Cooling my system

[nathans118]

I've been noticing recently that my PC is not as cool as I'd like it to be while running games.

I have a water cooler for the CPU which isn't a problem, it's the chassis fans that I'm having trouble with. I'm using a Corsair 780t case, I got two front intake fans (although one is being covered by the hard drive slots, poor placement?), And one exhaust fan at the rear. The water cooler is located at the top of the case with only intake fans on it.

Should I move the hard drive slots? Add more fans to the cooler with intake on top and exhaust on the bottom?

Just wanted some opinions on what would be best to do.

 

[Darkbreeze]

So, this is an easy one. And no, get it out of your head to have intake fans on top and exhaust on the bottom. That is not how it works or how these cooling systems were designed to be used. Intake should always be in the front and at the bottom, where the cooler air is located.

Exhaust fans should always be in the top back, and top.

Power supply should always be installed with intake facing the bottom of the case and expelling it's heat out the back, except in cases where the PSU is top mounted. Then it will face it's intake into the case, but those configurations are mostly only found on very old cases or a very few newer models, that are not common.

Standard configuration is as seen here:

So I would move your radiator to the front of the case, with the fans in an intake configuration. That can either be in front of the radiator pushing air through the radiator INTO the case, or behind the radiator, pulling air IN through the radiator INTO the case. Either is equally fine.

Move the fans that are currently in front to the top of the case and orient them so that they are blowing OUT of the case, in an exhaust configuration. Then, make sure that the rear fan is also blowing OUT of the case, in an exhaust configuration. This should dramatically improve your cooling situation for everything, hardware, CPU, GPU, VRMs, storage drives, everything.

If you wish to leave your radiator at the top of the case, then you need to orient your fans as exhaust fans, blowing out of the case through the radiator, not in. And, you will still want the rear fan to be exhaust and you will want the front fans to be intake, if you choose to do it this way. I highly recommend doing it the other way with the radiator in front as outlined above.