Airflow Design - Antec 300

[BioRouge]

I need a little help with airflow on this case.

I'm using the Antec 300 series case
I have 2x 120mm Intake fans in the front which i have added.
The 120mm exhaust and the 140mm top exhaust are Antec standard provided with the case.

I'm also going to be using the Antec NeoPower Blue 650W which has an Intake fan on the top and the exhaust at the front( plug side - outside of case)


Below is my current Airflow diagram:

My Question:
The Antec 300 has a perforated grill mount available on the side panel that overlooks the PCI slots.
Should I mount a 120mm Intake or Exhaust fan on that spot if at all and why?

One thing to note: I know the font intakes over look the drive bays, I only have 1 hdd and it doesn't really get in the way and I doubt I'd ever expand.


Any help is appreciated

 

[The_Blood_Raven]

If the 300 behaves anything like my old 900 did, adding the side fan may increase temps instead of decrease them. Either way its best to keep you current system, you have slightly negative pressure which is what you want.

 

[BioRouge]

Explain this negative / positive pressure concept to me please?

The case above is what i'm building. I'm currently waiting for the PSU to arrive and I've yet to pick a motherboard & Processor.

When finished it should turn out to be something like:

Pentium Core 2 Duo ~3.0Ghz
SLI - 7800GTX
4GB Ram
Your average 80GB SATA HD.


I'm salvaging the ram, video card and HD from my DELL XPS 600 whose motherboard fried a week ago. This new case is the answer to the proprietary case, psu and motherboard that dell had in the XPS lol. It wasn't worth replacing with dell parts.

So far for the case and PSU i've spent a combined 130 dollars canadian.

 

[geofelt]

I think that is a great case, and you should be happy with it.

You want a direct stream of air from the low front to the high back. Heated air tends to rise, helping this. I don't think a side fan is a great idea because it disturbs the normal air flow.

As to the psu, don't worry about it. The psu fan is intended to keep the psu cool, not the rest of the case. It will ramp up under load, get it's share of cool air and take care of itself. A 650w psu has enough power that it will be loafing, and I would not expect it to need to spin the fan hardly at all.

If the intake fans are stronger in total than the output fans, then you have positive pressure. If the output fans are stronger, then you have negative pressure. It's probably best to have them more or less balanced. I don't really think it makes a meaningful difference.

 

[RizzyWho]

I purchased another 2 fans for my 300,

It improved the thermal performance inside by about 2-5 degrees.

You can see my system specs below

 

[BioRouge]

Neat, so I won't add a fan on the side panel.

What's a good make for 120mm fans that are reasonably quiet and perform good?
I'm thinking of ones with blue led for the front bezel.

I'm also thinking of having a fan controller in one of the 5 1/4" bays. Any ideas on make / model?

 

[jayans04]

Funny thing that I'm going to have the exact same setup. The PSU fan will output air that comes from above it. I'm going to use the side panel fan as an exhaust because as the GPU (hd4870 1gb) blows air downwards towards the PSU it may cause problems. So to help avoid a side exhaust fan would make perfect sense. Everything else seems fine but I also have to think about what direction I am going to mount the xigmatek s1283 fan. Too bad we cant use nitrogen to keep our systems cool.