geofelt :
If you run the top fan, either in or out, it will tend to draw in unfiltered air form an adjacent opening. Not so good if you want clean.
I would simply remove the fan to let air more easily escape. Quieter too without an extra fan.
Remember, all air that comes in from the front is clean air and it will exit someplace.
If your temperatures are nominal, do nothing else.
By nominal, I might expect while gaming perhaps 75c. under load for the cpu and 85c for the graphics card.
More than that, use higher rpm intakes in front. It will be at the expense of added noise.
1. When you have positive case pressure, drawing air in from "adjacent openings" would be in direct conflict with the laws of physics... in other words, it's simply impossible.
2. You make an assumption that is not based in fact and has been clearly detailed above. Most decent cases have air filters on top of the case... I can't speak to this case as I don't have it in front of me,
but as has been stated twice in previous post.... if the manufacturer cheaped out and didn't provide, have to put it in yourself. You may also want to note that the relative air flow in the post directly
included the reduced air flow as a result of the restriction from the air inlet filter on top of the case as having been originally provided or subsequently installed by user.
A well designed case will have inlet filters on all intake fan mounting locations so as to allow for radiator mounting where fans always blow in. Again, on a well designed case, this will include the top fan mounts so that the top mounting locations can be used as either intakes or exhaust.
a) If your top of case has an air inlet filter, reverse the fans
b) If it doesn't buy some filter material
http://www.frozencpu.com/cat/l3/g47/c223/s1706/list/p1/...
That's why I said if your case doesn't have one, you will need air inlet filter material
3. The air that comes in from a front filtered opening is
no cleaner than the air from a top filtered opening.
4. Noise does in no way equate to number of fans. I have 16 fans in my case (10 radiator / 6 case) it is dead silent. Sitting next to it, you can't tell if the box is on of off; I have restarted it many times thinking it was off when monitor was asleep. Using a noise meter, I recorded background noise and then turned PC on ... same reading
One fan running at 1800 rpm is louder than 4 fans running at 650.
We test with 6 temperature sensors (0.1C accuracy) wired to a 6 channel digital display, an infrared thermometer and a fog machine. What you describe simply does not happen. With 4 filter equipped fans blowing in and 1 unfiltered blowing out, no fog will
ever enter the case thru adjacent openings... no unfiltered air will get into the case cause all inlet points are filtered. 5 fans running at 350 - 850 rpm are quieter than 3 fans running at 1200 1800 rpm because under 850, they don't make any sound. Also remember that the flow restriction from air filters increases exponentially. So doubling the rpm means 4 times the air resistance which drastically reduces the actual air flow from the fans. More fans at lower rpm always wins over less fans at higher rpm from both an air flow and noise perspective.