DON'T buy front intake fans! (For NZXT H500/S340)
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- Опубликовано: 14 окт 2024
- #nzxt #airflow
With the trend for cases with solid front panels not going anywhere, I thought I would test which fans are better for intake, Static pressure optimized fans or airflow optimized fans? The answer is pretty surprising. Unless you have watched some of my older videos.
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If you want to check out a different take on this airflow test, check out this video from my friend over at Omnia Tech: • Mais Fans É Sempre Mel...
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Greg from Science Studio just pretty much exactly this video recently and he got the exact same result I got in this video.
Check out his video here: ruclips.net/video/_ixFt7h8fak/видео.html
Hi, I'm thinking about getting this case. If I remove the 2 SSD mounts from the mesh above the PSU, can I mount fans on there instead? Would you think it would effect the dynamic airflow it already has? Thank you!
Do u think a rad would work in the front?
front fans should help keep dust from getting sucked in by the pcie slots as much.
Is it fine if i put intake fans on h510 case
Just curios
why didnt u remove the dust filters from the bottom and side panels? lol course temps will improve some.
rgb fans increase airflow 110% this is a fact.
Haha!! That was the mistake I made.
I added 2 front fans just to have more RGB light in the case. ;)
If you are going to have a fish tank, it might as well be pretty.
Rgb fans can cure the rarest of diseases also.
Depends. Blue leds make your rig cooler but red on the other hand increases performance at the cost of BURNING temps. Green is more eco-friendly and, as for rainbow, don't try it at home.
Yes, the light from the LEDs excite the molecules in the air to make them move faster. 😆
I recently bought the case and noticed that after a few hours of gaming the case was hot to the touch. Cpu and gpu temps where fine but the case was on fire. After installing 2 140mm fans in the front panel I noticed an immediate difference in heat from the case. I dont believe stress testing for 15 minutes is an accurate real world use representation and would highly recommend front panel fans
I've been studying thermals for cases, heatsinks and fans - armed with the knowledge I ran some tests. Some interesting conclusions presented themselves:
- Heatsinks which have thin fins (most these days) dissipate heat faster by having a fan 'pull' air through them, as opposed to most CPU coolers which have thin fins and a fan that 'pushes' air through.
- Exhausting air from a case is far superior to an active intake of air (via an intake fan).
- Exhausting only is superior to having an exhaust fan and an intake fan. The intake fan creates turbulence which moves warm air around before eventually being exhausted. Without the turbulence natural convection does a much better job of supplying cool air without moving warm air around.
- When there is an exhaust fan present (1 or many), using any intake fans will have a negative impact on the flow of air.
- The exhaust fan must be able to evacuate air freely. If there is a blockage or a lack of ventilation (front covers with little ventilation for instance), the exhaust fan will recycle the warm air it's trying to exhaust. I recently exhausted air from a case into a poorly ventilated front cover. This created a negative pressure case and a positive pressure area between the case and the front cover, the case being negative simply pulled the positive pressure air back into the case before it could escape through the ventilation of the cover. This looped warm air and the air got warmer and warmer. The same is true for cases pushed against a wall with a back exhaust fan, the positive pressure area is between the case and the wall.
Conclusion - Always exhaust from a case, never intake (nature does it better) and make sure the warm air can escape before it can be drawn back into a negative pressure case (like the back fan being butted up against a wall and the GPU drawing it back in). Exhaust via the top or even the front of the case if air can escape quickly that way (mesh front for instance).
Wouldn't having an exhaust-only setup mean more dust though? Also do you have any links to these results? Would be really interesting to read.
@@ThePCForever Sorry for my bad english yes it is maybe about 20-30% dustier i'll do vacuum and brush the case every 3 to 4month, im using this case for years once tried to make it positive pressure by adding 2 140mm front fans(silent wings 3) and i didn't like it just not worth it more noise more power used, going back to negative pressure now with 2 120mm silent wings 4 dead silent 👍 .
I think the one thing you are missing here is that you are using a system that barely pulls more than 200W (if that, even), which is not enough to show a significant thermal difference with this case and setup (and quite frankly, I'm not sure if its enough to challenge ANY case anywhere).
For the CPU, you have additional assistance with the Cryorig H7's fan for airflow through the tower, but since you are likely hitting 60-70W of consumption at most, you aren't even remotely saturating the heat pipes capability for heat transfer.
For the GPU, in both scenarios the twin axial cooler has plenty of access to fresh, cool air. In the initial setup without front fans, the negative pressure of the case is pulling in cool air from the rear, empty PCIe covers. When fans are added to the front, the air is still being given to the GPU in a significant enough fashion for the temps to remain constant. In both scenarios, the top and rear fan are able to remove hot air from the GPU, and once again, due to the significant size of the GPU heatsink, you are nowhere near saturating the heat pipes.
Adding front fans to the H500 (or really, any case on the market) is entirely dependent on the level of heat generated within the case and the saturation of the cooling components within. In fact, with your system you could likely apply duct tape to the entirety of the front intake, bottom intake, and remove the rear fan entirely and see little to no change in temperatures of your components. The natural intake from the PCIe slots would be more than enough for the GPU, and the CPU fan plus the top fan would provide more than enough capability to exhaust the hot air from within the case.
If, however, you were to change the load generation within the case to a 250W+ GPU such as an AMD Vega card or GTX 1080, and overclock your CPU to pulling 120W+, you would then begin to see the thermal limits of the case's compact nature.
