Questions Corsair H500i platinum sandwich (It's getting weird)

So I recently started to build a rig. First time ever. And I've watched about 15 hours of videos on cooling and air floy, rad fan orientation etc. So I finally settled on fan orientation.

 

I have the H500i Platinum AIO comes stock with 2 120mm RGB fans.

 

I bought 3 additional fans with the RGB fan controller.

 

And I'm using the cases fans aswell so 7 fans in total.

 

I have the AIO set up at the front of the PC in like this. Fan 1&2 > []Rad Fan 3&4>. |Case wall with right angle intake strip now being used as exhaust.

 

At the back of the case I have one additional RGB 120mm fan pulling air out of the case. The stock case fan is on the top of the case drawing air into y case. There's also another fan on the bottom of the case drawing air in aswell. So 7fans in total.

 

Let me know if I you see any issues.

Turn the top fan to exhaust. As intake it’s just stuffing air into the rear exhaust with no meaningful cooling or air exchange benefit. That rear fan is trying to handle the flow from the entire case. You will wind up with hot air swirling all over the back waiting to go somewhere. In combination top/rear exhaust, you have a clear flow path through the box.

Turn the top fan to exhaust. As intake it’s just stuffing air into the rear exhaust with no meaningful cooling or air exchange benefit. That rear fan is trying to handle the flow from the entire case. You will wind up with hot air swirling all over the back waiting to go somewhere. In combination top/rear exhaust, you have a clear flow path through the box.

 

I'm curious if you accounted for the video cards position and airflow from bottom of case intake fan.. should I still exhaust the top fan and just to clarify only one fan intake is enough?

 

Wouldn't the rad 4 sandwich also exhaust air still? I was trying to have bottom fan intake exit through the rad after hitting the video card and the top intake cool the mother board and exhaust out the back.

 

Just to clarify the rad is pulling air from inside the case in the direction of the rad. I'm confused as to why it wouldn't pull air directly out from the bottom fan and why the top intake fan wouldn't push cool air down and out the front and back of the case.

 

Probably going to have to a smoke test to confirm. Could you possibly elaborate on your explanation?

 

Fan 1&2> []Rad Fan 3&4 > L case wall with right angle intake used as exhaust. So this in your theory would some how swirl air around at the back of the case?

 

I'm even more confused than before.

I didn’t catch the front radiator was set up for exhaust. While possible to use it this way, it is not common and can prove difficult in many cases, the vast majority of which were designed for front/bottom to top/rear flow.

 

I’ll risk an analogy — you are sitting in the middle of room with opposing sets of corner windows. However, you have turned the fans to blow in from one window and out the one next to it. You are not going to feel a thing in the middle of the room. The relevance of this is your motherboard is electrified and crammed with heat producing components. Most people forget about this. I can put up some thermal images, but in my full water cooler cases the RAM and board are the hottest items in the box. Presumably you have an open style GPU in this mix and that is probably one to obstacle too many for experimental layouts.

 

There are some cases you can run reverse flow and I have done this successfully. However, I am not sure the NZXT models lend themselves to that and the design leaves one clear option. If you turn the radiator fans to intake, this will have a positive effect on CPU coolant temperature. The downside to this is fans don’t move a lot of air through the radiator, but you can supplement with that bottom fan as intake. Top and rear as exhaust. This also creates a clear flow through the case passing most all components. Radiator exhaust temp will be approximately equal to coolant temp and range from 23-40C depending on season (room temp) and load. This is not a problem because your motherboard and RAM surface temps will always be at least the same temp. It doesn’t really matter if your motherboard is 30C or 36C, as long as you have some airflow moving across it.

Edited August 6, 2019 by c-attack
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