Air flow direction h115i

Guys,

I'm building a new gaming rig and have decided to go with the h115i in my 750D case. I'm confused on which way to mount the radiator fans though. The instructions almost seem to conflict with itself. Should I have air coming in from the top or have the air exhausting from inside the case out the top?

 

Thanks for any input...

 

Pat

I prefer to exhaust the hot are through the top of the case and I think most others do.

 

By doing this the CPU may be slightly warmer, but the GPUs should be cooler.

Ray,

 

Thanks for your advice.

 

If I mount them as exhaust as you suggest, should i leave the two front fans bringing air in and the rear fan exhausting air out the back of the case?

 

 

Pat

Yes. You should also probably put the radiator fans below the rad, pushing air through it and out of the top.

 

Excellent choice of case, by the way.

If I mount them as exhaust as you suggest, should i leave the two front fans bringing air in and the rear fan exhausting air out the back of the case?

 

As snapper69 said yes and I had assumed this is what you would do.

 

Do you already have the Asetek H115i? If not you may wish to consider the CoolIT H110i which I prefer as cooling wise it's much the same and has stronger firmware, see http://forum.corsair.com/forums/showthread.php?p=795986 and the following few posts.

Thanks Snapper and Ray!

 

Ray, yes I already have the h115i...I wish I had done a little more homework here with some of you before my purchase, but I will deal with it..Again thanks for your guidance.

 

Pat

Don't stress about it, there's not much wrong with the H115i, it's just that with all things being equal quite a few people would buy the H110i GT. Many others would buy the H115i and Corsair sell thousands of them, plus of course, you get excellent backup if you do have a problem.

Thanks again Snapper for the encouraging words...:D:

No problem. For what it's worth, I don't think that Corsair make a bad cooler, some of them have problems, but when you sell as many as Corsair do that's bound to happen, but they have very good (IMHO) customer backup. Of course their software sucks, but you can't have everything.

LOL! It's a shame we cant have it all right?

 

Do you think I should upgrade the stock fans that come in the 750D case or stick with them?

I've replaced the ones in my 900D with 3 brown 120mm fans in the front and a grey "Redux" fan, from the same company in the back. Usingthe Asus software to control them they are silent a lot of the time (they don't spin below 40 degrees) I've also got 2 brown fans to put on my rad, but I haven't got round to it yet. I can't be bothered to take the rad out.

The stock fans aren't bad. They are dressed down AF140's, but performance wise they should be identical. If you want to spruce things up with a color change, that's another matter. In the 140mm class you won't increase your airflow without doing something extreme and you likely don't need to.

 

3x120mm vs 2x140mm is a different matter. Typically, the 3x120 always wins the airflow battle by some margin, however most case environments are not changed in a meaningful way by increasing your intake from 120 cfm to 150 cfm. The trade-off is noise. 3x120 will be louder, both with an extra fan the buzzier sound profile of a 120 vs 140mm fan. Where the 3x120 can have a much larger value is their superior ability to directly cool hardware. I have an m.2 drive tucked behind GPU #2. It is very responsive to air cooling. Even with 1500 rpm 140mm x 2 blasting at max, it will run 6-8C warmer than with 3x120 cruising along at 800 rpm. This is the big advantage of 120mm fans -- focused flow of air. It is particuarly true of the fan type like Snapper referenced. Not everyone needs focused front cooling, but if you have multiple GPU's, an M.2 drive, or drive stacks that do a lot of file swapping duties, these things can matter. My 540 also has universal mounting flanges to make it 3x120 and 2x140 compatible. As a result, the 140mm fans have a piece of metal partial obstructing the intake. It does become part of the sound profile and 2x140 on an Air 540 is noiser than it should be. I don't know how the airflow mounting system works and this may not be an issue.

Sorry for the delay in thanking you guys....But thanks!

Hope it all works out well. I use the Asus software (with the fans connected to the mobo) and it switches the case fans off below 40 degrees, makes for a nice, quiet computer,

Look at the thread right above this on fan placement theory. C-attack, Red Ray and Snapper posted some outstanding advice and they taught some basics on radiator placement, case air flow, exhaust vs intake, case pressure, dust control, fan placement and push/pull with 4 fans vs using only the two stack fans. It was very educational.