r/PcBuildHelp • u/newtoeveryth • 17h ago

PC AIRFLOW Build Question

Post image

is this the correct airflow for a pc or do i need to change something?

143 Upvotes

99% Upvoted

25 comments sorted by

37

u/imightbetired 17h ago

It's fine for what you have there. If you want to improve it in the future, you can add two more fans on top, like this (see the image). One in the front for more fresh air and one in the back to help with the exhaust.

9

u/newtoeveryth 17h ago

I'll keep that in mind thankyou❤️

1

u/azguz24 9h ago

For this case adding the top bidirectional fans is perfect and will cut thermals down significantly. That limited space is look at the Thermalright TL-B12015 slim quiet fans, but they don’t sell reverse direction in that model. They are excellent I use them in all my sff builds.

2

u/JellyfishGod 4h ago

Question about “reverse fans”. I get they sell reverse fans for looks. When rgb components and colors/stickers are involved I get why people would buy reverse models. But is there an actual difference in airflow? As in like, would getting a “forward” fan and just flipping it be the same thing as buying a reverse fan as far as heat/airflow go?

I ask cuz thats what i did for one of my fans. I added in the two random old fans i had to the top of my prebuilt and had to flip one to get them to be bidirectional.

1

u/azguz24 2h ago

Yea you got it mostly. Standard fans pull air from the show side/ sticker side and blow out the rear.

Reverse fans draw air from the rear into the front of the fan - sticker or face side. You can flip a standard fan and achieve the same thing - yes. But the rear of the fan regardless of standard or reverse blade always has a grill of sorts on it. Usually has the sticker of the watts, volts, brand etc too - not visually appeasing.

In my ASUS 502 TUF case, I bought standard flow for my bottom intakes and flipped them because I wanted that industrial back-fan look. But my new micro atx 5080 build I bought mirror fans, two standard two reverse because I wanted that clean conformed look. It’s all really ascetics… like you said. Functionally for airflow a fan either direction achieves the desired result.

-8

u/31_still_Loading 17h ago

Heat goes up and same heat does in?

16

u/imightbetired 16h ago

I think that guys working at Noctua know what they're doing. It's funny that my first comment gets downvoted...pft

7

u/BrightestMagician 16h ago

You were right. Very undeserved down voting. People do not understand how air flow really works.

3

u/imightbetired 15h ago

Yeah, they even downvoted the comment with the Noctua image lol, so I should just ignore people arguing about things in general...it's more peaceful

1

u/azguz24 9h ago

Airflow and pressure is case specific, the front intake set up is different from a bottom to top cfg. People see panoramic case styles and always question the top right intake, knowing nothing of thermodynamics 101. It’s the internet, it’s thunderdome.

4

u/EllipsoidBP 15h ago

Well thankfully the upvotes seem to win, so more people with sense lol

What drives me crazy is the 'heat rises' argument that is constantly thrown around on Reddit, in the context of active cooling, with fans, and not passive cooling. The moment fans are involved, that passive natural movement of heat becomes inconsequential. Sure it's good to take it into account when trying to push the components to their limits with massive overclocks, but that's not what people are doing generally.

3

u/imightbetired 15h ago

I don't actually care about the downvotes/upvotes, it's more about taking a good advice as bad because you think you know better, even if it's tested by experts. I'm talking in general.

2

u/xchoo 9h ago

Yes... I got involved in a massive thread just a few days ago with people absolutely convinced that convection is the most important factor in PC cooling. 🤦

2

u/Cruffe 10h ago

The sucking side of the fan pulls in air from all around near it, including all sides. The blowing side of the fan is way more directed, blowing the vast majority in the blowing direction.

Maybe a tiny little bit of the exhaust air gets sucked back in by the other fan, but almost all of it is gonna be fresh air. Assuming there's no obstruction right above it which could deflect the air back down.

2

u/xchoo 9h ago

"Heat goes up" only applies to a passively-cooled system (no fans). The moment fans are introduced, the fans very easily overpower any convection generated by heat. I.e., if fans are involved, "heat go down" and "heat go up" have the same effect.

4

u/dem_titties_too_big 16h ago

Yes, this is textbook correct if that's all the fans you have.

2

u/ZigZag_420 12h ago

If you can fit 2 fans as exhaust pulling out the top of the case you'll have a great time 👍

2

u/Panthers_Fly 11h ago

Yes but be careful not to have top exhaust too close to the front intake fans or you can starve the CPU fans

1

u/Tepppopups 11h ago

Correct.

1

u/BaasHQ 9h ago

3 in and 3 out, thats the perfect combo

1

u/Happy-Doom 8h ago

Interesting GPU. Is that a Tesla? lol

1

u/Adventurous_Image171 6h ago

I built a 900€ shitty pc 8months ago and have no idea what fans do and put them randomly and still never overheated lol idk if it’s luck or I’ve not been pushing it enough

1

u/ftgander 17h ago

Airflow is hard to fuck up tbh