Without a doubt, an individual running a GTX1080/1080Ti plus something like an i5-8600k/9600k overclocked to 5.0Ghz would absolutely notice a significant change in temperatures with front intake fans present. For me personally, I preferred the compact nature and aesthetics of the H500i, so I chose it for my i9-9900k and 1080Ti FTW3 Hybrid build. I have a 280mm AIO on the front (NZXT Kraken X62), and the hybrid card uses a 120mm AIO which is placed on the rear. I still retain the 120mm fan on top for exhaust and VRM cooling. The airflow, thanks to the 140mm fans on the front, is more than enough to keep all of my components cool. For testing purposes, I decided to shut off the front fans entirely and run a GPU only load (since my CPU temps are tied to the front radiator, it wouldn't be fair for me to run a CPU load with this test as I'd have no cooling performance from the radiator) at 100%. With front fans at 40% (my normal range for gaming/etc, which is silent), my GPU temps stayed put at 55C. Once I shut off the front fans, temps climbed to a whopping 68C (very high for a hybrid card) due to lack of fresh air being pulled into the case to assist the radiator in the back.
Your testing equipment is simply not enough to challenge the natural case airflow in any meaningful manner.
Pyromonkey83 Do you think it'd be worth it purchasing a couple of front intake fans if I have an i5-9600k and an rtx 2070(single fan)??
Thank you for this, he had me thinking. Just got my h500 today. My old case has 7 total fans to cool my 8700k at 4.9 and GTX 1080. Putting the 8700k in the h500 with a 2080 ti and was worried about the smaller case with 5 fans being able to keep my 8700k as cool as the old case. Wanted to avoid water cooling the cpu but it would be so easy with this case.
@@victorboesen3837 if you're using air cooling you absolutely should buy at least a single high static pressure fan (so it gets good airflow even through the restricted front intake) my pc would overheat frequently (also an i5 9600k rtx2070 system) but when i added 2 front intake fans that problem quickly went away
coolboybryan303 thank you for the reply! I've moved the back exhaust fan to the front bottom and it has improved my gpu temps a lot but the CPU temps has risen. However it was the gpu that was the hottest while gamin and the CPU doesn't go above 60 while rendering and exporting videos. But yes I will purchase a couple intake fans, so I have two exhaust fans and two intakes.
@@victorboesen3837 if you're having trouble with gpu temps you might want to orient your fans to the back of the case and have them both blow out air to the outside of the case, this way air will be pulled in through the little perforated holes in the pcie slots, it helps a lot with cooling, its how nzxt designed it
I like to turn my PC case into a strip club by adding plenty of RGB fans.
That is the main advantage of adding RGB fans. :P
Do s strut!
Gpu sag bracket as pole
Do you have a little stripper dancing on the GPU anti sag bracket too?
Of course this video pops up in my recommended the day after I order those nice $20 a piece fans....
I'm sorry to hear that, but at least they will give you positive airflow. That will help with dust build up. It also depends on how hot your system runs. Some people with very hot systems have said that it does help them.
So hopefully it's not wasted. If you have time, please let me know what kind of results you get.
@@DawidDoesTechStuff Yeah thx for the video haha. Same issue here as the other guy. I bought a 510i nzxt case yesterday by mistake cuz the box looked the same as the nzxt 500 elite case I was looking at on the box. And I had the impression that the elite case was mesh on the front. But watching other vids it's temptered glass. And I just purchased 3x Arctic bionix F140's last night.
At least with the 510i Case I got. I can easily take it into my work. Since I'm in a Fabrication warehouse for building large Industial work trucks. If the Airflow doesn't fix my Temps coming off my 5700XT 110° C. Then I will jerry rig mine as well. Messing with the front of that case.
I have same case and my gpu temp went down from 80 to 70
@@mikimarchi did it go down after adding fans?
@@AKABattousai for me ye
Have this case. There IS a reason why you would want intake fans.
The dust buildup for a negative pressure case is real, and by having intake fans, it forces the air to only go in through the front, such that the dust won’t seep in through the nooks and crannies, and make sure they go through the dust filters.
As far as i know the NZXT H500 and H500i are designed with watercooling in mind. Thats why the cases come with two fans in exhaust configuration. The front is specifically meant for radiators.
Just watched this after installing 2 intake fans at the front of my H510 RIP...
same
@@Masta_E so is that real they didn't make diff in temps after you installed em both?
@@houdaplanet9955 I didn't notice any difference. Lol
@@Masta_E rip lol
should have ordered a cpu cooler instead of 30$ x2 fans from noctua 1 week ago
totally it's good for cooling tho?
@@houdaplanet9955 I have a good cpu cooler, just the intake fans did't change the temps lol.
awesome video idea! though it wouldve been much better if u used charts to show the temps instead of just writing them... keep up the great work man :D
That sounds great. Thanks for the good feedback. I will definitely do that in future.
The charts offer no more information than the text. They only look prettier for dummies who don't like to read.
Archibald Doogan holy shit ur a degenerate lmfao
Sorry if I missed you mentioning it in the video, but I was just wondering if you manually set the CPU/GPU/Exhaust fans to a fixed rpm for this test? Because if you didn’t, then they would ramp up as you removed your front fans, throwing off your results.
EXACTLY. The methodolgy in this "test" is critically flawed. The fans will adjust rpm to keep temp constant, whether there are 2 or 4. The 4 fans may be running at lower rpm to reach the same temp as 2 at higher rpm.
Then stacking two pairs of fans directly on top of each other? What?
I appreciate the effort that went into making this video, but it's far from useful data.
@@newjackvideo So what would you do? I currently have a H500 with XFX RX580, i5-6600k and Cryorig H5 CPU cooler. Should I invest in front intake fans? As well as replace the stock ones? And what would be the best option for intake/exhaust with my setup?
@@vareq1672 why not? Fans are cheap.
I remember I told people its unnecessary to put a bunch of fucking fans in a case and they ROASTED ME lol. now I stand justified.
Sorry about the delayed response. I didn't see the notification for this comment.
I did set all the fans to a set RPM for the tests (no temperature curve). I must've forgotten to mention it in the video. :)
I saw this exact info on Gamer's Nexus H500 case review and it was another selling point to not have to buy extra intake fans and have a louder setup. Negative pressure and convection does all the work.
