[SOLVED] Which is better Positive or negative Air pressure?

[GrinTheComputerNoob]

Hi,

I have a new pc and i dont know if i should put more fans Intake or exhaust.

Im using a Coolman Robin 2
I have 2 fans top(included in AIO cooler), 3 on the right, 3 bottom, and 1 on the back.

Please advice

 

[Lutfij]

IMHO, that case is horribly designed. I was just about to mention that each case has their own traits and whether the case performs better(temps wise) depends on trial and error but from what I'm seeing...it's just not worth the effort. You should invested in a branded system who try and put effort into their cases designs, like Corsair, Fractal-Design or Lian-Li.

If you're still intent on using the case(which you shouldn't) you might want to list your heatware.
Please include your system's specs like so:
CPU:
Motherboard:
Ram:
SSD/HDD:
GPU:
PSU:

 

[prophet51]

Dust filters with positive pressure is best. You only need a single rear exhaust and maybe a single top exhaust.

 

[Paperdoc]

I am amazed your thread is Solved with 2 replies! You dodged a bullet!

Maybe you did not know this, but your question had generated countless threads, lengthy debates, and a few thousand posts. My own personal opinion? I agreee with prophet51 above, and I do not propose to give a lengthy discussion of why. It's been done!

 

[Wongbfv]

Directed air flow trumps any notion of excess intake vs excess exhaust vs neutral .

best as mentioned to have more intake so that the cool air has time to deal with heated components prior to being exhausted out ...but the primary goal is to direct said cool air to where its needed.

Seperation of components is also massively beneficial. If you can say Buy 3 dollar Acrylic pieces from lowes (u can) and seperate the CPU / GPU (you can) ...you might be surprised at the impact focused/directed airflow can have.

My 1660TI never broke 55c in a 22c room .. my 2060 super much the same tho Ive improved my case mods since and it never busts 53 under the same conditions. Which ding ding ding , allows me to maintain a 2k+ boost clock 1998mhz avg 100% of the time i'll get to 2050/2025 but after about 3 hours the avg ends up being 1995-1998

 

[Wongbfv]

For example in my 780T corsair case . My AIO is in push pull configuration on my 2700 non x R7. I get around 478-482 single thread score and I do not use a static all core OC. CPU avg's 43c Gaming stressed for around an hour on cpuz it will steady and maintain 50c max at 22c room temp. Mind you thats a 240mm AIO and thats with me boosting on all threads to 4130ish mhz as I tamper with my blck as well. I seperated my power supply too as no matter what the company that Built it would suggest its "fine " at ...im not fine with it heating up my other components. Not much is made of it but even at a modest 300 total watt system draw the psu can generate a large amount of heat especially if like the 1200 watt Corsair model I use has a fan that doesn't cut on basically at all.

My intake for the CPU's cheapo 240m AIO is seperated from the GPU's intake fans I find this works great , neither contribute to the other's heat generation and they both are taken care of by their own fans directing air where I want and exhausting at the rate I wish .

Before someone comes on saying that 65-75c Is fine and still nice and cool.

Consider this , we Americans at least shouldn't really take Celsius measurements at face value , as growing up under Fahrenheit 70 degrees doesn't sound bad ...but thats insanely hot ...would you want something 140+ F touching you?

Would that be an ok temp for anything u want next to you? No? Nevermind A "minor" change in Celsius from 60-63 doesn't sound like much ...but thats almost 10 degrees Ferenheit , which is a noticable difference to a human. I love my PC ..its personal and I treat it the best I can. It pains me I can't get my gpu to avg under 52/53 on Air as is knowing that Id melt at the same temp as would my cat or dog and the PC is a valued pet and family member afterall.

Also its worth to note that even if HWinfo/monitor doesn't say that your graphics card has Throttled Thermally ... it can and will every 8-10 Degree's Celsius. While C "makes more sense" and more widely used globally ... Fahrenheit is what I monitor all my temps in as it gives a more granular picture of temperature changes and hits home harder as I relate to said readings better . I use Celsius only when comparing my temps to others or for conversational purposes between us nerds.

