FATASS CASE AIRFLOW ? - 17 fans... (8)120mm, (3)140mm & (1)200mm - Core X9 *PICS*

[SHiZNiLTi]

Hello [H],

How does the airflow look? What would you change if anything?

Please advise ASAP, I'm about to start this build soon.

Thanks!

Video on case..
https://youtu.be/oVNWBqD9dFQ

Amazon link for case...
http://www.amazon.com/Thermaltake-S...pebp=1447403444931&perid=1DVRK2G3CC289PMXNWYN

Newegg link for case...
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811133275

PICS of the Thermaltake Core X9 ...
http://imgur.com/a/LNMPG

Front: 200mm with a 140mm(above it located where the fan controller is in the airflow diagram, the optical drive bays will be removed from the inside)
Top: (8) 120mm's
Side (3) 120mm's
Rear: (2) 140mm's
Bottom (2) 120mm's ( located towards the front)

 

[CaptNumbNutz]

Please tell me...

1. You are watercooling and there will be radiators
and
2. You will have enough hardware to warrant it
and
3. Some means of managing the dust, either by living spotless or having plenty of fan filters.

Eventually you will hit a wall of diminishing returns. You will have an inverse relationship of increasing noise to amount of heat dissipated. This will especially be true if you are air cooling and only going single GPU. If you choose to go this route, and aren't doing #1 or #2, its still going to be badass. At the very least you will likely never need to turn any fan's speed above low.

=============

As far as problems with the actual airflow, the top of the case will be a problem. Don't mount intakes and exhausts directly next to each other on the same plane. All they will do is recycle each other's air. Alternatively, you could still pull that setup off if you modded the case with some sort of duct forcing either the intake fans to pull in air further from the exhausts or vice versa.

For example:
You could do something like this exhaust vent on the old Antec P180 at the top rear of the case.

 

[SHiZNiLTi]

Please tell me...

1. You are watercooling and there will be radiators
and
2. You will have enough hardware to warrant it
and
3. Some means of managing the dust, either by living spotless or having plenty of fan filters.

Eventually you will hit a wall of diminishing returns. You will have an inverse relationship of increasing noise to amount of heat dissipated. This will especially be true if you are air cooling and only going single GPU. If you choose to go this route, and aren't doing #1 or #2, its still going to be badass. At the very least you will likely never need to turn any fan's speed above low.

=============

As far as problems with the actual airflow, the top of the case will be a problem. Don't mount intakes and exhausts directly next to each other on the same plane. All they will do is recycle each other's air.

Sup CaptNumbNutz,

1. No water cooling, will be 100% air for right now.
2. Currently on air running my i7@4.95ghz(3.4 stock) and my SLI 670's@1337mhz(1019mhz stock), been like this for the last few years only due to having a 13,000 BTU ac unit that I use to regulate my office temp @ 69 °F year round.
3. Don't have dust issues, entire house is hardwood, swifter weekly

So in response to the airflow:Your saying I should have all the fans on the top exhausting out?
I was originally thinking of doing that, but wouldn't that suck up all the cold air that's being brought in from the front before it hits the hardware?

What do think about having all the top fans fire set to intake and the front rear and sides exhausting?

Reasoning for buying the case:
* It's fuking badass, especially in person!
* It's on sale for $100 on newegg. (will help compensate fan cost lol)
* With the increased air flow I won't have to keep my room as cold to be 100% stable on my OC's. My current Silverstone case from 2006 only has a single 120mm intake and 120mm exhaust
* I have lot of room for this beast, my table is 2.5ft deep x 8ft wide...

Check this out, on Thermaltakes website these are the cooling configurations they have listed...

Why do they have fans positioned right against the clear side panel instead of the mesh panel??? but then on the liquid cooling configuration option it has the fans how I want to run them, but reversed blowing out, instead of sucking air in.

How do the fans even move air that close to the glass panel in the 1st two configurations????

 

[zaniix]

Yeah the only thing I would say is do not intake and exhaust on the same panel. So for the top either all exhaust or all intake.

 

[Nicholars]

Its literally completely pointless having more fans than you need to do the following things :

Get enough new air into the case to feed the CPU + GPU + a bit extra for case temp etc.

Remove that air before it builds up heat in the case and is not re-circulated by the CPU + GPU.

Basically that would be about 2 x 140mm for the GPU and 2 x 140mm for the CPU + 3 Exhaust fans and anything more than that would make zero difference to anything except making more noise. Approx 4 intakes and 3 exhaust, maybe 5-6 intakes and 4 exhaust at a lower speed absolute max, and anything more than that will make ZERO difference to anything except making more noise. If you are using SLI with high TDP graphics cards then you would probably want 6 intakes 4 exhaust or similar.

Also you want positive air pressure (more intakes than exhaust) otherwise you will get too much dust in the case.

I suppose you could fill all the fan slots and run them at very low speed but you really don't need that many fan slots unless you are using WC rads.

 

[mls1995]

I was looking into that case a few months back. It's a nice case but I think it's a lot better for watercooling versus air when I read reviews.

If you're going to buy it anyway and think 17 fans is badass then go for it. But I think it's pointless to buy that case and not put any water cooling in it. Better to have this case plus a Corsair H110 (or similar) cooler then all those fans. It's going to be loud as hell and 17 fans probably won't be much better than maybe 8 fans.

 

[CaptNumbNutz]

Front: 200mm with a 140mm(above it located where the fan controller is in the airflow diagram, the optical drive bays will be removed from the inside)
Top: (8) 120mm's
Side (3) 120mm's
Rear: (2) 140mm's
Bottom (2) 120mm's ( located towards the front)

Here's what I will suggest.
=============================
Layout 1:
Front: 1 x 200mm and 1 x 140mm as intakes
Top: 2 x 120mm's located near rear as exhaust
Rear: 2 x 140mm's as exhaust
and either...
Side: 2 to 4 x 120mm's as intakes. You must have mesh sides.
*or*
Bottom: 2 x 120mm's as intakes and you can keep glass sides.
=============================
Layout 2:
Top: 4 to 8 x 120mm as intakes. If you only populate 4 use the rear.
Front: 1 x 200mm as intakes. additional 1 x 140mm optional, but you can leave it out to populate 5.25" bays for fan controllers, etc.
Rear: 2 x 140mm as exhaust
=============================

Layout 2 allows the 2 sections to remain isolated and I believe would be the better layout for air cooling. It will also force more air between the cards for SLI (by blowing directly on top of them) and would be ideal if you are using the OEM coolers that exhaust out the back. The bottom section you can fill with drives and leave the fans on all low speeds.

All the fan intakes at the bottom section of the case will do absolutely zero to benefit an air cooled case unless that section is completely stacked full of 3.5" drives. Even then you wouldn't need all the fans. The sole purpose of all those fan mounts in the lower, isolated section is to provide cool air direct to radiators away from other heat creating components while at the same time giving plenty of space for tubing, pumps, reservoirs, etc. Lots of fans in this lower section will have a tough time to affecting or benefitting airflow in the upper section.