Question Push-pull or not?

[Corgoi]

My case:
-3 front fans
-2 bottom
-2 top
-1 rear

That makes for 8 fans which I have. But also I have a 240 mm aio rad and I was thinking of doing push-pull on that one as intake since I would have 2 extra fans. Would that make any difference? Or is it better to do push-pull at top as exhaust? Or is it even better to just do pull as front intake? xD

 

[DavidM012]

I've read articles that say push or pull doesn't make any difference, but you can probably get a few C improvement but nothing spectacular. Adding more fans doesn't improve the cfm (cubic foot per minute) rather the total cfm will be as high as the strongest fan.

I think more fans does something but not a lot. You can see for yourself relatively easily. Try it with one fan on the aio in push, see what the temps are, then add the second one. Two more on the other side isn't much. Any slight temp. improvement may simply be down to one of the fans being stronger than the others.

 

[CountMike]

Push pull is helpful if one fan is not enough, otherwise doesn't help much. On radiators it may do more than on air coolers. It doesn't really matter where the radiator is placed but it will do same job as case fans just have to make sure they do replace case fans in same position so you also have appropriate amount of air flow to match them.
So let's say you put radiator with 4 push-pull in front as intake, you need to have at least 4 fans at back/top as exhaust.

 

[USAFRet]

So let's say you put radiator with 4 push-pull in front as intake, you need to have at least 4 fans at back/top as exhaust.

Fans in a push-pull config do not move twice as much air a as single fan would.
So here 2 + 2 does not equal 4.

 

[Corgoi]

Y

Fans in a push-pull config do not move twice as much air a as single fan would.
So here 2 + 2 does not equal 4.

Yeah the rad with 4 push-pull fans will probably actually move less air than 2 fans without any rad would but I'm gonna be having extra 3 intakes and 3 exhausts anyways just for a slight positive pressure

 

[ElectrO_90]

Is there a reason you want so many fans?
Are you suffering with high temps?

 

[CountMike]

Radiator restricts air flow quite a bit, push fans are optimized for higher static pressure and adding a pull fan with high flow (like ones for cases) practically doubles air flow.

 

[Corgoi]

Is there a reason you want so many fans?
Are you suffering with high temps?

I didn't buy the pc yet
And I found a case that has 6 fans (8 in total) and since my mb lacks fan headers, I'm getting 2 f12 pwm pst's so I can connect multiple fans to 1 header
Plus the 2 rad fans that makes 10 fans and case fan slots, so I was thinking to use the 2 extra fans on the rad so they are not wasted, even if I don't get too much lower temps, it definetely can't increase the temps (right?)

 

[ElectrO_90]

It can't increase the temps, BUT
You can increase the noise as well as over stress the fan headers on your motherboard if you have too many fans, which will lead to failure.

It's unusual to get a case with that many fans, can you give make/model?
Generally a case that offers that many fans is normally at the lower end of the market also the fans are not really great quality.
But if you give make/model maybe I am wrong.

 

[Corgoi]

It can't increase the temps, BUT
You can increase the noise as well as over stress the fan headers on your motherboard if you have too many fans, which will lead to failure.

It's unusual to get a case with that many fans, can you give make/model?
Generally a case that offers that many fans is normally at the lower end of the market also the fans are not really great quality.
But if you give make/model maybe I am wrong.

Yeah it's pretty low end
nJoy Vanguard

 

[ElectrO_90]

It's nice looking case, I can see why it has an appeal
But you know, you don't have to add all the fans from the AIO.
You could just use the fans that are mounted then attach the Radiator to them. All this means is that you won't be controlling the original fans, but you would connect these fans to the radiator controller.

Basically, don't use AIO fans, use the 2 fans on the top that connect to AIO - plug the 2 fans at the top to the AIO controller.

 

[Corgoi]

It's nice looking case, I can see why it has an appeal
But you know, you don't have to add all the fans from the AIO.
You could just use the fans that are mounted then attach the Radiator to them. All this means is that you won't be controlling the original fans, but you would connect these fans to the radiator controller.

Since that case is like 40$ I'm thinking the fans are pretty bad, while the aio I'm buying is mid to high-end (Captain 240ex) and I don't really wanna throw those away

 

[ElectrO_90]

Then I would suggest not using the top 2 fans and use the Captain 240EX - missing them 2 fans isn't going to do anything apart from remove some LED power from the top.
I personally would not be using all of the fans, and continue removing the top 2 and replace them with the Captain 240EX ones.

 

[Corgoi]

Then I would suggest not using the top 2 fans and use the Captain 240EX - missing them 2 fans isn't going to do anything apart from remove some LED power from the top.
I personally would not be using all of the fans, and continue removing the top 2 and replace them with the Captain 240EX ones.

Thanks a lot for the answers, that's probably what I'm gonna be doing

 

[rndmavis]

I've given up on finding the best config. I've done 4 gaming builds and have tried both methods each one using temp software to monitor the differences. To keep it short, I haven't noticed any difference. The factors that seem to have an impact are thermal conductivity on your CPU, case size, and quality of fans/heatsinks.

On my recent build, I haven't even seen a difference on my CPU/mobo/GPU temps doing push or pull on my radiator. I think its splitting hairs.

 

[Corgoi]

I've given up on finding the best config. I've done 4 gaming builds and have tried both methods each one using temp software to monitor the differences. To keep it short, I haven't noticed any difference. The factors that seem to have an impact are thermal conductivity on your CPU, case size, and quality of fans/heatsinks.

On my recent build, I haven't even seen a difference on my CPU/mobo/GPU temps doing push or pull on my radiator. I think its splitting hairs.

Physics suck