Best fan orientation

[419ohio0000]

What is the best fan orientation to lower my GPU and not have to much excessive CPU heat. My GPU runs at 84 Celsius while gaming. I have a rtx 3060 GPU and a Corsair CPU water cooler top mounted in a cyber power pre built case

 

[eidairaman1]

Typical layout in an ATX case is front is intake, back is exhaust, top is exhaust, and bottom is intake. 3060, get some thermalpads

 

[Dr. Dro]

The top fans are installed incorrectly. Hot air goes up, flip the top fans for exhaust. Back should be exhaust, the two beside the motherboard are installed correctly.

 

[DirtyDingusMcgee]

Looks to me like those front two fans are exhausting. I'd flip them around. back fan looks to be in-taking, I'd flip it around. top fans for Rad are exhausting, so they are fine.

I could be wrong, and certainly fans with reverse blade angle and spin exist, but these look to be standard fans. In other words, looks like you have your arrows backwards. Typically the fan motor housing is the back of the fan, and is also the direction that the fan blows. Very often fans are marked as to air flow direction.

 

[QckSilver]

The airflow in this case doesn't seem to be very good to start with.
If the aim is to lower temperature of the GPU alone, i would make the side fans as INTAKE, the 2 top and the rear as EXHAUST

Since your GPU is not a blower model, it will spit hot air all inside the case, if there's nothing taking it outside, everything will cook, hence the setup i suggested.

For better results i would really just trash this case and get one with decent airflow, preferably one that has bottom fan support to blow cold air directly on the GPU's face

 

[natr0n]

remember no matter the orientation air doesn't flow through glass

 

[oxrufiioxo]

Just do testing with fans in different orientation and see what works best for you. I've done quite a few different setups in my 011 XL and they all work pretty well but some are slightly better than others depending on if the cpu or gpu is the priority.

 

[Dr. Dro]

Looks to me like those front two fans are exhausting. I'd flip them around. back fan looks to be in-taking, I'd flip it around. top fans for Rad are exhausting, so they are fine.

I could be wrong, and certainly fans with reverse blade angle and spin exist, but these look to be standard fans. In other words, looks like you have your arrows backwards. Typically the fan motor housing is the back of the fan, and is also the direction that the fan blows. Very often fans are marked as to air flow direction.

View attachment 369291
View attachment 369292

Aw you beat me to my lovingly crafted mspaint tutorial, but i'll share it anyway

I'm planning on writing a thread explaining how this works, I have a few guide threads drafted but didn't manage to finish them yet

 

[Macro Device]

I'm planning on writing a thread explaining how this works

It already exists.

Get cool air from below, strike it away to above. It's that simple.

 

[nomdeplume]

The top fans are installed incorrectly. Hot air goes up, flip the top fans for exhaust. Back should be exhaust, the two beside the motherboard are installed correctly.

I'm planning on writing a thread explaining how this works, I have a few guide threads drafted but didn't manage to finish them yet

I [pedantic] would like to point out hot air doesn't necessarily go up. I'm quite sure you know the following that is laid out for OP.

You provided the correct orientation so allow me to add that tuning fan curves in a tough situation is all about building or releasing air pressure. Air will seek the most opportune path to fill or evacuate which is rarely going to be upwards. The issue right now is likely parts recirculation and effectively leaving the gpu fans in dead air by creating a wall it can't escape through. In that situation 10x air flow won't solve a thing.

 

[Dr. Dro]

I [pedantic] would like to point out hot air doesn't necessarily go up. I'm quite sure you know the following that is laid out for OP.

You provided the correct orientation so allow me to add that tuning fan curves in a tough situation is all about building or releasing air pressure. Air will seek the most opportune path to fill or evacuate which is rarely going to be upwards. The issue right now is likely parts recirculation and effectively leaving the gpu fans in dead air by creating a wall it can't escape through. In that situation 10x air flow won't solve a thing.

Yeah, it is an oversimplification, but one that generally works with PC building in mind. I've written down a more technical explanation in my notes, going around the principles of buoyancy, air pressure, heat density etc but if I write that all down, i'm gonna come across as pedantic and a bit of a snob

 

[419ohio0000]

Thanks for the replies. I ended up taking the fans out to see the orientation. All the fans were installed as exhaust except the back fan that was a intake. So I left the top fans as exhaust, flipped the back fan to a exhaust and made the 2 side fans intake for cool air.

 

[nomdeplume]

Yeah, it is an oversimplification, but one that generally works with PC building in mind. I've written down a more technical explanation in my notes, going around the principles of buoyancy, air pressure, heat density etc but if I write that all down, i'm gonna come across as pedantic and a bit of a snob

Maybe a visual simulation of the problem with modern cases would avoid undesirable associations. natr0n got a good laugh out of me.
We both know pedantic angry comments never approaching a key point or accepting the long line is why those threads stay in the editor.

 

[AusWolf]

remember no matter the orientation air doesn't flow through glass

Yep. And glass with a 1-2 cm gap is still glass. Don't learn this the hard way like I did with the Corsair 280X.

