gigabyte windforce owners - side case fan intake or exhaust?

[revenant]

I am wondering with two 770 windforce cards if I should reverse my side intake fan to exhaust... I guess the windforce cooler shoots air out in every direction once it hits the pcb so pulling that air out there might be the best... I have a TJ09, very well ventilated, with a 120mm fan in the gpu cooling area (mid case) so some cool air will be getting to the cards from that. I reckon some experimentation will be in order but I was wondering what other windforce owners have experienced?

Also, it looks like the cooler isn't as thick as a standard 2 slot cooler, giving it a little more breathing room when cards are right next to each other. Is this the case??

 

[revenant]

Well, I tried a bunch of fan variations and it's best to have a strong exhaust fan (in my case) on the side sucking all that hot air from the sides of the windforce coolers out of the case...

I read some people had better luck with the side being intake but I have a LOT of intake fans so this balances the flow out pretty well.

 

[OGOC]

Like you mentioned, most everything I've read has people doing intake on the side so the card gets fresh air.

I could see a theme of if the fan is higher than the card, then make it exhaust, and if it's on the same level or lower, or in front, make it intake.

My hard drives are at the top, so I tried no lower-front intake. The video card didn't seem to mind, but the southbridge chipset sure did.

 

[revenant]

well, in my case (pun intended) the TJ09 has a 120mm fan directly in front of the video card area so I have an intake fan very close to the cards and then I have the side fan dumping the hot air out... I am thinking about a slot cooler blower also between the cards.

BTW - putting a higher cfm fan on the side doing exhaust dropped the temps of my top card by like 5c on load. (enermax apollish vegas - moves some air and not too loud).