Best intake setup for aio.

J

JMorgxn

Member
So my current set up in my pc is with my aio top mounted, and the fans I just noticed were set to exhaust. Which to me seems wrong as the hot GPU air would be getting pushed through my aio right?

So I was thinking about changing the fans to intake. But do I just straight up flip the fans, so the order from top to bottom is case, radiator, fans. Or do I go case, fans, radiator?

Case_________________
Rad. ---------------------------
Fans ++++ ++++ ++++


Case_________________
Fans ++++ ++++ ++++
Rad. ---------------------------

Thanks.
 
T

TonyCarter

VALUED CONTRIBUTOR
If you flip them, then you're pushing ambient air from outside the case, through the hot radiator and adding more hot air to the inside of the case...and that hot GPU air with the additional hot air from the AIO would have nowhere to go (other than the single rear exhaust).
 
T

TonyCarter

VALUED CONTRIBUTOR
JMorgxn said:
But does that cooler ambient air not help cool the radiator before it enters the pc?
Click to expand...
No, because that ambient air will just be heated as it passes through the radiator. The radiator is there to radiate away the heat collected in the coolant from the CPU...and you're simply pushing the hotter air back into the case where it has nowhere to go (other than the single exhaust).

I don't know your config (it's been asked for already)...but if you assume 3 x front intake fans, 3 x top exhaust/AIO fans, and 1 x exhaust fan...if you flip the top 3 then you will have 6 x intake fans and (3 pulling in ambient temp air, 3 pushing ambient air through a heater), 1 x exhaust fan (trying to get rid of 6 intake fans worth of air/heat, which is very unbalanced.
 
SpyderTracks

SpyderTracks

We love you Ukraine
TonyCarter said:
No, because that ambient air will just be heated as it passes through the radiator. The radiator is there to radiate away the heat collected in the coolant from the CPU...and you're simply pushing the hotter air back into the case where it has nowhere to go (other than the single exhaust).

I don't know your config (it's been asked for already)...but if you assume 3 x front intake fans, 3 x top exhaust/AIO fans, and 1 x exhaust fan...if you flip the top 3 then you will have 6 x intake fans and (3 pulling in ambient temp air, 3 pushing ambient air through a heater), 1 x exhaust fan (trying to get rid of 6 intake fans worth of air/heat, which is very unbalanced.
Click to expand...
This is 100% right.

It’s also with fluid dynamics, if you were drawing air in through the roof, it would heat as it passed through the radiator fins at which point it would naturally resist the flow into the case anyway as it would start to rise as cold air is far denser.

With it coming into the case from the front, heating as it passes over the VRMs and GPU, it’s natural path is then upwards so you naturally get a gradual flow in from the front arching up to the roof with some being drawn out the rear.

Most cases are designed with this flow in mind, using natural flow rates to direct air.
 
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