 

[DSzymborski]

Before someone comes on saying that 65-75c Is fine and still nice and cool.

Consider this , we Americans at least shouldn't really take Celsius measurements at face value , as growing up under Fahrenheit 70 degrees doesn't sound bad ...but thats insanely hot ...would you want something 140+ F touching you?

I'm super lucky that the components are components and not, like, made of people.

Just imagine how cruel I've been to the central heating and the hot water heater. I better keep those off for now on to be safe.

 

[madmatt30]

I'm super lucky that the components are components and not, like, made of people.

Just imagine how cruel I've been to the central heating and the hot water heater. I better keep those off for now on to be safe.

That honestly made me laugh out loud.

On another note though, that case is not as bad as it first appears.

While the left hand side and front are straight tempered glass, the right hand side, top and bottom are very heavily vented.

There's plenty of ventilation but it's hidden from what would be considered a normal seating position.

I actually quite like the idea behind that.

 

[Wongbfv]

Well if I had spent alot of time , effort and care in building my Central Air system and Hotwater Heater then yea Id likely have more vested interest in the operation of both and If they worked better at lower temperatures Id shoot for just that.

Granted , You can save a fairly large amount of money putting the hot water heater on its own Breaker and shutting it off when u aren't actually going to shower /wash clothes. Alot more than people might think especially if you travel alot heh. Before I got my most recent job building process chillers for Novellus , Intel and TSMC misc others overseas order from my previous employer as well. I worked with my father as an Electrician.

Computer components that we gamers tend to focus on happen to run faster , and are of use to us for longer periods at lower temps within reason.


18c over room temp on 16/20 series Nvidia cards was hard for me to get too on Air. However 22 to 30 Over room temp is pretty easy and neither lvl of cooling was expensive.

I run 12-13 fans at any given time not including the GPU's stock fans and I cannot hear my system over my headphones. My wife doesn't sit 20 inches away from my Tower , and for that matter I don't either heh the noise normalized "thermal" testing and much praising of the expensive Noctua fans are pretty well worthless to me . Fans that move more air and fans with better static pressure than the Noct fans that also aren't oldmancar brown are easily obtained for less than half the cost.

If one is concerned with wasting alot of acrylic or binding materials while Figuring out the best way to Segment the case , just get a 2 dollar box of Press and Seal wrap from grocery store , use it to figure out where and how to best seperate the primary components u wish to cool /direct air for . Its air tight and can withstand a microwave LOL. Unless u place it directly on a 5000 series AMD GPU u will be fine . Once u have it designed the way u like switch it all out for Acrylic that is also cheap and that u can cut to exact size with a cheap razor knife from lowes .

My earlier statement was to give some of the newer builders more perspective , while 60-70 degrees sounds fine and is "within spec" it is by no means cool even at 18C for GPU Avg gaming temp the best ive managed on Air . in my house that still ends up being around 50-52 C which really isn't "Cool" but its much better than north of 70c haha , and it saves u several auto downclocks on the GPU core .

Gives a hand down GPU u pass on to a family member more life for gaming and well it is a "Personal computer"

If u aren't having to use a shoebox case like a mini ITX due to travel ....whats the point in letting your components run any hotter than they have too?

 

[prophet51]

I like the look of that Coolman Robin 2 case btw, I think having the front intakes mounted to the backside should be quieter than normal front mount fans facing your ears. Not sure it needs the botton 3 fans or the top 3, I rear exhaust and maybe one top exaust would be better/same.

 

[madmatt30]

I like the look of that Coolman Robin 2 case btw, I think having the front intakes mounted to the backside should be quieter than normal front mount fans facing your ears. Not sure it needs the botton 3 fans or the top 3, I rear exhaust and maybe one top exaust would be better/same.

Even though tempered glass and rgb is not my thing at all I'm inclined to agree with you.

It looks very well designed for a cheap case and I'd imagine better airflow wise than a lot of tempered glass branded cases.

You missed his airflow configuration layout I think, he has a 240mm aio in the top as exhaust and a rear 120mm exhaust fan so while the 6 intakes are kind of overkill really if the point behind them is rgb its acceptable overkill.