 

[DirtyDingusMcgee]

Aw you beat me to my lovingly crafted mspaint tutorial, but i'll share it anyway

I like yours better

 

[LittleBro]

Thanks for the replies. I ended up taking the fans out to see the orientation. All the fans were installed as exhaust except the back fan that was a intake. So I left the top fans as exhaust, flipped the back fan to a exhaust and made the 2 side fans intake for cool air.

Are those fans reversed?

If not, two at the top and in the fron are positioned as exhaust fans, only one in the back is intake fan. Of course the GPU overheats, there is not enough cold air in it's vicinity. Basically your case is about to implode.

Was this prebuilt?

 

[Hyderz]

top intake back switch it to intake and then the side ones make it exhaust... i think that is the best... for your situation

 

[Devon68]

It should be 2 intakes a and 3 exhausts.

 

[419ohio0000]

Are those fans reversed?

If not, two at the top and in the fron are positioned as exhaust fans, only one in the back is intake fan. Of course the GPU overheats, there is not enough cold air in it's vicinity. Basically your case is about to implode.

Was this prebuil

It was a pre-built, And my buddy installed the CPU cooler for me and everything worked fine until recently. I took everything apart to clean it because it was getting hot again on the GPU. So how it was set up after I looked at the fan arrows was there was only one intake and that was the back upper fan. Now I have the back upper fan as an exhaust and the top mounted radiator as an exhaust. Then the two side fans are intake and it seems to run a lot cooler. I'm around 72 Celsius playing call of duty versus 84 Celsius the previous day on my GPU.

This is how it was after I looked at all the arrows on the fans.

This is the direction I flipped the fans and it is running around 72 Celsius Now playing call of duty vs 84 on the GPU originally

 

[AusWolf]

It was a pre-built, And my buddy installed the CPU cooler for me and everything worked fine until recently. I took everything apart to clean it because it was getting hot again on the GPU. So how it was set up after I looked at the fan arrows was there was only one intake and that was the back upper fan. Now I have the back upper fan as an exhaust and the top mounted radiator as an exhaust. Then the two side fans are intake and it seems to run a lot cooler. I'm around 72 Celsius playing call of duty versus 84 Celsius the previous day on my GPU.

View attachment 369315

This is how it was after I looked at all the arrows on the fans.

View attachment 369316

This is the direction I flipped the fans and it is running around 72 Celsius Now playing call of duty vs 84 on the GPU originally

I was gonna say that I don't see any change, then I realised that you used the original picture with different arrows. Tricky.

 

[dirtyferret]

I [pedantic] would like to point out hot air doesn't necessarily go up

hot air will go in any direction you push and/or pull it with a fan, with no air flow hot air will rise but do so slowly

The one mistake I constantly see people with air coolers for the CPU is they use the roof front mount as intake or outake when it should be left open so the CPU fan can pull in cooler air. The back roof mount should be outake

This video does a pretty good job in set ups although he mistakenly say "heat" rises as opposed to hot air

 

[419ohio0000]

I was gonna say that I don't see any change, then I realised that you used the original picture with different arrows. Tricky.

Yeah lol sorry. I was just updating the post since I wasn't home to take a picture. I appreciate everyones input and advice, I think I have a way better airflow set up now considering all the variables

 

[Shrek]

I'm still wondering about fans in series vs parallel.

• Fans in parallel will have a certain flow, but the same two fans in series will have less flow.

I reason as follows: as one adds more fans in a line, so the later fans don't get to do much as the flow has already reach maximum. I am not suggesting a line of fans, just using this idea to argue that fans in series are not as effective as fans in parallel.

I'm also one who feels that a CPU fan that blows air onto the mother board is important to cool the VRMs

 

[phanbuey]

It depends, the whole "hot air rises" only applies to a system with no airflow, and it happens relatively slowly -- as soon as you introduce any active circulation into the mix that whole concept no longer applies.

Also cooling your radiator water with warm air drops the efficiency of the watercooler massively, so I actually prefer if theres an AIO that it's used as an intake rather than exhaust - the airflow that @OP posted is actually perfect for low fan speed (quiet) systems - just ramp the back fan with systemp and you're good to go.

The back fan has far less restriction and positive pressure so it's actually probably close to moving the same amount of air as the pull rad fans.

 

[Dr. Dro]

It depends, the whole "hot air rises" only applies to a system with no airflow, and it happens relatively slowly -- as soon as you introduce any active circulation into the mix that whole concept no longer applies.

Also cooling your radiator water with warm air drops the efficiency of the watercooler massively, so I actually prefer if theres an AIO that it's used as an intake rather than exhaust - the airflow that @OP posted is actually perfect for low fan speed (quiet) systems - just ramp the back fan with systemp and you're good to go.

The back fan has far less restriction and positive pressure so it's actually probably close to moving the same amount of air as the pull rad fans.

The problem is that Gaming PCs are constantly generating heat with high wattage parts, axial GPUs are almost always making the upper area of the chassis warm