Hi,

Want to ask sifus opinions, which one better for cooling effect in chassis?

1)Exhaust more than intake?
2)Intake more than exhaust?

Thanks

In my opinion,
Exhaust more than intake would create vacuum then there wont be enough air molecule to transfer heat.
So the better choice between those 2 would be more intake than exhaust.

If you're using fans powerful enough to produce a near-vacumn in a typically non-airtight case, that would be true. However, in practice, thats impossible since there's no fan that powerful. (also se sidenote below)

More intake than exhaust means that the excess air will escape through all the gaps in the chassis (drive bays, chassis seams, I/O panel, ect), while more exhaust than intake means air will seep into the chassis via the same gaps. The thing to take not of is this, heat is produced in certain hotspots in a PC, not at every part, and cooling depends on how much air (measured in cubic feet per minute, CFM) is passing by that part.

For an intake system, cooler air is brought into the casing and it is mixed with the warm air inside, resulting in higher case temperatures. However, the advantage is that the place near the fan (where the air hasn't mixed yet) receives exceptionally good cooling.

For an exhaust system, the warm air is exhausted continuously from the casing, with cooler air leaking into the case though any intake vents and case gaps. This results in more uniform cooling, and overall temperatures are usually lower, though not as low as any part receiving a direct intake from outside.

In short, better exhaust will mean everything gets cooled down, better intake means whatever thats near the intake will have a lower temp (even better than exhaust) but rest of the case will be hot. For most systems, exhaust is more important because its difficult to have intakes at every hotspot (CPU, graphics, power regulator, northbridge, southbridge, HDD).




Sidenote : If the pressure in the case can be dropped that significantly, another phenomenon will take over. While vacumn doesn't transfer heat well, when air is forced from a higher to lower pressure, its temperature drops (this concept is used in air-con and refrigerators, but using refrigerant gas). Hence, if the fans can induce a large enough pressure drop inside the case (not likely), it will drop the temperature inside the case to below room temperature because all air seeping into the case must transition from high to low pressure. The downside is that less air in the case means less heat can be absorbed before temperatures go up, though the minimum temp possible is now lower. If you want to know more about this, google up articles on thermodynamics.

Agrees with lolwenli, i will opt for more exhaust anytime over more intake. You can only cram so much air into a case but its useless if you cant purge the hot air out ASAP.
Please also bear in mind NON of the cases in the market is airtight, not even close rofl.

Great replies.... thanks... time to mod chassis

Initially i was thinkin of gettin a cm690 to mod but after countless night of consideration i went for an open workbench concept, granted this will NOT work with most ppl due to many factors - insects/kids/space constraint/dust/maintenance but so far i've had a comfy 2 weeks with the setup and temp issues are now a thing of the past.

and on that note, the TR IFX14 performed way better than my previous TT BT VX
main reason is as said by lohwenli, TT BT VX is blowing air to the proc, and not giving enough exhaust and resulted hot air to remain stagnant inside the case (antec p180b, being tight sealed for noise dampening purpose)

TR IFX14 on the other hand blows air outwards via the rear, which also helps on exhaust. and that alone is a pretty huge difference on temps.

Thanks for replying. I would use the 90 cfm Cooler Master fans as exhaust, then it should be perfect. hopefully the noise is ok