How should I place my case fans?

[Yosley]

I recently built a new rig using the Corsair 600c inverted case. I plan on removing all the stock fans and relacing them in order to match my color theme (black/white/red)

My question is, how should I place my case fans?

I currently have a 240mm radiator in the front of the case in a push/pull configuration. I plan on having a 140mm airflow exhaust fan.

my biggest trouble is figuring out what to do with the bottom fans.
Should I have them intake, or exhaust air out of the system? Also, since they are at the bottom, do i require static pressure fans or are airflow fans good enough?

The bottom fans will be controlled by a switch on the top of the case, while the rear exhaust and radiator fans will be pvm.

 

[Yosley]

edit: Someone told me that I should reverse my airflow (intake air through the rear of the case, and exhaust air out of my case through the front), so that the hot air blowing through the radiator doesn't hit my GPU. Is this person correct, and is it worth reconfiguring my radiator and fan placement because of this?

 

[gondo]

Your PSU and Video card exhaust hot air out the back. You don't want intakes back there sucking in that hot air. Hot air also rises which is why exhaust is on top. So the rule of thumb is intake front bottom, exhaust top rear.

You want air filters on all your intakes. And ideally more intake CFM than exhaust. If you have too much exhaust the intakes can't provide enough air so air starts to enter through cracks bringing dust with it. If you have more intake, the exhaust can't remove all the air, so some gets forced out of the cracks so dust cannot enter. It's like pressurizing your case. Industrial PLC and electrical cabinets have an air hose entering them to pressurize them to keep dust out.

So the bottom and front should be intakes. The top and top rear should be exhausts. You may also have an intake on the side panel to shoot air at the video card. You want filters on all of these. The radiator can go anywhere. As long as there is airflow over the radiator it will cool, and the case fans will exhaust that heat. It can go on the front or the back or top. The fans can go on either side of the radiator as a push or pull, it doesn't matter. As long as there is air flowing over the radiator. And a push pull configuration with fans on each side doesn't help. It's been proven that fan configurations doesn't affect radiator performance. As long as the fans are pulling in air if it's on the front, and pushing out air if the rad is on the top or rear.

 

[Yosley]

So what I got from this is that I should have my bottom fans as an intake. So should I use SP fans or AF fans?

This time I will include a pic of my rig so that it can be easier to imagine.

http://s307.photobucket.com/user/yosley95/media/20160301_005243_zpsf7hyj6bu.jpg.html

 

[gondo]

You have that reverse ATX case. In your case everything is the way it's supposed to be. The bottom and rear fans are exhaust and the front is intake.

What I don't like about that case is it exhausts hot air out the bottom. So that hot air could actually be pushed towards the front of the case and up and back through the intake. But I doubt it makes much difference. Also the PSU fan has no spot to intake cool air. usually a case is cutout on the bottom so the psu can take air in. In your case the PSU fan must be pointed down to grab cool air form inside the case.

I'd almost be tempted to put the bottom fans as intake, then the back fan and the PSU would exhaust it. Air would flow up and out the back.

The reason they made that case is to get the PSU and all drives hidden together so the front of the motherboard is bare to mount fans and a radiator. With a regular layout they could keep the PSU on the bottom, but you would have to move the cd-rom to the bottom. That way the PSU can grab cold air from the bottom, but the CD-ROM is way too low to reach. They would have to move the hard drives and power supply up top on a normal layout.

Look at the Corsair 760T. Pretty much the same as yours but not reverse layout. They PSU is on the bottom where it can take in cold air form the bottom. In take from the front going way up and out the top where a rad can be installed. Also those hard drive bays can be removed to make an open interior just like your. And some people like to have airflow over their hard drive. You case removes that option.

Try going against Corsairs word and make the bottom fans intake and see if the case temps change at all.

I love how the video cards get flipped in your case. Very nice looking and unique.

