How much air intake-exhaust do i need for my pc?

iClutch

Reputable
Dec 16, 2014
27
0
4,530
Hello.

So i'm building my first pc thats mainly going to be used for music production. Some small-medium games will be played too (cs:s, mc and Need For Speed)
And what i'm wondering is how much air intake and exhaust do i need.


Whats (gonna be) in the box:

Fractal Design R4 (comes with two 140mm FD Silent R2 fans)
Asus z87-a
i5-4690k
Corsair Veng. 1600mhz cl9 2x4gb
Fractal Design Tesla r2 800w
Asus Xonar Essence ST
Asus xonar H6 (expansion for ST)
64gb samsung ssd 510r-110wr (for windows)
Intel 530 series 120gb ssd
WD Blue 64mb cache 1tb
Asus drw 24-f1st
Asus PCE-N53 (for WiFi)

Also, what cpu cooler would you recommend? Currently i have Noctua NH-U9B SE2.

Yeah, no gpu.

I figured that with all those things in there, ima need a decent cooling system, so now im planing on buying some xtra FD silent r2's for the cooling. But i don't know what size i need (probbaly 140mm) or how many of them do i need.

Thanks for any help :)
 
If you've got good cable management, no overclock, and normal temperatures in your room, i see absolutely no need to get more cooling. Download HWmonitor to check your idle temperatures, and temperatures while playing games. Your CPU cooler i definitely enough for the CPU.

One intake and one exhaust is really all you need. I have the same case, and i have 2 exhaust (1 on top) and 1 intake, CPU is overclocked and so is my GPU and i never reach high temperatures in there.
 
Go for the define r5, it has better airflow and keeps it cooler than the r4. If you want to overclock I suggest the phanteks ph-tc14pe (massive cooler and reasonably priced if you get blue/red or uncolored) or the NH-d14/15 (a bit more costly.) If you wont overclock your temps will be just fine with everything you already have.

If you get a new CPU cooler, use the fans from your old cooler for extra case fans also!! :) I'd suggest two front intake 140mm fans and one rear exhaust for minimum balanced airflow. Good positive pressure and everything should stay cool.
 


Its not yet built. But i am gonna try to overclock the cpu to 4,2ghz.
 


Please note that there has been some case that these coolers and the D-14 has broken the motherboard while they were moving it, so if you move it around a lot, don't go for these.
 


They are indeed massive coolers. If you move it around, keep it laid horizontally you shouldn't have any problem that way. The weight wont stress the Mobo in transit.

http://www.phanteks.com/PH-TC14S.html

This would solve that problem as well but Phanteks still hasn't released it from what I can tell. Its a shame, I want to see how well it preforms since they state it is on par with the larger 14pe
 


Not buying the r5 for these reasons: Smaller than r4 and i already bought the r4 😛
Not going for the D-14 or D-15 because they're too pricey and are quite more noisy than the SE2.
 
Well then stick with your noctua cooler. You're not gonna get anything better at the price of your current cooler.

R4 232mm x 464mm x 523mm
R5 462mm x 232mm x 531mm

Really isn't bigger, but its not a worthy upgrade. I wouldn't have suggested it if I knew you had the r4 already purchased.
 


Well im done, the rest of my pc parts are now ordered and should be here in three days 😀