Only One Fan Spot Available: Intake or Exhaust?

kimbo_schlice

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May 14, 2015
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Hi everybody! I'm making a build in the Silverstone SG13, which is a very small shoe box case with space for only one fan up front. I will have a top mounted PSU and a blower style GPU as exhausts, so my question is this: what should I do for my case fan in the front? I can fit a 120mm fan. I think that my system exhaust strength will be small enough that any kind of case fan mounted as an intake up front will make positive case pressure. So I think I have two options:

1. Go for a strong static pressure fan to blow air across my components.
2. Mount a fan as exhaust for negative case pressure.

Which one would you recommend?

Here's a rough sketch of my case if I were to use an intake fan (GPU not shown, but it exhausts):
xgbgmJZ.png
 
Solution
Make the front fan as an intake. it'll make a positive pressure that'll keep the dust out of your case. Since you have a top mounted PSU, it'll act as your top exhaust. That's the best way to do it.

kimbo_schlice

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May 14, 2015
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Thanks for all of the responses! From what I've read, I can only fit a 140 mm fan if my graphics card does not extend all the way to the front of the space and eat into the space where the fan would be. Since I'm going to be using a full sized 970, I think I'm forced to use a 120 mm fan.

So it sounds like the Noctua NF-S12A is the better option?