side fans intake or exhaust?

[Sameer25]

i have 4 case fans in total, i have one in front bottom as intake and one in the back for exhaust. now i have two left that i can put on the side pannel. should the be intake or exhaust. p.s i have a cooler master hyper tx3 (push&pull). the amd stock fan is on my vrms to cool them. and i have a r9 285 sapphire oc edition

 

[JerryJF]

definitely intake.
those side fans mounts are there to be used to blow cooler air onto your gpu.
Plus, as an intake, you will contribute to achieve positive air pressure inside your case to prevent dust build up inside (given the intake fans are filtered). But either way side fan should be intake. Regarding filters for fan, i think they reduce air flow lead to poor cooling, it's worth getting cooler temps on components and do a clean up every 3 to 6 months.

 

[turkey3_scratch]

As said, more intake would be positive which is better for dust. However, tests done on Hardwaresecrets show that exhaust fans actually cool better than intake, though either way both benefit cooling.

 

[JerryJF]

As said, more intake would be positive which is better for dust. However, tests done on Hardwaresecrets show that exhaust fans actually cool better than intake, though either way both benefit cooling.

i agree, but the side fan intake is focused on the gpu cooling (also for the motherboard chipset) which is more important when gaming.
To achieve optimal cooling, you may have to play with the fan speed for each fan to reach the optimal rpm and air flow for your particular setup, as HardwareSecret always states at the end, it's specific to their test system only.

I can only speak from my experience with my side fan as intake on my define R5 casae.