But how about dust build up vs positive pressure?
Anon Anonymous I want to know about that too
Anon Anonymous please reply if u got answers
Anon Anonymous Unfortunately negative air pressure will cause more dust to build up since apparently it would cause it to pull air from places there isn’t dust filters. So ideally if your worried about dust you’d take off the top and back fan and place both at the front.
shalol hmm I just found out that the h500 is different than the H7/400 series with the intake mesh in the front and I wonder why it’s cheaper thank for answers btw
This is interesting... I have the NZXT H500. My 8600K, under gaming load, used to be around 65 C. After installing three NZXT AER 140mm fans in the case my temperatures dropped to about 55-58 C. I can stop my front intakes and have another look if that would interest any one.
I would be very interested. I have done this test so many times and I haven't been able to get that result. What graphics card do you have? Is it very hot?
Thank you for the comment.
@@DawidDoesTechStuff
CPU: 8600K
GPU: EVGA GTX 1080TI Black Edition
CPU Cooler: Deepcool Gammaxx GT RGB
Are you South African? If you are, we can PM or something
@@23147458 That's interesting, I wonder if its because the GTX 1080 Ti is much hotter than the GTX 1060 I tested with that adding fans made a big difference. That's an awesome PC by the way.
I was born in Namibia and lived in South Africa for 4 years. We can DM, but I'm not in South Africa at the moment.
@@DawidDoesTechStuff i have that case and i have done many test.
reason for front fans
1. radiator
2.dust (if you dont put intake fans exhaust fans take unfiltered air from the back that why the system is cool , it is actually better. But the air is unfiltered.)
3.huge GPUs need them , i got 1070ti strix (half card take air from the font fans and other half from back)
with this small gaps only sp fans will work
same!
I’m pretty sure the H510/H500 was specifically designed with negative pressure in mind and that’s why the stock fan configuration is 2 exhaust fans instead of 1 intake and 1 exhaust
I know this video is ancient news, but these types of cases are still largely popular.
If additional fans at the front make no difference what about replacing the stock exhaust fans with higher performing fans? Is higher negative pressure a thing? or do the stock fans already maximize intake of cool air leaving no performance headroom on the table no matter what you do?
Great video, there are many cases with this kind of design where there is very little ventilation at the front for fans to draw in air. I'm not surprised adding fans made little to no difference on this unit, so thanks for testing it out. Something important for people to consider in their next case purchase.
watching Dawid’s old videos… dude was so stiff and lacking all personality. so glad he’s the way he is now
I like how you have 4 accents and it just confuses me but amazes me also
Front fans aren’t totally worthless in the H500. I added some to mine to give it positive air pressure after I was having trouble with dust building up on the side panel. Totally fixed it
There are only three reasonable air pressure/air flow setups for this case. Two exhaust, two front intake, or NZXT stock which is top intake, back exhaust. Running any combination of those three will probably give you negative results. Yup, NZXT has the top as an intake fan (stock setup). Also keep in mind that the stock NZXT fans are bad. Grab some Arctic P12 (static pressure) for your radiator and heatsink, as well as Arctic F12 for airflow fans.
i love watching these old vids and see how hes progressed so well into the newer vids. def one of my fav youtubers nowadays
Here is my hypothesis ... the ability to exhaust is the limiting factor. To test, measure the volume of air input against the volume of air exhausted in each of your scenarios. I bet it is basically the same. It does not make physical sense that if you had a higher volume of cooler ambient air, entering the box, that the system would not cool.
This is an awesome hypothesis. I would love to test that. Just not sure what equipment I would need in order to measure air volume. :P
I do however think that your explanation makes sense.
After watching your vid I came up with an idea for my 510. I drilled holes at the front of my panel and covered with magnetic dust filter.
Mine works amazing. I have a Corsair liquid cooling system on the front and it operates beautifully. Exhaust out the back. Always does the trick. Solid temps.
Eric Paoletti Hey, man. Randomly came across your comment, and actually I want to inquire what exactly you did to make yours run at solid temps. I have Corsair liquid cooler and it’s in the front. I get excellent readings on everything except the CPU. At idle, it’s running around 80+ degrees C. Just wanna know if maybe I’m missing something small but crucial. Please and thanks.
@@RazrRamonIRL you may not have a good connection between the cooler panel and the CPU or improper paste distribution. I'd pull it off, clean it up and try again. I've had that happen before. Sometimes it's a finicky process. Just be sure you are pulling air through the radiator, not pushing it.
Eric Paoletti thank you so much for the reply, man. Ironically I kept at it, and it turns out I was just getting false readings from Speccy. Google told me through a bunch of sources that since I’m using an AMD processor, that I need to download the master utility app to get a proper reading. Been running and gaming on it all morning and it’s been running at wonderful temperatures the whole time. I’m very happy. Thank you again for getting back to me. Cheers to my official first build from scratch being successful!
@@RazrRamonIRL congrats man!!
Eric Paoletti many many thanks, friend!
I would always want a case with good airflow and dust filters. Buy a few quiet fans, probably Noctua for a pretty quiet system.
Noctua fans are awesome. :D
@@DawidDoesTechStuff Do you maybe know which Noctua fans are on par with what comes with Kraken x62 AIO (2x140mm Aer P fans) and the two stock case exhaust fans (Aer F120) but quieter? Looking for a more quiet solution then I curently have but one which would still manage to disspate the heat successfully. I don't know where on the noise scale and ability to push air strenght do Aer P and Aer F120 fans fall in comparison to the Noctua ones?
I have the two stock case fans as exhaust but physically connected to Kraken x62 AIO which is installed as an intake cooling the CPU. CAM software that comes with Kraken then regulates the AIO fan speeds but also the two exhaust ones according to how hot the CPU gets.
