Airflow direction for radiators?

[YanBooth]

Hi,
I assumed (a bad idea with computers...) that the airflow direction of a fan on a radiator does not matter a lot, and it would be easiest if I pull cool air from outside the case, and push it through the radiator, but I saw a picture of recomended flow direction for a shroud, and it showed that the air should be pulled past the rad. and in my case (as in my comp, LOL, not the case itself) from inside the case. Does it matter?

Thanks,

Yan

 

[gaara]

Same concept as a Heatsink (although that suprisingly turned into a great debate), you want the radiator to be cooled with fans intaking cooler air from outside the case and blowing onto the radiator.

 

[YanBooth]

That is what I am talking about... Hmm, confusing...

Anyhow, I want an opinion or two... Or ten

>>This<<
>>Or This??<<

Thanks for your advice and help.

Yan Booth

 

[Elbatrop1]

Agreed with gaara, fans should be blowing onto rads, preferrably from outside the case. Rear case fans should be blowing out, front fans blowing in.

 

[gaara]

I don't know what the deal with the above configuration is, but the results will not be very effective. You need something to be cooling down the water inside the core, a fan pulling air away is only exhausting hot air and isn't really cooling down the water any.

It's the same concept with any air cooling configuration, that's why an air conditioner vents cool air in rather than pulling hot air out, or even as simple as a fan, you'd more likely have the fan blowing on you than having it pull air away.

 

[Nubius]

Gaara - not sure if you said this, but the generally concensus around xtreme is this....it's opposite of a normal CPU heatsink inwhich the fan blows on it.

You actually want the fans sucking air THROUGH the radiator, which is what that picture up there is showing. The fans are technically blowing air upwards, but this is pulling the air through the radiator.

This has been said to be the most efficient way of cooling it....mind you you'd simply just need to have the shroud and fans setup upside down, with the heatercore on top and the fans on the bottom sucks air through the rad an into the case.

Mines actually going to be sucking air from the case through the heatercore, which generally is BAD, Buuuut I'm going to have 2 120mms on the side blowing in, so realistically there will be so much air movement, it really won't have time to heat up.

 

[YanBooth]

That is what I am talking about... Hmm, confusing...


Anyhow, I want an opinion or two... Or ten

>>This<<
>>Or This??<<

Thanks for your advice and help.

Yan Booth

Originally posted by Elbatrop1
Agreed with gaara, fans should be blowing onto rads, preferrably from outside the case. Rear case fans should be blowing out, front fans blowing in.

The two top rear fan's, I think those should pull air in, do you agree? Would this work well, because regardless of which way the radiator fan is pushing air, it will have a fresh supply of air. There will be some other fans in there, two 120's on a PCI card.

Anyhow, back to the radiator, anyone have a significant reason to disagree with Gaara?

Thanks guys!

Yan

 

[gaara]

Well it depends entirely on how you it set up and where IMO, obviously if you have it top mounted it would make more sense to have the fans pulling air through and out of the case.

I am having mine bottom mounted with fans mounted below the core and blowing air onto the core, since I feel the hot air will rise fairly easily plus I'll have good cross ventilation and a top mounted exhaust to carry out all the hot air.

Plus there's no harm in switching things around and finding the configuration that works the best.

 

[YanBooth]

Thanks guys, I know what I needed to know...

Yan

 

[Nubius]

Good luck with bottom mounting it gaara, my friend wanted to help me do that, but by the time you try to do that, you'd have to have one might tall case to either make room so that it's hanging down, or if you want to try and put it inside the case, then it better a deep ass case otherwise you won't have any room between the heatercore and motherboard.