Fan orientation for 800D w/ H100i?

Heat rises up. So pulling from bottom and front and pushing from top and back is a good configuration. I mounted the exact configuration with a H100i rad with 2 Noctua NF-F12 fans for quietness. Temperatures are great.

Yes, your configuration is correct. Are you using any front mounted fans? It is more of a question of aesthetics vs performance or aesthetics and performance. You can use Corsair AF LED series fans for aesthetics and decent air flow inside the case fans, though SP-120mm (Quiet edition) fans would also do the job.

Noctua 14 series fans are great build and they give good performance with low noise. 15 series fans have been reported to be bit loudy though.

Jeup, heat rises up.
That means all the system heat (GPU, HDDs, Chipset, etc.) will rise through the radiator from your CPU when exhausting from the top...

I would recommend to intake from the top, with the fans sucking through the radiator.
This will give your CPU the coolest air possible and make cleaning the radiator much easier (no need to remove the fans to clean it).
With my current build (Corsair 350D + H110), my CPU MAX load temps dropped approx. 10°C after switching from top exhaust to top intake.

From there, you just need to decide if you want to keep a single rear exhaust, or intake at the rear and exhaust at the front.

In favor of the rear exhaust; you will immediately pump the CPU heat out of the case and, assuming you are using intake fan filters, overpressurizing the case will reduce dust buildup.

With rear intake, you should have a bit better airflow overall, but your HDDs and possibly GPU will run a bit warmer.
I see the GPU possibly running a bit warmer because you will probably have a harder time getting cool air to the lower left area of your case with this airflow setup.

Personally, I would probably stick with a rear exhaust.
Although the maximum airflow of your system may be reduced a bit, the abundance of cooler air will probably keep the system a bit cooler overall.
Also, your case is not perfectly sealed, so a higher intake pressure should cause the warm air to 'leak' out at other points than the exhaust fan or design vents.

Hope this helps!
-outlw

In this case your configuration is well built and Noctua 14 series are great fans which deliver packed performance at low noise levels. Nice choice there. Good Luck

The Corsair H100i radiator fans are very loud, that's why I replaced them with the F12 noctua series.
Noctua FN-F12 are radiator fans as they give more one-direction-pressure. Noctua FN-P12 are more likely to be case fans. Though Noctua fans are considered to be pricey, yet great fans to own.. I do not know what case fans you own at the moment, if you consider them quiet and give you enough airflow, then i'd say great keep 'em. If not, you should consider youself an upgrade. Though an extra intake from the bottom is optional, I run 1 intake fan on the bottom (Fractal design quiet edition) mainly to cool down the gpu.

Stock fans with H100i are SP-120mm L edition fans. If you want to stick with corsair series then buy SP-120mm Performance/Quiet edition fans and use them on the radiator. Don't buy AF series fan for radiator.

Noctua fans are expensive but they are worth it. With high air flow and quiet level they give you the optimal cooling solution. I'm using Corsair and Noctua fans in combination and they are quite effective.

Stick with Push config on the radiator i.e fans will push air thru the rad over to the top. That will be enough.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyC3lZ5WFMk

My config:
1 intake 140mm front
1 intake 140mm bottom
2 exhaust 120mm radiator top

For me this give's me enough air flow to get all the heat away, I might add annother 140mm exhaust fan at the back. Anyway, exhausting from the top is the most common configuration people use in their case and in my oppinion the most efficient talking about temperatures. Also keep in mind that an exhaust fan to the radiator will gather dust in a period of time against the radiator. So you will need to clean it every now and then, meaning you will have to take off the fan to be able to reach the dust. This will not ofcourse happen when you use your radiator fans as an intake. But yet, I rather have dust pushed away than pulled inside your case.

Having more intake fans then exhaust fans will create more positive pressure which is not required. In my case, I've two 120mm fans (one is operational) on the front as intake. 2 fans on the top as exhaust, one fan on the rear as exhaust.

http://pcpartpicker.com/b/N03#img=0

This was my setup with stock H100i fans and more of a pulling configuration. As you can see only the back was my exhausting point. Though for better results go with exhaust on top.

No. Front means means fans mounted on the front side of case.

Front mounted fan



Corsair H100i Fans installation

This is for reference only. This fan is 200mm fan. 800D is big case and can easily adjust the front fans. You can install one 140mm fan as well.

Getting a nice airflow duo to a correct fan setup, you will reduce heat inside the case overall. Like I said earlier, I setup a bottom fan that blows straight to the gpu. Yet it's better to test it out by trying out your fan setups. Try monitoring your gpu and cpu temps idle and in full load.

No worries at all!

Well, the common wisdom is not entirely wrong.
Heat does rise which, in theory, means that exhausting through the top makes the most sense.
The problem with this theory is that you are then dumping all this heat straight into the radiator that is supposed to be keeping your CPU as cool as possible.
As the temperature differential between your case air air and ambient is quite low, the amount of energy (lost airflow from your fans) needed to overcome convection is also quite low.

If you did not have the radiator installed at the top vents, it would definitely make sense to have convection working in your favor.
As you do however, a marginal loss in airflow is a price well payed to ensure a supply of cool air to the radiator.

To the arguments over positive or negative air pressure; I tend to favor over pressure when it is not possible to balance airflow.
In my mind, pushing in fresh air is going to force warmer air to exit somewhere, while at the same time controlling the flow of dust into the enclosure.
This may cause a bit less air to travel over your radiator though (as the case will have slightly higher pressure).

In contrast, pulling more air out than is pumped in will still have to follow the same process, just in reverse.
That is to say, more air being pulled out than pushed in will force air to find another path into the case; probably not a filter path.
As a plus, it should allow you to flow a little more air over the radiator (assuming it is the intake for your system).

Just because I prefer over pressure instead of under pressure does not make it a guideline for every system.
Before making a final decision on the fan setup, you should first try to think through the flow in your case with each possibility.

When I look at the view provided for Your Case and assume that the top will be intake, my thoughts are as follows:

1) Keeping the rear fan as exhaust will let you immediately pump out a significant amount of the heat generated by the CPU directly. If you where to have this as an intake, you would be blowing this heat all throughout the case.

1a) If you were to exhaust from the top, it would make more sense to intake at the rear. By doing so, you would be feeding fresh air directly to the radiator.

2) If your intake is at the rear, the airflow will be deflected towards the front exhaust by the back of the GPU. This will deaden the GPU to the fresh air it needs to keep as cool as possible. The hot air would then travel over the hard drives before being exhausted out the front.

3) With the intake at the front, you should have some turbulent fresh air supplying your GPU and lots of cool airflow over your hard drives.

-outlw

You are using H100i for CPU cooling. Use fans in the position mentioned in the pic above. Fans will push air from inside the case thru the rad to the top. Rest your front mounted fans will push fresh air inside the case. One exhaust fan on rear and two rad mounted fans will be enough to ensure the high air flow inside the case.

Note: Don't use side fan. It will be effective only on the area on which it will be directly throwing air at but this will disturb the air flow cycle and may result in dead spot which is not needed at all.