The problem I have with this setup is my MSI 1070Ti GPU can get over 80 degrees C in GPU intense games and accordingly ramps up its own fan speed considerably making it for a "loud" gaming experience. When both, CPU and GPU are heavily tasked then I have double noise - from the AIO and case fans and from the GPU fans all producing a considerable noisy annoyance.
I love this for the opinion and help you provided, but most for the fact that it was fun as hell to watch you jerryrig all these fans xD
I'm glad to hear that. :D I really enjoyed making that ridiculous thing.
Yep static pressure fan was a good idea, i've tried these on this case as well.
I like your experiment and find it really helpful. I used my old coolermaster case's fans as intakes because they were just laying around and i didnt want negative pressure in the case (i live in a really dusty environment) however, my question is: while having intake fans does not affect the temperatures, will it help with making the fans run slower which equals a quieter setup? 4 slow fans instead of 2 high ones.
Obviously
Surprisingly enough when i tris to add a couple of front fan to my h500 i GoT consistently worse thermals. Guess that thing is designed around negative pressure
I think the lesson here is your case can only cool as well as it can evacuate hot air. Your exhaust fans are 45CFM. It would be interesting to see results with the S12s (63CFM) installed as exhaust instead.
You can prove whether you're intake flow limited by removing the front panel as well.
great video m8. could you clarify what fan configuration recommend? top/intake and rear/exhaust? or both out? thanks !! suscribed
I have two AER RGB fans on the intake side. They work great and compared to the S430 Elite I upgraded from to the h500, not only are temperatures a bit better, there is not nearly as much dust in my computer compared to in my S430. This h500 mid tower design is actually really, really great. I love it. It's exactly what I was expecting it to be compared to the S430; I'm satisfied
There's one major problem with your premise in this video. Whilst it may not make a difference to temperatures in the system without intake fans, I can guarantee the system will become an absolute dust magnet if you don't use intake fans. Without the incoming air being forced through a filter at the front, you will have air coming in through the pci express covers and every other crack and crevice that don't have dust filters. This is also most likely a bad premise for anyone like me that has a front radiator on the intake. Without fans to force the air through my radiator, I can almost guarantee that my temperatures would be worse without intake fans. Overall, I feel like your video was rather pointless as I would rather spend $20 - $30 on intake fans than spend 10-15mins every few weeks cleaning all the dust out of my pc.
I have gotten several comments along these lines, and I have been running the case for several months with no intake fans and didnt have much of a problem with dust. I should actually do a video on how much of a difference it makes.
@@DawidDoesTechStuff Maybe your home/pc room hasn't got much dust in the first place then? I unfortunately have a room mate that smokes a lot of weed and even though it's not in my pc room, it seems to make the whole house rather dusty. Even with my pc in it's current config ( au.pcpartpicker.com/b/gF3bt6 ) I still have to dust it out every 6-8weeks if I want it looking good without a noticeable layer of dust on the gpu backplate and psu shroud. Being mostly black doesn't help as the dust stands out more but even with my airflow being set to positive, I still get a little bit of dust on the pci express covers every 6-8wks from my gpu drawing air from back there. When I first set my pc up and went with a 140mm top exhaust, I had more airflow on exhaust and my system got dusty twice as fast so I set the fan speeds way down on the exhaust and set the intake fans to always be about 10-20% higher. This positive airflow stopped the pc from getting dusty so quickly.
The scenario you propose to people will give negative pressure and therefor should make the case more dusty in most situations. I was probably a bit mean by saying it was a pointless video so I apologize for that. If dust isn't an issue than your scenario is fine for those people but for people like me where the environment can be dusty, and I'm a bit of a clean freak. I find that having positive pressure vs negative pressure is much better for cleanliness and keeping dust out of the case.
@@tyroniebalonie Oh wow, that's awesome that you keep your PC so clean. It sucks that you have a roommate that pollutes the air in your flat. You are right that positive airflow does help for dust build up. I had the PC in a flat in Tokyo, which is super dusty for some reason, and it didn't build up too badly. I however am less worried than you are about dust build up. I should be better about that kind of thing actually.
I came here for this comment ;P
The thing I would have liked seeing is taking out the exhaust fans and putting them in the front, see if that makes any difference. I would think not. So that means you can have best of both: more dust being filtered out AND not having to buy extra fans for a case that comes with 2. I think that might be a better video: Don't buy EXTRA fans for your case. :)
@tyronie balonie That was the first thing I thought when I saw this video too. I hav an S340 case and ran it for 2 months with only the 2 exhaust fans. When I cleaned out my PC, it turned out to have dust not only in the filters, but also in all the other places where it pulled air in, including the PCI express covers. I didn't get intake fans but changed to liquid cooling and my radiator fans work as intake. That has stabilized the dust buildup.
flow will occur wherever the path of least resistance is, the reason the fans do nothing is because the air that is immediately surrounding the fans is easier to pull so the fans are simply drawing in air from what's already in the case, if the fans were ducted so that it couldn't recycle ambient air and only draw from the front you might see some sort of result
The front intake would be more effective if the case fan holder were tilted at a 40~45 degree angle.
Agree. There should be a gap in between the fan and the side panel air vent.
I own a S340, which i think has a little bit better front airflow. Years ago I installed a be quiet silent wing 140mm fan in the bottom part of the front panel, in order to provide more fresh air to my graphics card (MSI RX480 Gaming X). I definitely remember seeing some improvement in GPU temperatures, just a few degrees but that's normal
It's a negative pressure case. Put the midrange NZXT that come with the case in the front and the NOCTUA NF-12 in the back and on the Top
Yes I am definitely going to test that. I also want to try reverse the airflow. Have the top and rear fans be used for intake and then exhaust through the front. I'm curious to see how much of a difference that makes.
