Fans, positive vs negative airflow?

[Amusingg]

Hi guys which is better for the heat aspect? Dust isnt really an issue as i can give it a quick blast weekly to keep it clean




Positive = more air coming in, = less dust, = slightly worse cooling?



Negative = Less air coming in, more dust comes through the sides and funny places of the case, however heat is kept and blown out very fast making it slightly better cooling for abit more dust?



Is that the basics of the two guys? So in my case, with being able to clean it weekly, would negative be slightly better for cooling?






I dont overclock, and i have good Noctua NF-12 PWM fans:


http://go.redirectingat.com/?id=1402X558040&site=tomshardware.co.uk&xs=1&isjs=1&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.co.uk%2Fgp%2Fproduct%2FB00650P2ZC%3Fkeywords%3Dnoctua%2520fan%26qid%3D1453946930%26ref_%3Dsr_1_1%26sr%3D8-1&xguid=3ae2335fe0ed7059c6426f983c024ac2&xuuid=56ebd4e94a07f3957c63c78d6ece276a&xsessid=2298388f145693c197f77a90d3df5b58&xcreo=0&xed=0&sref=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.tomshardware.co.uk%2Fanswers%2Fid-2953166%2Ffans-noctua-arctic-f12-pwm-pst.html&xtz=0&abp=1





I also use fan filters, do fan filters cut down on the airflow of the fan so would it even be best to remove the filters and expect dust with the negative setup to then give a needed weekly clean but having slightly better heat performance?



thanks

 

[Zedjulz316]

If you're not worried about dust, I recommend you go for a more diversified airflow. I think you ought to go for front intake, GPU intake and rear outtake. As such your airflow would work to create a circulation rather than a simple negative or positive pressure.

However, front intakes bring very little to components being cooled. There generally useful for HDD cooling and radiators. So, I would only heavily invest in the front if you can place these fans close to GPU or CPU. If your case is small enough I even recommend going for a sort of push-pull configuration(front in, CPU retakes air, rear helps suck it out of case and radiator.

So if you want optimal cooling I suggest you go more towards both intake and outtake.