My PC finally died a rather glorious death, the PSU shorted and fried the GPU and motherboard. Woooo

So anyway, it gave me an excuse for a new build!

Tomorrow, I have all the parts coming to put an I5 8600 and a 1080 into this case!

It’s rather small, so the motherboard is flipped up, in the opposite direction to usual.

I have a 240mm AIO cooler going into it, that will sit along the top as per the picture (although it isn’t a custom watercooler like that one). Now because the case is very small, there aren’t a whole lot of fans to play around with. The bottom, right hand fan is usually set up as an exhaust fan, whilst there is also an option to run an intake fan on the bottom.

Do I run the top two fans as intakes and cool the CPU with nice cool air and blow warm air on the GPU, giving the case positive pressure helping to stop dust from getting in. (all fans will have dust filters, pc dust filers are pretty crap though and only filter out the bigger stuff)

Or do I run it as an exhaust, with 1 intake one the bottom and one exhaust on the bottom right, keeping ambient temps lower and run it negative pressure which will attract more dust?

<p>I would run two intakes on the bottom and exhaust on the top, I’m struggling to think of any reason not to.</p>

Nice.  Upside down system. 😀

Is that Riotoro case?

I would just add another intake fan at the bottom.

Top two fans for radiator intake.

The right fan for exhaust.

Add another slim fan from Noctua for intake at the bottom.

I am not sure how much extra cooling it will provide as the bottom intake fan will have the cool air exhaust out by the exhaust fan to the right.  Try it who knows it might be good.

😀

So the only vents (besides the fans) are at the bottom? I’d buy a new case personally…

If you can’t do that then I’d set the top two fans to exhaust and the side fan to inhale (assuming the 1080 GPU fans will be pointing upwards). A decent liquid CPU cooler is only £100 and worth considering in a small case like that (without it, unlike in the picture, you’re going to have a giant fan block on the CPU interrupting the air flow through the case)

Just run some tests while monitoring thermals.

Yeah, I went with this full ATX case as opposed to a micro atx case as it’s easier and cheaper to get quality motherboards eg decent chips, vrms etc.

I have actually ordered a 240mm all in one liquid cooler, just not the custom setup like this. I should have been clearer.

So you think the radiator would be better set as an exhaust? Using warmer air inside the case?

I could also liquid cool the GPU with an all in one 120mm radiator and set that to exhaust or intake via the side fan.

I guess I’ll just need to mess about.

Chewkw, it’s a Raijintek Thetis case. I probably rushed into getting the case, but I bought it because it was small despite being full ATX, looked smart as opposed to gamerish and had 4 large fans. Didn’t really think about the fan layout at the time……reviews seem pretty good though. Pc components drive me nuts as well, too much choice mixed with my indecision and mild ocd makes me pretty impatient to get purchasing out the way. Bikes give me enough of a headache as it is.

I won’t be overclocking (neither the time or inclination) so it should be ok.

New build wooop!!

Quite confused why you would run just an exhaust fan at the bottom of a case unless it was an AIO, 100% sure I’ve missed something and i know you’re aware heat rises.  No coffee yet…

That config in the pic i can take a guess, could be wrong, is going to produce some horrible heat spots if the rad fans are intake only.  Surely they will  counter the GPU fans as I presume they are facing up now and the heat will have no where to escape but sit between the rad and the GPU unless im missing something with thermodynamics, etc.  In fact that whole set up just looks wrong, maybe i don’t like the upside downness!

Even with the top fans set up as exhaust it will be take warm air from the GPU through to the rad and out, instead of passing cool air through the rad.

If that were my build, i would have a 120-140 AIO for the CPU going exhaust right out the bottom, have two 140 fans on top for to cover the heat from the GPU, would test a push/pull config see what worked best and an intake on the bottom to suck air into the system

Grab some hippie sticks and mess about with the thermals, end of the day, enjoy the new build!

EDIT: Reddit has some good answers 🙂

Yeah no coffee yet heheh and on the district line woop.

The bottom 120 AIO sounds like it would have been a better idea, the nzxt G12 GPU bracket can mount the 240mm cooler that’s coming, so maybe I could run the GPU out through the top two cents – using the huge radiator to make up for the warmer air…..and the bottom CPU 120mm cooler as an Intake on the side?

What generates more overall heat these days, GPUs or CPUs?

If the GPU is air cooled, and I run the top two fans as exhausts – could there be some inefficiency with the GPU cooling of the strong 120mm fans are pulling most of the air up past the GPU and out?