Thanks for the comment
@@DawidDoesTechStuff Plus remove that dust filter on the top fan. It reduces the airflow. Gamersnexus has proof that removing the filter helps more than the additional fans
@@ivanlevitskiy8058 I will do that and see how it goes. Thanks for the comments by the way.
@@ivanlevitskiy8058 Am I the only one who had his come without a top dust filter? I felt proud knowing I needed to remove it as I took it out of the box... and nothing but fan.
@@DawidDoesTechStuff I'm not sure If my use case is helpful at all, but I have a LC vega64 w/ radiator mounted on the front. Whole front panel would nearly match temps of GPU, untouchable... added another intake and it seems to spread it along the case better, in my experience. Could be stirring up the inner-case air more, or simply black magic.
my matrexx 55 comes with stock 3 intake rgb fans and they are part of design, and it costs only 20% more than case without them. However it was crucial to install at least one exhaust fan.
Came for the fans, stayed for the sexy cardboard b-roll.
you could try using the front as an exhaust. and the others as intake. better airflow for the fans and since the air would have a harder time escaping it should help with dust prevention since air will be trying to escape instead of enter from all the gaps.
You done a great job and tried your best to follow scientific method so closely.
Thank you. I appreciate the positive feedback.
Perfectly happy with the 2 stock exhaust fans. No need for overkill with attendant increased noise.
Installed a front intake fan at bottom, my gpu temp reduce from 80c to 65c. I'm using Asus rog strix gtx 1060.. Who says front intake fan is useless
I switch the 2 pre-installed exhaustion fans for 2 upHere RGB fans and made the top one to pull airflow into the case.
This improved the heat temps about 15% avg. Not much. But I also installed a Kraken Z63 AIO onto the front with 2 fans puling airflow as well (tight fit, but works).
Playing CoD War zone at 1080p in 60fps makes my CPU stable at 54C on average, and my GPU starts to run at 80C but then stabilizes to 70-75C.
I've got a Nvidia RTX 2060 Super with a Ryzen 5 processor.
I don't really get why those solid front panels are so popular. To me the most important intake is the front, oc you'll have a dust filter which decreases the airflow but that is a dumb concept to me
They do it for few reasons. Design. Beauty. Looks. Minimalism. Esthetics. Etc. Not debatable but its there among others. Same as Apple doing with own shit. Not the best cooling. But best looks and noise. So if you running midrange inside h500 u should be good. Also this case doesnt have cheap plastic at all. As said for some this is major selling point.
@@CroIntr00X Yes I get the point but i would nice to see, in order to get the same airflow, which would be the final noise compensation of a solid panel solution vs the lower rpms of a meshed one
Great video, honestly, if you think about it, this kind of shows how many assumptions we have when building PCs.
I know right? I was very surprised.
Since I'm running an 8700k OC'd to 5.1GHz and running an ROG RTX 2080 in this case, liquid cooling on the CPU is almost a necessity. With that cable shroud thing in the S340 Elite, I removed it and cut a notch in it with a dremel and cutoff wheel and that allowed me to squeeze the h100iv2 back in with two HD120's on the back, making it a push/pull configuration. I also replace the top and rear fans with an HD140 and HD120 fan respectively. During stress testing my CPU temps hover around 75-80C with an occasional spike to the low-mid 80's, during gaming I stay in the high 60's on more CPU bound games and in the mid 50's on GPU bound games. In any circumstance, I've never seen my GPU go above 68C. Asus does a great job with GPU cooling it seems. Ambient temp is the same as yours, 22C. So in the case of liquid cooling, intake fans are a necessity as thats the only location to mound a radiator larger than 140mm in these cases.
Great stuff. This video got me thinking! :)
You say that the intake is constricted and that it is a bottleneck, and that this is the reason why the extra fans makes no difference. I am not sure that is the right conclusion. Doesn’t the fact that you get the same temperatures regardless of what you do increase the intake instead show that the intake is not a bottleneck? H500 is a mid sized case at a budget price, so I suspect NZXT designed it to at least handle cooling air requirements of a mid range system, anything else would be very strange.
I am guessing that the temperatures you get more show the efficiency of your CPU and GPU coolers than the efficiency of the airflow. What temperatures do you get with the case TG side removed?
If the intake is a bottleneck I suspect that intake fans would make some difference (more air out would also help), and it might also be that the type of fan has an impact. It could be an interesting follow-up video to use masking tape to block the intake. Maybe do measurements at 0%, 25% 50%, 75% and 100% blocked (include TG removed for reference). If there is an increase in temperature it would be a consequence of constricted intake. Then you could pick a suitable level of blockage, where there is an obvious intake bottleneck, to test different fan setups.
In addition to the above it would be interesting to see what would happen in a system generating a lot more heat. You have without doubt shown that there is no point in buying extra intake fan in your system.
Many thanks. Keep it it up!
This is an awesome comment, thank you for taking the time write this up.
Your explanation here makes perfect sense I think I will do a video testing that in the future. However the reason that I made the conclusion that the intake was a bottleneck was because in the first video where I tested the airflow in the NZXT S340 I tested the case's airflow performance in the same configuration as the H500 but also tested without the front panel on (because you can remove it on the S340) and the temperatures dropped significantly. Since I got the same temperatures as with the NZXT H500 with the S340 (and the front panel attached) I concluded that they have similar front airflow performance. Considering that the S340 performed better with the constricted front panel removed, I made the conclusion that the front airflow was the bottleneck.
I do really like the test that you suggested though. It will be an interesting way to show how much of a temperature difference the amount of airflow that is available makes. I should also test the case with a very high end system in it to see how well it handles a heavier heat load.
Thank you again for the awesome comment.
Great video, and yes, would love to see the temps with the side panel removed, sort of a best case reference point.
