i'm having a hard time deciding how my PSU is supposed to be.
i have a NZXT phantom Full tower case and am wondering if having the intake fan of the power supply facing upwards inside the case pulling air from the case, or having it pull air fom the bottom,
also my NZXT kraken, should i have it pulling air inside the case, or having it exhausting air ,
i have moddified my case to mount it towards the front because i wanted to keep my 200mm fan at the top exhausting
but if anyone can give me a good config i would greatly appreciate it
here are some pics of how i have it configured atm: http://imgur.com/a/9dYYX :
1 140 front intake, 2 140 intake (kraken) front, 1 200mm top exhaust, 1 120mm back exhaust, 2 120 side intake.
PSU 140mm (exhaust?)
also, what should the ambient room temperature be to have good temps? just as low as possible?
my house is usually like 80-90 degrees Fahrenheit(26-32 C) it's winter and i like to keep my window open to let the cold air in, but would too cold of air cause condensation within my computer with all the heat? or idk someone help?
Edit: was the 850 watt overkill for my build? was also thinking of adding another 7950 crossfire, or find a 7990,
or is 850 not enough for two 7950s or 1 7990?
Will that case allow the Kraken to be mounted on top to push the air out? Right now it isn't ideal for the GPU to be getting the warm air from the CPU cooler. It's not horrible (in fact I like the way it looks), but it is certainly not ideal for the GPU.
PSU-If the case has a bottom dust filter for the PSU to draw air in from, that is what I would do. Plus you never have to worry about dropping anything like a screw and having it land in the PSU.
My thoughts on the open window are not to have the computer right by the window. Open windows can also allow more dust in the room. At any rate, lower ambient temperatures will help especially when heavy overclocking, but it is not essential to have less than a 20 C room.
I don't think the PSU is overkill for 2 7950's. That should be just right. But the Kraken blowing warm air over both GPUs will start to show heat issues on the top card especially.
so, should i orient the fans on the kraken as an exhaust? i usually keep the door open and have nothing in the bays, and make the front fan as an exhaust and the side fans as exhaust,
flip the power supply so the intake is down
and the side panel fans as exhaust,
top 200 mm fan as an intake and the back 120 as intake?
and maybe add some fans on the floor/base as intakes aswell?
Update, i kept everything the same, but flipped the power supply and made the intake face down and added a filter at the bottom.... the temps on my videocard dropped by 10 C from 39ish C on idle down to 29-30 C on idle
thanks for the tips, i might just modify my case to fit the 200mm at the front wher ethe rad is
and make the rad exhaust at the top, you think that would be a good idea?
Yes, the rad exhausting out of the top is what I meant.
A general rule would be where your PC is placed. If it's on a carpet or something, go PSU up. If on a hard floor, PSU down.
However I also have the Phantom and I just put the PSU face up because I feel the gap between a mounted PSU and the bottom of the case is so huge that the filter isn't really productive and even fan down would probably be less restrictive pulling in air from the gap anyways rather then fresh air through the filter.
Also, flip the top 200mm to be intake. I have all stock fans + front 140 Spectre Pro. My temps went down and a huge reduction in dust when I flipped the top 200 to intake.
the top 200 as intake from the top or side? i still have to mount my rad somewhere? should i leave it wehre it is at? and just make it exhaust or put it at the top?
Assuming you're keeping your rad where it's at, top or side would be good. Since your rad is pushing warm air onto your mobo and video card, you'll want the 200 intake so it'll give it some cool air to breathe.
Top 200 intake would give you more cooling for your mobo/VRM and RAM. This could give you some more overclocking headroom for your CPU.
Side 200 intake would give you less cooling for your momo/VRM/RAM but would greatly improve airflow to your graphics card. Do this if you want your graphics card running cooler or want to give it some more overclocking headroom.
Personally I'd put the 200 intake on the side since you have liquid cooling. People like me who use tower air coolers in their phantoms don't get to mount a side fan cause there's not enough room between the side panel and the top of the cooler.
If you want you can also take the two 120s on the side panel and use them to pull on the rad. Honestly they don't do much on the side panel if you're using only one hard drive cage, as there's quite a good amount of airflow going through the hard drives, as front intake is pushing air through them go get to the rad.
ah, thank you for the input, will do
but the side 120s dont fit on the rad. it uses 2 140s maybe if i get a small converter to be able to mount the two 120s on the 140
either way thank you for the suggestions, i've been seeing improvements since i changed the psu orientation
i guess it was hogging all the air the videocard wanted to get since the videocard has fansless than half the size of that of the psu