A Couple Of Quick Cooling Questions

[Mystic Mungis]

Okay so I've just put the finishing touches to my new rig and I have 2 quick questions.

 

1) I'm using the Corsair Carbide 200R case and currently have an intake on the front and an exhaust on the back. I'm using the Corsair Hydro 110 liquid CPU cooler and have it's radiator attached to the two fan mounts at the top of the case which means that I currently only have the one exhaust. I'm just about to mount 2 fans on to the side of the case and was wondering if I should have them both as intakes or if having the lower one as an intake and the top one as an exhaust would be better?

 

2) The PSU is currently exhausting out of the bottom of the case however this means that the cables from it cover the bottom fan mount, having the PSU vent out of the case is better than having it blow hot air into the case at the sacrifice of the bottom fan right?

 

Specs:

 

CPU: Intel Core i5 3350P

Mobo: MSI B75A-G43

RAM: 2x4GB Corsair Vengeance 1600Mhz

GFX: Sapphire R9 270X

HDD: 1TB WD Black

SSD: 240GB Corsair Neutron

PSU: 850W BeQuiet Power Zone

 

Thanks in advance :)

[xendrome]

 

2) The PSU is currently exhausting out of the bottom of the case however this means that the cables from it cover the bottom fan mount, having the PSU vent out of the case is better than having it blow hot air into the case at the sacrifice of the bottom fan right?

 

 

I hope you mean the back of the case not the bottom... and the PSU should always went air out of the back.

 

Your air-flow should always be cool are in from the front and vent out the back, that gets cool air flowing across the components.

 

If you have a top fan, typically I would have it be an intake, and still have the rear fans vent all of the hot air out of the back.

[Astra.Xtreme]

Since heat rises, you typically don't want an intake at the top.  You could cause a pressure bubble that traps the heat in.

 

The power supply and graphic cards always push air out the back, so you don't need to worry about their heat radiating in.

 

The CPU is typically what causes the most heat inside a case, but since you have the water cooler radiator at the top pushing air out, you don't need to go too crazy with other fans.

 

I have a water cooler on mine and the only fan I have in my case is the one attached to that radiator (though I have a lot of open mesh on the top of the case).

 

As long as you don't have multiple fans pushing air towards each other, thermodynamics will do the work for you. :)

[Mystic Mungis]

I hope you mean the back of the case not the bottom... and the PSU should always went air out of the back.

Yupp I had a brain fart, I was thinking it pulled air in from the back, what I meant was it's pulling air in from the bottom and venting out the back. So what my question should have been was "IS the PSU getting cool air instead of hot air from inside the case better than having it pull in air from the case and have an extra fan at the bottom" :p

 

I've left it as is and have the two fans on the side of the case as intakes which is giving the graphics card lots of nice cool air, everything is sitting about 25 degrees (celsius) idle and the highest I've seen things hitting while running Battlefield 4 was CPU - 42 and GFX - 51 which is more than reasonable :)