This case should have a sizable open vent across on the bottom front with steel screen filter about 2 1/2'' W 12'' L. This bottom front vent combined with the perforated side strip venting is more than enough low resistance air intake to avoid saturation by the exhaust fans alone. They do the job fairly well with an emphasis on negative flow for GPU which is far more sensitive to temp than CPU. The reason for this, the case is ideally designed for a front 240mm AIO for the CPUs needs. If you place front fans set them very low rpm to see benefit. To high and heat re-circulates.
Here's my theory: once air comes in through that side vent it can go around the front fans and come up through the ventilation on the bottom, or it can come in from behind the white arm thingy, but again bypassing the front fans. The front fans are just circulating air the same as the fans on most GPUs.
That's a very interesting theory. That may be because it isn't air tight around fans. It is pretty weird to me that they don't do much.
i can feel real cool air entering through the front panel... he forgot to mention there is a bottom slot with a dust filter for air to come in, on the front panel. most reviewers miss it...
@@justinb3074 I'm not saying it doesn't have airflow. I'm saying that adding intake fans are justified because of their cost and them not really improving airflow much.
@@DawidDoesTechStuff the case only comes with the two fans. they are decent for coming with the case. but installing 2 120 mm high CFM fans on the front bracket will def. pull in a bunch of cool air from the front, side and bottom vents. I think your case pressure was off for this video kus this thing get tons of cool air from the front and bottom dust filtered vents. idt you noticed the bottom front panel vent. most people don't see it. the air vents arent huge by any means on this case, but they are just the right size. ive got the same ambient as you and im sitting at 60c on load across my cpu and gpu.
The best GPU temps you're gonna get is when air can exhaust easily. The problem with full side panels is the GPU heat is not exhausted quickly enough. Not the prettiest of solutions but a simple side panel with ventilated holes would solve the problem.
Well, that gives me a little more confidence in these types of cases for 'mid-range' builds as not being the 'furnace in which to melt my gear' I thought they might be. BTW, on the input side of this case, is there a dust filter (as it looks like there isn't) ? Thanks. Interesting, as usual....
It does a surprisingly good job at at not setting everything on fire. :P
It does have a small dust filter right at the intake holes in the front. It's very fine, and has been doing a good job up until now.
Thanks for watching and the nice comment.
Getting the same results with NZXT H200 case. Running a Ryzen 5 2600, wraith spire cooler, EVGA GTX 1070 SC. Tried 2 Arctic BioniXF140 (air flow) front fans, and 1 rear exhaust stock NZXT 120mm that came with the case. Swapped them out for 2 Noctua NF-A14 PWM. Tried every combo. Same result. Temp stayed the same.
I agree, similiar results and setup for me too...tho temps are fine and well inside normal range..idle/gaming/and some cpu intesive work
Hey Dawid it's me again. The guy with 3770k PC problems. I hope you remember me after such a long time.
I watched your video on 3770k build. It was really good.
Btw good news for ME(lol). After a lot of research and few troubleshooting. I managed to solve my problem about motherboard not accepting Graphics card.
It was a stupid mistake of putting Mobo settings to onboard after my previous graphic card died. So changing it back to
PCI express did the trick.
And I was about to splash the cash for my new AMD build. Luckily I tried to give my current pc one last chance. And everything worked. I was lucky I guess.. Coz i think
My PC still has 2-3 years left in it.
So FINALLY my question is which GTX 1060 or Rx 570 card is the best from there manufacturers???
I want pure 1080p ultra settings gaming experience.
Hello Harshad,
Thank you for the great comment. I'm really glad you figured out your problem, because that CPU is still great. Like you said, it still has some life left in it. :D
In regards to which GPU, I think the GTX 1060 is the better bet. Even the 3gb version is generally faster than the RX 570.
Hey dude.... I just bought Gigabyte GTX wind force 1060 3gb ... I was thinking about going for 6 gb version.... But in comparison videos I saw only 6 -10 fps of difference between 3 & 6 gb. So instead I boosted my ram another 8 gig...😋
Thank you so much for helping me bro.... 😁👍🏻
with good negative pressure inside the case, front dual fans reduce dead zone to improve the pc airflow (1x12 + 1x14 + psu pull, 2x12 push). in all case, with , negative pressure: without any front fan my gpu's rise high temp, with one little less then with two fan temp are correct and lower around 10°c. Im running nzxt s340, crossfire rx580 oc @ 1460/2175 pwr limit +20%
What was the "load" you used on the cpu? Was it the Aida64 we see on the screen? Did you also stress the gpu simultaneously?
When I got this case for 40 bucks I thought "Man, there is no front airflow, do I need to be concerned?" I'm part way thru my build, so I'm gonna take your word I dont need em.
Is it good with out fans?
That jury-rigged setup was legitimately hilarious
It was my favourite part of the video. I may have a bit of a cardboard fetish.
It's great to revisit this old vid after you've become established in the Tech Tuber landscape.
Thinking on your results, ghetto-fan 2.0 notwithstanding; any air tower cooling would do exactly as you say. The only caveat being the AIO in front does work far better than it seems it would in the S340 Elite. I've run everything from an r5 1600 overclocked to 4.0 to the r9 5900x on the X470 system. The X62 280mm AIO has done remarkable. Video card temps won't be optimal, with CPU heat being dumped in its' lap, but I ain't got RTX cash anyway. I blow my moola on too many systems to tie up that kind of money on a single part.
Dude, your videos are some of the most inventive in the Tech sphere right now, thank you!
do u recommend replacing the fans that come with the case though? Also, if i do this do i still need an aio cooler? (i have ryzen 7 3700 and rtx 2070)
OnlyTheNerdKnows yes nzxt fans are loud as FUCK
i have a RTX 2060 and a Ryzen 3800X. The fans that come with the case are very noisy. I recommend using Other fans. as far as needing an AIO cooler im not sure if you need one. I use the Stock Prism Cooler and its quiet.
