Bad choice of case causing poor cooling, not sure how to fix.

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I recently built my first gaming pc using whatever parts i could get my hand on for a decent price.
At the moment its pretty basic but i want to improve it in the future. (New cpu cooler, overclocking .etc)
- Asus 970 pro gaming/aura motherboard
- FX-8370 using stock cooler at the moment.
- GTX 1070
However, by the look of it my choice of case has been extremely poor.
I bought a second hand case from eBay, i have no idea what its called. It just looked nice.
Now i've got it i've realised it wasn't the best choice. It only has 1 place for a case fan at the top of the case. At the moment i haven't got one at all, but i've ordered a corsair case fan to improve cooling and take hot air out which should arrive tomorrow. There is a grill type thing at the bottom of the case to draw air in, but nowhere to mount another case fan, (no space either, see photo). My cpu is running pretty hot (apparently 40 Celsius at idle).

I have no idea how much the single case fan is going to effect my cpu temps maybe a degree or two, especially as i have no fan to draw air in. Im just considering putting a laptop cooler under the grill at the bottom of the case to bring at least some air into the case, but i doubt it will do much. Should i just bite the bullet and get a new case, or is there potentially something i could do to save this case? The sides of the case are a clear plastic, which i'm thinking of cutting a hole though the plastic and mounting a fan on that. Any ideas of what i could do would be appreciated. Im also considering just upgrading the cpu cooler from stock, but i'm unsure how much this will lower my cpu temps by.
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James Mason
I'd say just scrap the case, it's a lost cause. It's pretty easy to get a silver case with better airflow as well, I dunno how much you spent on that one though, but with only 1 rear exhaust fan port, it's not gonna do good for any computer, except something like a pentium or celeron. (alone)

This would be good if you're will to spend a lot of money and maintain a similar style.
https://pcpartpicker.com/product/4kL7YJ/phanteks-case-phes314eag

This is a good cheap choice:
https://pcpartpicker.com/product/tRfp99/deepcool-case-tesseractwh

And these are kinda in the middle:
https://pcpartpicker.com/product/9gvRsY/apevia-case-xdreamer4al
https://pcpartpicker.com/product/P4H323/lian-li-case-pc9na
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Just that lone rear exhaust for a fan then??

Struggling there , is that the standard amd cooler??
You should really have got the new wraith cooler with an 8370 unless your got old or cheaper stock , that cooler is barely capable of managing the 8370 in a case with good airflow


Any pictures of the case front ? - still trying to work out what it is myself

A decent exhaust will knock a lot more than 1-2c off CPU temps though without a doubt.
 
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Yep that is the only mounting place for a fan.
I was told it was an old amd cooler, i bought the cpu and cooler from a friend for much cheaper than the RRP. Ive ordered a new cpu cooler, and thermal paste within the last hour. So i'm praying that it makes a decent difference to temps.
The person on ebay who sold me the case said he got it with a prebuilt pc a few years ago. Probably why it was so cheap.
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Frankly, your choice in CPU is much more of a problem than your choice in case. AMD CPUs are extremely power hungry and dump relatively large amounts of heat into your case, while also underperforming similarly-priced Intel CPUs which draw 1/2 to 1/3 the power. Even under heavy loads, my i5-based PC is extremely cool and quiet with a single 120mm fan drawing air in and the power supply as the only exhaust.

I'm in agreement with others, I think the case looks very classy.
 
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These fans are super quiet and a deal for 4 @ $14
Much quieter than the colored Corsair fan that runs in the front of the Spec-01 I own

Your Case is Gorgeous!

 
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From the looks, it looks like you are limited to a single intake, single exhaust, possibly 140mm. You will need something for airflow, it's kinda important to cpu temps. If anything, I'd be looking at a tower type cooler, not a broadcast cooler, this'll direct cpu exhaust air towards the rear exhaust fan instead of blowing it all around the case. Cryorig H7 would be a minimum. Can't find that case anywhere and don't see any identifying marks or badges, so exact specs for cooler size or fan size are impossible to determine on this end of a pic.
It is nice looking though.
Your best option might just be a liquid cooler as this'll do double duty as a case exhaust, while simultaneously dumping any cpu heat directly out of the case, which with your limited airflow is almost a necessity.
 
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There is so much restriction to that rear exhaust vent...not sure how much good it'll do. It's clearly a case designed for media pc or silent build. Actually, with a decent, cooler running cpu it may be ok.

Yes, psu is not great quality, near bottom of the corsair line.

 
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The VS IS the bottom of the Corsair lineup, in the 220v dept. There are better psu's for sure, but it'll do for now as long as op limits OC. The 8370 is arguably the best of the fx lineup, being the same 125w as its slower little brothers. For 140mm I'd suggest the Corsair h90 or nzxt Kraken x41, for 120mm the Corsair h80i gtx.(dual fans)
 
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That case is pretty much a sealed unit by the looks of it.
Is that a reference blower style card there ? (it looks it from the side)

If it is you at least made a good decision there in that style case , its going to pretty much negate the GPU keeping hot air in the case.

