Best airflow solution for my cpu

AJ Kenway

Reputable
Jun 12, 2014
177
0
4,760
I have been experiencing high temps lately with my cpu and its turning its performance down because of it. 70-80 C when gaming cpu temp and around 27-31 C room temp.

Top: 2 120 mm fans exhaust
Rear: 1 120 mm fan exhaust
Front: 1 120 mm fan intake

I have tried making the top fans an intake with better overall temps of around 65-70ish C at 27-31 C room temp. All of my case fans are inexpensive and I don't know what variable is affecting the my cpu temps. Is it because my cpu is starving for air and should i go for positive airflow? or do I have to buy a slightly expensive fan for their performance? NOTE: my chassis does not have a mount for a bottom fan.
 
If you're case will support it, try using two fans in front as intake, with rear and top/rear as exhaust. That should give you better front-to-back airflow. If they're all the same make and model, setting the front fans' RPM a little higher than your exhaust fans will give you positive pressure.
 
Your ambient temperatures are relatively high.

Fans do not cool(a cpu does not sweat). Fans move air.
What you want is to use fans to draw in fresh air and expel the heated air.
For most, this is best done fia positive pressure where two 120mm fans or better draw in fresh air behind a filter and let the heated air escape where it will. An exhaust fan may help direct the airflow direction. But if your exhaust fans are too strong, they will draw in air from openings and negate the cooling benefit.

80c. is hot, but your cpu should not slow down or shut off until about 100c.
You can verify that you have a case cooling issue by removing the side covers and see what that does.

Another possibility is an ineffective cpu cooler. I would expect the Intel stock cooler to give you those temps.
If you are using an aftermarket cooler, you might have used too much paste which acts as an insulator. A small drop is enough. What cooler do you have?
 


A good read.
I was surprised by the effectiveness of the use of side fans.
I attribute that to the case design which has a hard drive rack obstructing the airflow from the front fans.
 


I'm sure it's not the same with every case, but with the three cases I'm currently playing with (Fractal R4, Arc Midi and Arc Mini), what surprised me was actually how little the drive bay obstruction affected temps - completely non-intuitive (at least for me). On the R4, the difference with and without (removing both lower bays) was only about 2C, and no measurable difference with the other two. This was using stock fans and with Noctua NF-A14s and F12s. With the R4 and SLI, using the side fan as exhaust netted a 7C drop, vs 2C as intake (also had an obnoxious harmonic with intake). When I used four fans (2 x front, rear, and top/rear) my results agreed with the article's as far as the side fan benefit was concerned - it was more disruptive than helpful, as was a fan (exhaust or intake) in the top/front mount.

For the R4 and Arc Midi, I settled on 2 front intake, 1 bottom intake, and rear and top/rear as exhaust. For the Mini, 2 front intakes and rear and top/rear exhaust. On all of them, for regular use I keep the intakes running slightly faster than the exhausts to maintain pos pressure (for dust reduction), but for benchmarking and heavy gaming, I max the exhausts and run the intakes at 70-80% - so far, those settings have given me my best temp results.
 

AJ Kenway

Reputable
Jun 12, 2014
177
0
4,760
I actually have an apu. It's an amd a10 5800k. When I play games in the 30 min mark it starts to show signs of delay, with the temps shown above. My cpu cooler is a deepcool iceblade 100 with only has 2 heatpipes (one on each side). I'm looking to buy a cooler master seidon 120v or a CM Hyper 212x because it will only get hotter in the summer time at around 35 C.