Can fans cooling your radiator also work as intake?

[Contempt]

Let me explain, I own a Corsair Spec-Alpha case. Because of this, my Corsair H100i v2 is pulling air into the case from the front intake to cool my 980Ti. So, because I had to mount it on the front to cool my 980Ti, the only air intake I have has to go through my radiator. I wanted to get some more fans, then I found these and decided I wanted to see if I could make my ambient temps a bit better. I believe I have support for up to 5 fans (2 on top, 2 on front, 1 on back) and I'm currently using my front two intakes for my Radiator.

Anyways, my question is: How should I mount these fans? I currently have the two intakes and 1 out-take on the back, so I'm wondering if I should make the top section ones out-take fans, or intake fans and make the radiator and back fans out-take fans. There are multiple combinations here but I'm just curious what would be best for the ambient temperatures.

 

[feelinfroggy777]

You want your intake fans to be from the front and bottom of the case and your exhaust to be from the top and rear of the case. Since heat rises, you don't want to fight with physics. So put the new fans on the top and back to exhaust.

I am not 100% sure what you are asking, but you can have your fans set up to push air through the radiator or pull air through the radiator, pending on which side of the radiator the fans are located. You can also run a push/pull configuration where you have fans on both sides of the radiator where they and pushing and pulling air from one direction. This will promote better airflow, and pending the case, can improve temps. But don't expect any miracles.

 

[Contempt]

You want your intake fans to be from the front and bottom of the case and your exhaust to be from the top and rear of the case. Since heat rises, you don't want to fight with physics. So put the new fans on the top and back to exhaust.

I am not 100% sure what you are asking, but you can have your fans set up to push air through the radiator or pull air through the radiator, pending on which side of the radiator the fans are located. You can also run a push/pull configuration where you have fans on both sides of the radiator where they and pushing and pulling air from one direction. This will promote better airflow, and pending the case, can improve temps. But don't expect any miracles.

My main question is if my intake fans are pulling air into case through the radiator, is that enough to cool it?

Edit: it being my entire PC.

 

[quilciri]

It would work, but it is strange and there is probably a better solution...where is your radiator mounted?

 

[maestro0428]

Yes, thats fine. Alot of builders put their rads at the front of the case as intakes. No problem.

 

[Contempt]

My case has the HDD/SSD cage in the front of the PC, with just enough room for the radiator in the front where intake fans go. Because of this my radiator fans are mounted outside my case.

 

[feelinfroggy777]

Got it, your fans are mounted outside of the case and our radiator inside of the case. It will depend on the case airflow if it will be an issue. I don't think it is the optimal way to cool it because it will restrict airflow some, but your temps still may be low enough. I would just verify your temps under load.

 

[Contempt]

Got it, your fans are mounted outside of the case and our radiator inside of the case. It will depend on the case airflow if it will be an issue. I don't think it is the optimal way to cool it because it will restrict airflow some, but your temps still may be low enough. I would just verify your temps under load.

Under load my GPU is about 55C and my CPU about 70C. Ryzen 5 1600X overclocked to 3.875Ghz at 1.35V and 980Ti not overclocked. My GPU temp is max load but my CPU fan can't handle max load (Like Prime95), so sort of max game load is 70C

 

[feelinfroggy777]

Your temps are fine. You are using the H100i for your 980ti? And you are not overclocking the 980ti? You have a lot of thermal headroom with the 980ti at 55C, so I would consider overclocking it some.

 

[King_V]

Wait, if I'm reading this right.....

The radiator is positioned such that air being drawn into the case is going through the radiator?

If so, then you are heating up the incoming air. The heat being pulled through the radiator is cooling the radiator, but warming up the incoming air in the process.

 

[Contempt]

Wait, if I'm reading this right.....

The radiator is positioned such that air being drawn into the case is going through the radiator?

If so, then you are heating up the incoming air. The heat being pulled through the radiator is cooling the radiator, but warming up the incoming air in the process.

Yes, that's what I was curious about. I don't think I explained it well enough.

 

[Contempt]

Your temps are fine. You are using the H100i for your 980ti? And you are not overclocking the 980ti? You have a lot of thermal headroom with the 980ti at 55C, so I would consider overclocking it some.

Sadly I think I got a bad 980Ti. EVGA SC+ and can only do about +120 and +240 on the core and memory. I'll do some more tests today but that's what I remember.

 

[Karadjgne]

Not by much at all. I swapped my 280mm rad from top exhaust to front intakes. Case temps went up 2°C, 3°C under heavy loads. Cpu dropped 5°C at heavy loads and gpu only went up 2°C under any load. Not enough to quibble about really.

Front intakes is fine. For an aio, top exhaust is best, rear exhaust is unnecessary. I'm running 4x fans total, 2x on rad as intake, 2x top exhaust. I7-3770K @4.6GHz, gtx970 @124% OC. Nothing goes over 60°C unless stress testing, then cpu reaches 67°C and gpu hits 82°C.

You are fine.

 

[King_V]

Not by much at all. I swapped my 280mm rad from top exhaust to front intakes. Case temps went up 2°C, 3°C under heavy loads. Cpu dropped 5°C at heavy loads and gpu only went up 2°C under any load. Not enough to quibble about really.

Front intakes is fine. For an aio, top exhaust is best, rear exhaust is unnecessary. I'm running 4x fans total, 2x on rad as intake, 2x top exhaust. I7-3770K @4.6GHz, gtx970 @124% OC. Nothing goes over 60°C unless stress testing, then cpu reaches 67°C and gpu hits 82°C.

You are fine.

Hmm, in your case, you were using the radiator system to cool just the CPU?

In OP's case, it's to cool the GPU, which may cause more heat on the CPU. It also does reduce the effectiveness of the radiator somewhat, as now it has to compensate for the extra temps resulting from a warmer case, though, as stated by others, this should be minor.

I have no experience with this from a PC perspective (but plenty from an automotive perspective, missing vs poorly made shrouds, etc).


Long and short for OP - since the GPU is the only thing you're cooling with the radiator (if I read this right), it'll still be cooled, just not as well as if the radiator were at the exhaust, and other components in the case will get a little warmer. Exactly how much, I'm not sure.

 

[feelinfroggy777]

I have a AIO cooler and the radiator is installed at the front of the case and fans are on intake. My temps are fine and I have no issues. My GPU is also water cooled though so it may make a difference for air cooling but I don't think it will make a huge difference.

 

[Karadjgne]

Liquid cooling differs from standard heatsinks in absorption. Heat output from a radiator is all about liquid temps, not cpu/gpu temps. There's enough dissipation from the fans that liquid temps really don't differ much no matter the source. My AIO's liquid temps have never reached 40°C no matter what, usually staying around 33-35°C under loads. So that's the temps the radiator is putting out, not the 70-80°C from the cpu/gpu, as an aircooler has to deal with.

When an aircooler heatsink heats up (takes seconds) there's no replacement, it's a constant temp, liquid across the gpu/cpu is constantly replaced, so while the sensor is reading 80°C on the chip, the liquid is absorbing a portion of the heat, then getting moved to the rad, never staying stationary long enough to absorb enough energy to raise the temp.

So fans blowing across 35°C liquid from a gpu or across 35°C liquid from a cpu are the same thing.