I disagree on the fact that an Intel CPU would run cooler , the fact is they just don't - they run as hot or hotter , they're designed to & just have a much higher thermal threshold.

Get your CPU cooler on (which you still haven't stated what you've purchased ?) & your exhaust fan fitted & it'll make a BIG difference to temps.
You shouldn't really be reading idle temps anyway - they're entirely inaccurate & not really important if within a sensible range.
Load temps are what you want to look at .
& you need to check GPU temps while gaming , id be more concerned about the GPU running hot rather than the CPU.
There's the option to switch that PSU over so the fan is inside offering another exhaust if that is the case.

I prefer positive pressure systems myself but have seen highly negative pressure setups work extremely well for other people , it's really the only option anyway.

Then only issue is dust buildup , you said you have some vents at the bottom somewhere - get some filtering material over those is my advice when you can.
 
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Thanks for the help, I've ordered a pretty cheap cpu cooler but it should be okay for now, its a Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo.
I'll see how effective my case fan and cpu cooler are before trying anything else. I don't have many options with this case at the moment, so if they don't work too well i'll start consider modifying this case or just getting a new case altogether.
 
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the only issue there is that it will simply dump the heat into the case. CPU temps will drop but if case temps get too high itll be fairly useless.

You still need a rear exhaust fan and you can then orientate the 212 fan in line with the rear fan. That's your best bet with that cooler.
 
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Perhaps I should've phrased what I said slightly differently.

You can't directly compare temperatures on Intel and AMD CPUs, because neither is really degrees C. AMD has directly stated that their temperature scale is just an arbitrary number to show relative temperature, and even if both were reporting real temperature, their sensors are in different places, reading different things. Yes, a "60c" reading on an i5 is a higher number than "55c" on an FX CPU, but the i5 still has 40-45c of thermal margin until TJmax, whereas the FX is ~10c away. I think it would be correct to say that an i5 that is much farther from overheating, and is dumping less than half as much heat into the case, is "cooler".
 
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The point being, regardless of core temp, is that case temp (given same case cooling) will be greater with an FX8 than an i5, seeing as the FX uses more power and thus dumps more heat. Temps are kinda irrelevant to OP's query - its the heat dumped into the case that's the issue. An i3 or i5 would solve it largely due to less heat dumped, but both FX and i5 will cause issues eventually if the hot air cannot be removed
 
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An evo + a rear fan will do OK with that case imo.
You're never going to be overclocking in there or hit sublime temps but they'll ultimately be safe.

I'm still going to disagree on the temp differences between amd & Intel.
There's no generalisation between a 85w i5 & a 125w fx because in the right workload they're not comparable chips.
Quite rightly the i5 is more efficient , it runs better in games etc but the fact remains Intel chips do run hotter.
Most of this is down to the tiny heat transferal on the lid to the heatsink compared to the massive comparable area on amd chips.
& yes you're going to feel more general heat coming off the heatsink & into the case with the and but that core temp on the Intel's still has to dissipate somewhere & that somewhere is generally around the CPU board area & around the rear of the board.
If youbhave no case airflow at all there's going to be barely a discernable difference in the actual resulting case temps between the 2 IMO.

I'm looking though at the pics & I have big reservations on whether the evo is actually going to fit in that case !
 
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In a virtually sealed case, a CPU generating ~50w of heat (which is approximately what an i5 6500 dissipates under torture testing) will be much better off than a CPU generating ~130w of heat (approximately what an 8350 dissipates under torture testing).

I don't see how you can say the i5 runs hotter when each CPU uses an entirely different system for measuring temperature. It's impossible to know which one has higher peak silicon temperature, all we can really say is that the i5 reports a higher number, but produces far less heat. The FX CPU will heat up motherboard and air far more than an i5 will, despite the i5 giving a higher arbitrary number.
 
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Right, but when you're producing more heat, they will rise faster and level off at a higher temperature.

Anyway, I'm getting way off topic, OP has an FX CPU already and I think we can all agree that it's important to have adequate case ventilation. If that were my case, I'd probably take a dremel and cut out that restrictive rear grille.
 
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I'd say just scrap the case, it's a lost cause. It's pretty easy to get a silver case with better airflow as well, I dunno how much you spent on that one though, but with only 1 rear exhaust fan port, it's not gonna do good for any computer, except something like a pentium or celeron. (alone)

This would be good if you're will to spend a lot of money and maintain a similar style.
https://pcpartpicker.com/product/4kL7YJ/phanteks-case-phes314eag

This is a good cheap choice:
https://pcpartpicker.com/product/tRfp99/deepcool-case-tesseractwh

And these are kinda in the middle:
https://pcpartpicker.com/product/9gvRsY/apevia-case-xdreamer4al
https://pcpartpicker.com/product/P4H323/lian-li-case-pc9na
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
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