My experience with the stock fans, especially the top one, was absolutely unbearable noise. Replaced with noctua 140mm and cougar 120mm.
just built mine monday. Absolutely silent on 2 stick fans, so far so good.
@@mattcoffee1269 yeah I have had mine for like 4 months and they are still silent
DANG! Recent subscriber here and WOW. Look at this baby face Dawid! Also, still a great vid with great info!
Airflow in a case is subjected to an inordinate amount of variables and causes any dogmatic statements regarding configuration or part choice to be superficial at best. Getting upset about a builders use of static pressure vs air flow optimization is at best a crude attempt to be pedantic. It would go a long way for both case designers and we the end users to collectively become better aware of fluid dynamics.
That was kind of the point of this video honestly. I have made a bunch of these videos and every time there were a bunch of comments referring to things like static pressure fans and so on.
Thanks for the comment. :D
I think we forgot about the rear PCI slots bringing a lot of fresh air from the negative pressure. You could do a test while blocking those out.
You just saved me $44, thanks man!!
It's a pleasure. Weird results, but they speak for themselves. Thanks for the comment.
Correct. These cases are best configured for negative pressure. So use a few outtake fans only. This does result in higher CPU temperatures but lower GPU temperatures if you go AIR only.
not using intake fans turns your pc into a vacuum cleaner
But in this case, using front fans is choking your pc.
Very true, and they left open the pcie brackets with no filter...
Yup. You want slight positive pressure, so 50-60% should be intake so you direct the air through your filters. Otherwise it gets sucked in every nook and cranny that is not filtered.
I think the purpose of having front intake fans is to create a positive pressure inside the case... so that the cool air will be sucked in through the dust filter instead of sucked in through every gap that is available and bring dust into the case.
Let me tell you why I added front intake fans to my H500.
RGB.
Then you must be super excited about the H510 elite.
Dawid Does Tech Stuff Thoughts on the H510 elite ?
when it comes to heat issue fans is our best friend, I'll consider putting a fans or blower fan forced air into it, it helps to keep it cool, the result may not be quickly felt by the test gadget but surely it will...
POSSIBLE PROBLEM:
I don't disagree with the results in general, but I do wonder what would happen if you set the GPU and CPU fans to a specific RPM then repeated the tests. Is it possible that SOME of the lack of change in temperature is due to those fans spinning faster?
Some people have mentioned this before, but I set all the fan speeds to set RPM.
Thanks for the comment addressing it though.
I stuck the radiator and fans from my Enermax Liqutech II in that front bracket in the H500. Works fine...but you have to put the fans *forward* of the bracket and the radiator behind it; they won't both fit behind while clearing the cable management bar. Running the rear and top fans supplied with the H500 gets you *plenty* of airflow through the case when you're liquid cooling the CPU. I had a Cooler Master aircooler on my TR2920 while waiting for the AIO to arrive, but it's an ungodly pain in the ass to work in the case with those big honking radiators on top of the CPU.
This is most entertaining pc vid I have watched in a while...
So back on topic...
Any chance on making a comparison between stock fans,airflow fans and pressure fans for exhaust... Will it make any difference...
Or its all purely in cfm numbers?
I'm very glad you enjoyed the video.
I definitely want to do that. I don't have access to the PC at the moment, but I will make that video at some point.
Thank you for the nice comment.
@@DawidDoesTechStuff I'm sucker for those diy and ghetto build stuff...
There is so much fancy super clean, flashy luxury rgb builds mods and such... That I kinda miss those elements "everything to make it work" like it was in old days :D
And this video really reminded me on that :)
@@DaveChips I am very glad you enjoy those diy projects. They are the most fun to do. Mixing the two is also great, I did a video ages ago putting a GTX 1080 in a system that cost $14. It didn't go very well, but it was such a fun video to make.
Thanks for your nice comments.
I built in this case with and without front intake fans. The temperature was essentially the same when gaming in both scenarios, although I did not collect data with the same level of detail that is shown here. In the end I decided to leave the fans installed since I had already purchased them. They are very quiet and it provides some redundancy in the event that another fan fails.
I lost it on the cardboard funnel part. Congratulations, I never knew a tech video would make me laugh this much :D
Got a H500i and no water cooling. Front fans definitely make a difference in temps both for CPU and GPU. Idle was around 45C before and now it is at 33-35C.
Running gaming on ultra WITH fans keeps my system at 55-65C with GPU being the highest. Without the extra 2 fans my system runs 75C-80C easy! Definitely put fans and help your system out RGB makes it -0C
What if you increase the size of the 2 stock exhaust fans? (and not install the intakes).
The exhaust supports 120 and 140.
So u can't really see a big difference
Things must have really changed in 2 years! I have the NZXT H510 case and I have a Front mount 280 mm Corsair AIO and I get get airflow! Idle CPU temps are like Ryzen 5 1600 AF OC 4.2 GHz Idles at like 37c and GTX 1660 Super Idles at like 40c!
but what would be temps on stock coolers?!
Well you'll get better airflow with straight fans not having to pull air through rad. But at stock speeds it'll be great! OC'd you probably couldn't get the same speeds I did.
Great video! I had the same idea for a video, but just a simple test with intake fans / without intake fans style. Cheers from Brazil ;D
That's a good idea. I think still doing the video will be great, we can then compare notes. :D
Maybe someone already said this, but I feel like doing more with the exhaust fans would've made better results, since the exhaust is what makes the case work. More negative pressure - higher airflow?
You should test with the front panel removed.
You can't take the front panel off the H500. I did however do a video on the NZXT S340 in which I took the front panel off. (the reason it's relavent is because in another video I showed that those two cases perform very similarly) It made a huge difference in temperature.
