the other intakes have filters, but not the side

 

[alyarb]

the side intake fans were nice when you had top-down CPU and GPU coolers such as thermaltake big-typhoon style heatsinks and geforce 7800/7900 style coolers.

heatsinks nowadays pull air from front to back, like the GTX 200s, the Radeons, heat towers, etc. all you need is a strong intake and good exhaust to have one solid current through the case. don't perturb it with powerful side fans.

 

[ChaosDivine]

Have never been a fan of sidevents. Much prefer a good seal with front to back flow.

 

[jlee]

Hm. I have a side vent, but no fan in it - wonder if it'd be worth blocking it off and comparing case temps. Every once in a while, a moth or fly will go inside and d-d-d-d-d-d-ddt. Eaten by a fan. :Q

 

[ViRGE]

Originally posted by: Jumpem
Like the 5870. It is covered in a plastic shield and draws air from the vents pointed toward the front fan.

Actually, it doesn't. That's an enclosed cooler. It pulls air from below the card (when the card is in an upright case), as all prior cards have.

 

[BFG10K]

Yes, a side-fan can still help, even with a totally enclosed cooler. Heat still radiates from the back of a GPU?s PCB irrespective of its cooler, and a side fan can cool it. My 230 mm side fan on my old Armor used to lower GPU temperatures by about 2-5 C.

That said, I haven?t bothered mounting a side fan on my Antec 902 yet because even without it, the cooling system is far better than the Armor?s, and I still have far lower temperatures.

The best option is to experiment with your case and see whether a side fan benefits.