Intake vs Exhaust Fans

[sumanth.ganta]

Hi so should I have 1 intake fan in the front and 1 exhaust in the back, 1 exhaust in the top, or 2 intake in the front and 1 exhaust in the back. I have 3 120mm fans in total.

Specs:
Ryzen 5 2200
Gtx 1050 4gb
1tb hdd
120gb hdd
120gb ssd
750w psu
Asus prime b350 plus
Linksys network card
Thermaltake Vera N27 snow

 

[Dunlop0078]

I would do 2 front intake and 1 rear exhaust for positive pressure, this will help reduce dust buildup. Temps should be about the same either way however, unless the top exhaust is very close to the CPU heatsink, if so it can interfere with the CPU heatsink fan and possibly increase CPU temps slightly.

 

[geofelt]

Concentrate on intake.
Put two of your fans as intakes in front.
Whatever comes in the front will exit somewhere, taking heat from your parts with it.
And, if that single front intake source is filtered, your parts will stay cleaner.
Two 120mm intakes will feed a good air cooler and a hot graphics card.

Install just one 120mm fan in the rear or top mainly to direct the airflow past your parts.
So not install strong exhaust fans or they will draw in unfiltered air from adjacent openings.

 

[sumanth.ganta]

Wait should I put the exhaust at the top or rear?

 

[geofelt]

Wait should I put the exhaust at the top or rear?

I would favor the rear.

 

[Karadjgne]

Depends on the cooler. If you have the stock cooler, that's area broadcast, I'd put the exhaust fan on top. If you have a tower cooler that faces the rear, put the exhaust in back. If you have a tower cooler that faces up, put the exhaust on top.

Fan placement is speed/audio dependent. Fans move more air when they spin faster, but it's not a straight curve. So you can use 1 fan as intake and still move more air than 2 fans exhaust, which is how I'd setup, most of the intake noise will travel into the case, with less noise on exhaust using 2x slower fans.