I would definitely be running all those intakes low rpm though if at all possible, there's no way they need to be running close to full speed.

My one gripe with that case is there is no filtering on the intakes at all, it's easy remedied but without filters it's essentially going to become a dust collecting machine in no time at all.

That said, I reckon if that case was readily available worldwide it would sell like hot cakes!!

 

[sizzling]

I’d really like to see air pressure readings from inside different cases with different fan setups. I really don’t buy into the positive/negative air pressure theories as pc cases have so many holes I struggle to believe they run at anything other than the air pressure of their environment.

 

[madmatt30]

I’d really like to see air pressure readings from inside different cases with different fan setups. I really don’t buy into the positive/negative air pressure theories as pc cases have so many holes I struggle to believe they run at anything other than the air pressure of their environment.

Absolutely agree, there is maybe the odd case which is sealed to a point where you may get slightly positive pressure if you add enough intake airflow.

By and large though cool air in from front/bottom , warm air out from rear/top and a constant sustained airflow across components is all that matters.

I'd always go slightly more intake because of case/filter resistance on intakes.

2x 140mm intakes, 2 x 120mm exhaust is pretty much the sweet spot for me personally when it comes to performance vs noise levels

 

[BogdanH]

... I really don’t buy into the positive/negative air pressure theories as pc cases have so many holes...

-and exactly that's the point of having a little positive pressure: idea is, air to go out at all these holes, instead of sucking dust inside PC case.
That is, positive/negative air pressure has nothing to with better cooling -for cooling, only airflow and amount of air matters.

 

[madmatt30]

-and exactly that's the point of having a little positive pressure: idea is, air to go out at all these holes, instead of sucking dust inside PC case.
That is, positive/negative air pressure has nothing to with better cooling -for cooling, only airflow and amount of air matters.

The point is its the term 'pressure' that's misused too much.

You're never going to get negate or positive pressure readings inside a unit that's not hermetically sealed.

It draws people into putiing way too many fans into a case when they're likely completely unnecessary, so many novice builders on here filling literally every available fan slot!

Apart from the noise I'm surprised some of these cases don't actually take flight from the desk 😉

 

[Paperdoc]

I tend to agree that one cannot concentrate on "pressure", even though that is one way to measure what we are talking about. Actually measuring the pressure inside a case is tough to do - it's a matter of enough to push a column of WATER up by one mm or less! The measuring gauges to do that are specilaty items, and completely unnecessary for this purpose. The real pupose is to ensure that air FLOW at uncontrolled leakage points (and there are lots!) is OUTWARDS, and air intake always has dust filters. You do not even need to quantify the rate of air flow. In fact, you cannot predict it correctly from fan air flow specs because too many other factors are involved, although you can calculate a probable starring point. What I do AFTER the system is assembled and working is get a simple source of smoke as a tracer - a smoldering cigarrette, or an incense stick. Move it around the outside of the case while the system is running normally, looking for small holes that are leakage points. If the smoke blows AWAY from the case, you have it moving in the right direction to prevent dust infiltration. You MIGHT try to observe whether the flow away is TOO fast, if you want to do some tweaking. And you might repeat the experient at different workloads to be sure it always blows out. But that's as fancy as you need to get.

 

[GrinTheComputerNoob]

Thank you guys, I like how you did not say any negative on my choice of case and just worked with what I have hahahahah

With that said, how would you orient the fans on a Coolman Robin 2 with fan count of:
(Please put intake or exhaust)
3 right - ____
3 bottom - ___
2 top - ____
1 back - ____

any suggestions?

 

[madmatt30]

Thank you guys, I like how you did not say any negative on my choice of case and just worked with what I have hahahahah

With that said, how would you orient the fans on a Coolman Robin 2 with fan count of:
(Please put intake or exhaust)
3 right - ____
3 bottom - ___
2 top - ____
1 back - ____

any suggestions?

Everything as intake apart from the rear and top.

I believe that's exactly how you have it??

 

[GrinTheComputerNoob]

Yup thats what I was planning to do. thank you