As Dawid pointed out you can't remove the front panel which is something I love. As I commented, the S430 Elite that I had had that front panel you can remove. When I pulled the panel and took the filter out it was black with dust. I get practically no dust in my h500, it's a cleaner look, and because the h500 is a face lifted S430, I really enjoy it. I also like how it's a bit smaller and not as bulky as the S430
I believe that the bracket is more designed for AIO. They tell you to push radiator to keep negative pressure effect. Has anyone tested? Unfortunately barbs up! ✌
honestly the biggest reason not to get them is the simple fact that the temps on my h500i are fine as they are. no need for lower temps
That's exactly my point. :D Don't bother with them.
Great video, purchased the H500 twice, I do have one build posted on my channel, the intake fans help for my wife PC as it does has an MSI TRIO RTX 2080, that card produces a lot of heat when gaming. But even then I think, and I’m not sure, but using the stock fans provided would suffice, I opted to use a dual radiator cooler from Cooler Master so kind of 2 birds with one stone, thank you for the post.
i could care less but you did put the thermometer inside the case right in front of where the gpu blows all of its hot air out so naturally its only going to tell you the gpus exhausted air temp....
The external hub also reads temps. So it was testing internal and external temps. The internal temps are a bit useless like you said. :P
A friend of mine has the H500. He is completely unhappy about the airflow of the case itself. Also it is a pain in the ass installing nzxt AIOs into that case. Now I will have to find him a proper case
Do these fans work fine as u tested in the video if i build a PC with ryzen 5 2600 and radeon rx 580 in the NZXT H500 case?I mean the temperature.
Ka chun Yeung I’ll try to remember to tell you, I’m finishing a build of a pc in a few days with those 2 parts but there’s probably someone who has done this already and posted it online. I expect it to work, I have seen very acceptable temperatures with this case from people running even hotter components inside.
Haha I just built a h500i with ryzen 2600x and rx 580 and have no issues with heat
Adam Ouimet cool I just got this case i7 8000 just worried about tempt
did you end up building a pc in that case?
I built a H400 with 2600x and rx580 last December. Two intake fan with Aio cooler at the front and exhaust fans at the top and back. There is no problem with heat. Under load (gaming and code compiling), cpu temp is about 65c and gpu temp is about 80c
I'm happy with it. I presently have a Corsair H115i Pro mounted in the front of my NZXT H500 and am receiving temps superior to anything I ever received with a Corsair H100 (top and front mounted) or Noctua NH-D15 in a Fractal R4.
4770k OC'd to 4.3Ghz and completely stable.
You earned a sub! Great job, very very thorough
That's awesome news. Welcome to the channel. :D
I am running an i9-9900K cooled by a 240mm radiator on the front intake of an NZXT H200i, and I found this video to be very informative. I guess its time to go case shopping again.
RGB fans increase the airflow of the mouth of people talking how nice your setup looks
The thing that matters the most
Thats why we put our radiators there with Static Pressure fans. Its really the only effective way to use the opening on the front of the case.
Seems like I'll be installing my AIO without the fans now lol
I guess it won’t cool then
@@aerty4072 No it will of course, why do you think that?111
@@samed161 It won’t, wanna know why? Because the fans that come with the AIO cool the water that has already been used to cool the CPU, So hell it won’t cool down the CPU because because it is only being cooled by hotter water.
@@aerty4072 No!!!11 It will cool!!111 You‘re just a little kid who knows about nothing!!1121
@@samed161 And you get mad when you are wrong
YES you are right! THis is a problem with many case designed with aestetics first!
I own a fractal define R5 sure a better designed case but it also suffer of poor Air intake especially if you fit a lot of fan ! with door closed all intake flow go trough the grille with unpleasant cavitation Noise.
So my 2cents is to go with front mesh case they often do a better job also about sound pressure because require less fan for the same air flow without any impede
What happens if replace the existing fans with Noctua f12 fans as exhaust and no fans as intakes.. does the temps remain the same??
I too would like to know the answer to this question.
Excuse my novice-like knowledge of this kind of thing, but right off the bat, a case such as this is more designed for watercooling/aio type setup, and the idea of trying to see if case fans, no matter the quality or performance, will never yield consistently what you're looking for...and in this case, required a "thinking and going outside the box" to see if it would work, but in most "real-world" instances, it would not! What I have found, is that front panel case fans that only allow minimal air flow are all about a water cooling set-up, not case fan performance/cooling. Personally, I prefer the mesh open front type of cases for optimal thermal performances. But...thanks for the video!
so should I just keep the stock fans as it is without installing any other fans?
From my tests that's what it shows.
if you want your pc to be a dust magnet, and having to clean the dust from it regularly, than sure, go with this stupid idea.
@@tyroniebalonie I have been running the case for months with no intake fans and didn't have much of a problem with dust.
@@DawidDoesTechStuff so should i buy any extra fans for front part?
Well if you have a case with pretty restricted intakes, just buy something with more than 2000 RPM and bear with the noise your case makes to be cool inside or just cope with the fact that you have a case that focuses on looks and not on performance.
Also, the Vardars have a nicer P-Q curve than the NF-F12 for sure, as Noctua proves with the similar designed NF-A12x25 in their marketing for it, absolute pressure and airflow numbers can mean anything really
Wouldn't it still be a good idea to ad front fans to get positive pressure and minimise dust building?
That's a good point, and I thought the same, but I have run the nzxt S340 for months with only exhaust fans and I had no problems with dust.
It's an interesting test, but I wonder if your results would apply if you did the test with higher-end components. An I9 9900k and a 2080ti will certainly provide very different results since they get way hotter than a 1060 and an I5.
The configuration you have seems to be pretty cool on its own, which might explain why intake fans doesn't make a difference.
rubbish, if my intake fans are on silent instead of full blast, my GPU is 15° higher in gaming.
what are you on about?
You likely don't have the same case specific case and/or the same overall fan setup.
Lol did you not watch? Or did you not pay attention?