Fractal Design Define R5: Fan Type, Fan Placement, and overall build advice

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Amory501

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Oct 19, 2016
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Hey all! I am in the process of designing my first PC build from scratch (graduation present for myself) and am pretty excited. I will list the parts I have so far selected below for reference. After doing a little research, it seems that having 2 140mm fans in the front for intake and 1 140mm fan in the back for exhaust is typically sufficient for most builds. After reviewing my part list, and knowing I will be doing slight overclocking, do you think that 3 fans is enough? I also considered adding 1 140mm fan to the bottom of the case for intake with an additional 140mm fan somewhere on the top for exhaust. The reason I jump from a 3 fan setup to 5 fans is so I have a positive pressure inside the case which is conducive to the graphics card I have selected. I am also looking to replace the 140mm stock fans with some with blue LED's, so if you have a recommended brand or fan that would be greatly appreciated. Preference question, the cases fan controller only does 3 fans, so would it make sense to place the front and rear fans on controller and always have the top and bottom ones (if installed) at a constant setting? And do you guys recommend using all LED fans or plain, not sure what would have the best aesthetic. Any build change suggestions or comments are also greatly appreciated!
Case: Fractal Design Define R5 Titanium Window Silent
PSU: Corsair CX-M series CX650M 650W 80+ Bronze ATX12V Semi-Modular
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z170X-UD3 Ultra
CPU: Intel i5-6600K Skylake Quad-Core 3.5 GHz
CPU-Cooler: Cooler Master 212 EVO
RAM: Corsair Vengeance LPX 16 GB (2x8GB) DDR4 3000
GPU: Asus GeForce GTX 1070 Dual-GTX1070-O8G 8GB GDDR5
Storage: WD Black 1TB HD 7200-RPM 64MB-cache and Samsung 950 PRO M.2 256GB PCI-Express 3.0x4 SSD
Again I appreciate any comments and help!
 
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CTurbo
Your 5 fan idea would work but you'd get cooler temps with 2 as intake and 3 as exhaust. I would either put all of the intakes on the fan controller or all of the exhausts instead of mixing it up. That way you have full control of the pressure inside.

My advice would be to go 1 front intake, 1 bottom intake and 1 rear exhaust and 2 top exhaust.
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CTurbo

CTurbo

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Aug 27, 2013
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Your 5 fan idea would work but you'd get cooler temps with 2 as intake and 3 as exhaust. I would either put all of the intakes on the fan controller or all of the exhausts instead of mixing it up. That way you have full control of the pressure inside.

My advice would be to go 1 front intake, 1 bottom intake and 1 rear exhaust and 2 top exhaust.
 
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juanrdp

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Nov 7, 2012
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You are right, but i suppose that he want a positive preasure build to try to minimize the dust inside the case (the best benefict of positive pressure builds).

If you want a positive presure build to avoid dust, use two front and one botton as intake (you have dust filters on both locations, remember to clean them) and two exaust one back and one top. I would connect the three intake to the fan control and the two exaust (at reduced rpms if its possible) to minimize sound or to the MB fan headers controlled by the cpu temperature to minimize heat.

If you want the best cooling two intake (front, the botton allways have more dust problems andd with a negative presure builds already have airflow from the botton) and three exaust (one back and two top) the exaust controlled by the MB headers (the back on a more agresive setting and the two top on a more conservative setting) and the two intake by the fan controller (that at low heat values on the cpu could maintain a possitive presure).

 
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uklio

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Sep 30, 2016
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Have you considered fitting a water cooler + radiator in the top of the case?

Something like Corsair H100i. You could then use its two fans in a pull configuration as outake fans, and use the two case fans as intake fans instead of exhaust fans (rear & front). Optionally you could fit a third intake fan at the bottom though personally I see no benefit in my setup. I have a similar setup and my cpu package idles at 25C and does not exceed 70C at full load when benching with a heavily overclocked i7. I'm also running an overclocked GTX1080 which does not exceed 54C @ 80% fans. Noise levels are good with this case, the case fans are entirely silent. If you can get a graphics card which does not switch on fans at idle and a power supply that also has a fanless mode, you would achieve a close to perfect setup imo.
 
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Amory501

Commendable
Oct 19, 2016
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1,510


Thanks for the advice, another reason I was looking to get a positive pressure was that the Asus 1070 gtx does not have a DHE and just has the conventional fans on it. I read that positive pressure builds are better at cooling graphics cards that don't have the rear exhaust. Your second setup for maximum cooling would probably keep the CPU cooler but the negative pressure at higher temps wouldn't cool the GPU as effectively? Also any thoughts on good LED fans?
 
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Amory501

Commendable
Oct 19, 2016
4
0
1,510


Honestly, the only reason I'm not liquid cooling is the cost of the Corsair H100i compared to a couple extra fans (I already have an extra EVO212 newegg shipped my brother on accident) So with the two input at front and 1 exhaust at back, you did not see a huge cooling improvement by adding one input on bottom and one exhaust on back? Also, sweet setup mate
 
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juanrdp

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Nov 7, 2012
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Then main problem of liquid cooling in my opinion is not the cost, is the MTBF (the time you could expect that the unit will work) that is a loooot lower than on air cooling (the water pumps fail a lot sooner than the fans) and that when they fail (the pump) they stop working completely most of the times without any previous warning, a thing that almost never happends on the fans of air cooling (and even then you get dissipations from the heatsink).

Have some advantages, but also very big drawbacks (and im using water cooling myself but my objetive was a totally pasive cooling solution on light loads).



Huge? no.... probably you will notice it but it will not be a huge improvement.

 
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