Fractal R4 - Creating Positive Pressure

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varulv

varulv

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I'm going for a Fractal Design Refine R4 with my new build, and I was wondering what and how many of the following fans I have to use in order to create positive pressure inside the case.

http://www.corsair.com/en/case-fans/air-series-led-fans

These are the fans that I am interested in, they have two versions, static pressure ones and quiet ones for air flow. I'm going to assume that the ideal setup for what I want would be two 140mm quiet ones on the front and one 140mm quiet (or static?) on the back.

As for the CPU cooler, should I get 2x quiet ones or static pressure ones? For maybe a Cooler Master: Hyper 212 EVO.

Would really help me if someone could assist me on this one, kinda in a bind. Thanks.

 
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volcanoscout
The D14 comes with two 3pin fans - NF-P14 140mm and NF-P12. It's very quiet - I could barely hear it in my R4 when it was maxed. Having said that, I'd go for the D15 if I was buying now - improved design, better DRAM clearance, and it comes with two NF-A15 140mm PWM fans and runs even quieter. I'm pretty anal about noise, so I put two Noctua NF-A14 140mm in the front, one in rear, one top/rear. I ran them all off mobo and adjusted the mode profiles so the front fans ran slightly faster than the exhaust fans. At anything below about 60%, I had to check the power light to see if the PC was on. For the Corsairs, I can only judge by the specs - I tried the 120mm SPs and thought they were too loud. The 140s should be quieter.

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volcanoscout

volcanoscout

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Go for static pressure fans in the front to force air the length of the case. For the rear exhaust a regular fan will do. There's no benefit to static pressure with an exhaust fan. For the 212, try it with the stock fan first. If it's not sufficient, go for static pressure for forcing air through the tower.
 
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varulv

varulv

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Yeah, I'll be removing that one. So you are saying that with 2x 140 Static Pressure ones for intake and 1 140 Air Flow one for exhaust I'll be achieving positive pressure? Double checking, because that's what I'm aiming for, I'd rather have a dust-less interior than anything else. On the other hand, I'm also bothered by noise, and I know for fact that the Fractal is insanely good at soundproofing, so I wonder what's the difference in DB between the corsair (SP Vs AF) ones is. Hopefully going for two SP ones in front won't increase the noise by much.

Edit: Funny, I'll also be getting the same mobo as yours! I heard maximus hero vii is one hell of a board. Still unsure if I should get an i5 5 4670k or i7-4770K. my guess is that i5 will do, since I only care for gaming and I don't do video editing/rendering. Also does the Noctua NH-D14 come with two fans? If yes, are they silent? I might as well go for that one, I've heard amazing things from my friend for these radiators.
 
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volcanoscout

volcanoscout

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Depending on where you're buying, you can usually get the 4690K or 4790K for a price comparable to their "older" brothers. The Devil's Canyon chips have improved temps (at least below 4.4GHz) and faster starting clocks (100MHz and 500MHz, respectively).

There's lots of variables that can come into play with case air pressure, and the specific CPU cooler you get can play into it. How are you planning to control the fans? Are you running one or two GPUs?
 
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varulv

varulv

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ohh, I didn't know about this, so there was i5 4970 before, and now the 4790 are the so called 'Devil's Canyon' chips. Good to know. :) Just checked and the difference in price is only 20 bucks here.

As for controlling the fans, r4 has a fan control for up to 3 fans built in so I'll use that I guess. I also checked the DB differences, apparently the SP versions run at 1400rpm at 29DB, AF ones run at 1200 and 25db. Assuming I run both intake & exhaust ones at full speed there's a 4 DB difference. Wonder how loud this will be, I guess it depends just how much the case really filters sound.
 
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volcanoscout

volcanoscout

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Jan 5, 2014
2,861
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14,960
The D14 comes with two 3pin fans - NF-P14 140mm and NF-P12. It's very quiet - I could barely hear it in my R4 when it was maxed. Having said that, I'd go for the D15 if I was buying now - improved design, better DRAM clearance, and it comes with two NF-A15 140mm PWM fans and runs even quieter. I'm pretty anal about noise, so I put two Noctua NF-A14 140mm in the front, one in rear, one top/rear. I ran them all off mobo and adjusted the mode profiles so the front fans ran slightly faster than the exhaust fans. At anything below about 60%, I had to check the power light to see if the PC was on. For the Corsairs, I can only judge by the specs - I tried the 120mm SPs and thought they were too loud. The 140s should be quieter.

For the CPU, if you like playing MMOs and/or BF4, Watch Dogs, other CPU-intensive games, if your budget will handle it, I'd get the i7-4790K.
 
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