As some of you may know I recently put together a build for my parents to replace their aging prebuilt that I had thrown a GTX 650 Ti in. My Dad is quite the gamer and needed more speed. So I put together a build for them with an i5 and a R9 390 in the NZXT S340. While I am very impressed with the looks and performance, the temperatures are much less impressive.
While the CPU rarely goes above 45C (thank you CM 212 Evo) the GPU temps are much less satisfactory. The XFX R9 390 DD is hitting 80C at 67% fan speed. I thought at first the card was defective, but I found that pulling off the side panel or the incredibly restrictive front panel dropped the temperatures to a much more reasonable 75C at (most importantly) a quiet 45-50% fan speed. So it is clear to me that there is an airflow problem with this case.
Currently, the case is just using the two fans that came with it. Both 120mm. One is in the rear as exhaust and I have one intake in the front (moved from the top). I'm curious as to what some of you would suggest I install to improve these temperatures. I have heard 2X140mm in the front as intakes, the 120mm in the rear as exhaust and then either another 140mm in the top as an intake or blocking it off entirely.
So TS what should I do? More importantly what fans should I buy for the front? I'm assuming high airflow but could SP fans be useful as the front is restrictive? Any particular make/model and configuration suggestions would be much appreciated.
Thanks again guys. I rarely have needed to mess with case fans so I don't know much about them sadly and I appreciate the assist.
NO. Closed front cases are sooooo good for you. You don't need airflow. Anyways, my suggestion will be to just put 2x140 in the front as intakes. That will push cool air in. By itself this will drop the thermals. You don't even need high speed fans. Any decent 140mm fan will do the trick. I love my Fractals as far as silence go. I love my Arctics as well, but i have not tried the 140 arctics... Anyways, just add 2x140 intakes and that will change things dramatically. Even with the front panel on.
I would say just fully populate all fan spots with a nice quiet and slow running 140's. 290 390 in a mid tower needs some air and it being a xfx dd instead of blower style means the card is dumping a massive amount of heat straight into the case. With mid towers i always lean toward ones with side intakes, just as note. Gaming gpus :)
puting something that's high static pressure in the front like EK Vardars would probably help force more air through the case, also making sure you have an exhaust fan above your graphics card helps with that style of cooler because it doesn't exhaust much air on its own it just kind of blows around....
Alternatively you could reverse the air flow, again using high static fans for intake and let it exhaust from the front. Would create massive positive pressure.
So you suggest high static pressure fans over high airflow?
Also which specific ones would you recommend other than those EKs? I like options. Also Noctua. Haha I really don't care too much about price. Although under $25 a fan would be nice.
Where do you mean specifically? Like at the top of the case? As these is no fan slot available on the side if that is whatcha meant.
Really? Even if these is no filter in front of it? Again sorry for all the questions as I said I really never paid much attention to fans.
Well my reasoning behind high static is because in both cases their resistance at the front that needs force to push through. Scythe makes good fans... so does e-loop.
Depends on which model, some are better than others. In general it's over hyped but they aren't bad. I'm not familiar with a14 off hand and im at work. I'd have to see them
Just looked those up and recognized them. They lean more towards air flow but still have a decent amount of pressure. They'd work well as intakes if you did the air flow reversed. Honestly I'd still chose EK vardars if I had to buy but since those are free wouldn't hurt to try. They're high quality just not very strong (I say that with high end fans in mind, they kick the ass of the general consumer market)
S340 is not really a case with a shitty airflow. It is not the legs of a prostitute open, but it just needs intakes. Without intake fans every case have shit airflow...
How many square inches of front intake does it have? How restricted are those intakes? It's pretty bad. There isn't enough intake for a fan to suck air.
Comon, it's fine. S340 is one of the better cases in that aspect, compared to define cases or H440... It's more open even that the Enthoo evolve... It's fine as long as there are some intake fans.
Talked to my friend, they are A14s. According to Noctua's and EK's listed specifications, The A14 moves 2 CFM less air than the standard 1600 RPM vardar but has more pressure.
The 2000 RPM vardar and the Furious Vardar are much more powerful in terms of both airflow and pressure but are significantly louder (double the dBa).
So I'm gonna use the A14s from my friend for now. Will try it both as intakes in the fron then reverse to see which gives me the best results. If they aren't good enough I'll try those insane vardars