 

[Bearmann]

That is a very interesting case. First of all, heat does not rise to any significant degree in a case with active airflow. You can see here that turning the case upside down only made one degree difference in temps (within margin of error): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3m7ih55was
The hot air goes where it is pushed by the fans. In this case the air exits out the lower rear, and if the PSU fan is on, it also exits out the rear roof. I noticed that Linus and Hardware Canucks at youtube both put the radiator on the bottom. A front radiator is fine too. If your case was upside down and you followed the advice here, you would make the bottom fan closest to the rear panel an exhaust and leave the other bottom fan position unoccupied:
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2012/02/10/the-big-cooling-investigation/1
So that is what I would do. You can check your temps and if higher than desired, you could add another fan exhaust to the unoccupied bottom fan position and see what you get. You can see here that Corsair also made the bottom fan positions exhaust fans: http://www.corsair.com/en-us/carbide-series-clear-600c-inverse-atx-full-tower-case
The only disadvantage is that you will have a case with negative air pressure, so you may have to dust it out a bit more frequently. I wouldn't put an intake fan in the rear bottom position as that cool air will supply the rear fan with cool air and impede its ability to remove hot case air.

Yosley, as to your second post, don't worry about the radiator air being slightly warm. It is still infinitely cooler than your GPU and will help cool it off: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCZ5iP5cu8g
From the bit-tech article, you can see that a reverse airflow was detrimental to GPU cooling as the GPU was not getting an active (blowing fan) source of fresh air.

 

[gondo]

That is a very interesting case. First of all, heat does not rise to any significant degree in a case with active airflow. You can see here that turning the case upside down only made one degree difference in temps (within margin of error): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3m7ih55was
The hot air goes where it is pushed by the fans. In this case the air exits out the lower rear, and if the PSU fan is on, it also exits out the rear roof. I noticed that Linus and Hardware Canucks at youtube both put the radiator on the bottom. A front radiator is fine too. If your case was upside down and you followed the advice here, you would make the bottom fan closest to the rear panel an exhaust and leave the other bottom fan position unoccupied:
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2012/02/10/the-big-cooling-investigation/1
So that is what I would do. You can check your temps and if higher than desired, you could add another fan exhaust to the unoccupied bottom fan position and see what you get. You can see here that Corsair also made the bottom fan positions exhaust fans: http://www.corsair.com/en-us/carbide-series-clear-600c-inverse-atx-full-tower-case
The only disadvantage is that you will have a case with negative air pressure, so you may have to dust it out a bit more frequently. I wouldn't put an intake fan in the rear bottom position as that cool air will supply the rear fan with cool air and impede its ability to remove hot case air.

Yosley, as to your second post, don't worry about the radiator air being slightly warm. It is still infinitely cooler than your GPU and will help cool it off: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCZ5iP5cu8g
From the bit-tech article, you can see that a reverse airflow was detrimental to GPU cooling as the GPU was not getting an active (blowing fan) source of fresh air.

Yes having the bottom as intake would make airflow in the bottom right hand corner from bottom to back and not cover the entire inside.

Having the bottom as exhaust covers more case area but that leaves negative air pressure so dust can enter.

One solution would be to remove the bottom fan towards the front. That leaves 2 intake and 2 exhaust fans. Make the 2 exhaust fans something like 800RPM Noctuas that are 47CFM each for a total of 94CFM. The 2 intake fans could be 1200RPM fans at 68CFM each or 136CFM total. That gets you some positive airflow. Or keep the 2 stock front intake fans and get a fan controller to speed down 2 exhaust fans. That'll give you positive air pressure and keep dust from entering the case.

On my particular case, I have the exhaust fans on slow speed while the intakes are faster to create positive pressure and keep dust out. I have filters on all intake fans. Also note that video cards and PSU with the fan facing inside the case act as exhaust so you want to add an extra intake or 2. On my old Antec Twelve Hundred there is no cutout for the PSU fan so my PSU faces inside acting as an exhaust. I therefore have 4 intake fans to counterbalance the PSU, 2 video cards, and the big 200mm fan on top. I also have the 200mm fan on slow speed to hopefully create positive air pressure and keep dust out.