The GPU fans would be fighting to pull the air in the opposite direction.

If the GPU is air cooled, and I run the top two fans as exhausts – could there be some inefficiency with the GPU cooling of the strong 120mm fans are pulling most of the air up past the GPU and out?

That’s a thought I had, would it starve the GPU of air flow? Reddit appears to agree on that one.

Can you not buy a normal case like a H200i or a TT P1…get some coffee man and sort yourself out with these crazy ideas 😛

IMO, watercool everything, big old custom loop, problem solved.

I have the the smaller version of that case, the Styx, with an Z270 mATX board and an M2 SSD at the top. Yes heat does rise but with forced convection it is not as simple as that. Did some research and settled on intake fan at the top to cool the SSD, intake on the base (very slim) with the rear fan acting as the exhaust (the CPU fan blows towards it). However, I don’t have a dedicated GPU so don’t have to worry the GPU fans opposing the intake at the top.

I would probably start with exhaust at the top, intake at the bottom and test whether the rear should be intake or exhaust. Helps that you don’t have a CPU fan so don’t have to swap it around when testing the rear exhaust vs instake.

Don’t forget dust filters, gets pretty dusty at the bottom.

Always exhaust at the top, I build rigs for filming now and you can get away with a lot of passive cooling of the hottest stuff even at the top of  warm case.

Could the AIO radiator be mounted externally? If you setup the lower right fan as an intake and just let the air out the top, then mount the radiator and fans on standoffs a couple of inches above the case in cooler air.

Remember that two fans in series doubles the pressure, in parallel doubles flowrate, and PC fans are all about flow so having them in a push/pull setup is mostly only useful for directing flow, so having two intake fans blowing towards the hottest areas will shift more air than one intake and an exhaust elsewhere unless there’s another reason to direct the flow.

Nzxt is micro itx, I was warned off micro itx by other nerds 😀 …..also, doesn’t it need an stx PSU? I have a nice 4×4 wireless card and router as well…which I wouldn’t be able to use. I wanted a full size PSU so I could shove a seasonic Titanium prime PSU in it and not have to worry about it going bang like my Corsair did.

So all in all, basically I need to try every combo and see what works 😀 hahah.

Soooo, anyone in London got a laser cutter? 😀 Maybe I could put a fan in at the front.

Try and get a watercooled CPU – Coolermaster and others do the whole unit – no messing. They push the heat right out of the case (assuming it fits as that case looks tight). My son’s case runs very cool, and he has his fans on low – two front fans and two exhausts on the top, expelled air, and case internal temp is not much more than room temperature.  The heat that comes from the radiator out the back is incredible though.

Your graphics card will have probably two fans which direct the case air over the GPU and out of the back of the machine, so the cooler the case (i.e. CPU heat) the less hard the graphics card fans have to work.  My son’s GTX 970 isn’t ever taxed on cooling, and the fans shut down on office tasks.

Awesome, thanks chaps. I’ll build it tonight and take some pics.

Heh a good example of how not to design a PC case 😀

Seems the thermal performance of its smaller but very similar sibling is actually pretty good

https://www.bit-tech.net/reviews/tech/cases/raijintek-styx-review/4/

My guess is, based on that review, is that it will perform best if I link the GPU up to the 240mm liquid cooler, have it intake from the top….and get an additional 120mm liquid cooler for the CPU….have it exhaust from the rear….and have a 120mm intake fan at the bottom to feed the vrms and 120mm radiator cooler air.

Subsequent to my previous post realised that the GFX card fans were orientated towards the top, with air being pushed onto the boards and then out into the case. So having the top fans exhausting probably wouldn’t be as effective.

Doing the cable management in that Styx was a fiddly task.

Graphics cards exhaust out the back of the case, not into it.

Whatever fan has the filter is the intake – on mine that’s the front fan. The rear and top fans don’t have filters.

If you use a un-filtered intake dust will build up real quick. In the real world this is the bigger problem than actual thermals – modern stuff runs super cool these days, you don’t need to worry about it unless you’re doing some real intensive stuff.. Those AIO loops are great also.

A by filters, I mean a mesh filter – not the hole punched aluminium cover.

Graphics cards exhaust out the back of the case, not into it.

Only blower style cards, cards that rely on large heatsinks and low rpms do sometimes exhaust a little air….but they aren’t designed to do that.

Generally, reference cards exhaust out the back, non reference cards have a more open design and exhaust into the case as well

several references to heat rising…..im afraid heat doesnt rise, its warm air that rises.